I am admitting defeat with my metallic drill fabric. I should never have washed it.

I thought I’d got enough of the wrinkles out that I could still sew with it despite the strange texture. I cut out Vogue 8644, fashion fabric and lining. I armed myself with some denim needles and wound a couple of bobbins. I gave the sewing machine a really good clean. I tried sewing some practice seams on a scrap of the fabric and can report that a denim needle in size 90 worked well.

Then I picked up the bodice front, which is cut on the fold, to staystitch the edges. The fold had turned into an impressive crease which I thought I’d better remove before sewing. I took it to the ironing board and pressed it. Leant on it. Wetted it. Turned the iron up to maximum. The crease wouldn’t budge. I folded the crease in the reverse direction round the edge of the ironing board and pressed it like that. That just raised a shiny patch on the right side of the fabric. OK, I thought, I can cut this piece again out of the leftovers as it is small. Luckily before I did that I thought to check the skirt front, also cut on the fold and much larger, and that had a similar crease. At which point I threw in the towel. The metallic drill pieces are in the scraps bag and I’ve just washed some pale blue cotton drill from the stash to use instead.

On the up side, my machine appears to no longer have the nagging tension problem it’s been developing for a while.