May 2, 2022 

It's NEW fabric release day in the Lee & Pearl Etsy shop!

Find new listings for luxurious 100% silk shantungs and unique, delicately figured Korean "sukgosas" in beautiful colors and easy half yard lengths — perfect for couture and bridal sewing, and also heirloom and historical doll sewing, fashion accessories, silk bows, flowers and crafts.

These glorious fabrics are from the same collection of Korean heritage fabrics that gave us the beautiful 100% silk organzas that we have been offering in our Etsy shop since 2019. If you like those organzas, you're going to FLIP over these elegant silk shantungs and semi-sheer "sukgosa" (silk gauze) fabrics.

CLICK HERE to visit the Fabric & Trim section of the L&P Etsy shop to see our beautiful NEW silk fabrics!

Our first new listing is for 18 luscious colors of luxurious 100% silk shantung, cut to order by the half yard.

100% silk shantung is a luxurious natural fiber material with a light, crisp hand and an elegantly cascading drape. Unlike similar weight silk dupioni, which is heavily slubbed and has an irregular appearance, silk shantung has a smooth and lustrous surface with only very subtle, naturally-occurring slubs.

Silk shantung has long been a favorite fabric choice for heirloom sewers and designers, and is often used for formal, red carpet and evening wear — and of course, wedding gowns and bridal couture. It can also be used as a surface fabric in more tailored applications, with flatlining or underlining providing additional body.

As you can see from our photos, this material is especially beautiful when gathered uniformly into large, looping folds — such as the cartridge pleats often used in historical garments and ball gowns.

Of course, we had to explore some doll sewing using this marvelous material!

We made our American Girl® Nellie's Edwardian dress and historically accurate giant hair bow using several different shades of our 100% silk shantung. Our designer found the fabric easy to cut, press and sew, and can't wait to try it out on those elegant 18th and 19th century styles (or 1950s ballgowns) that feature full, cartridge pleated skirts.

As you can see from Nellie's bow, this material REALLY wants to be cartridge pleated. Aren't those soft folds delicious?

Our second new listing is for 13 colors of a unique 100% silk Korean heritage fabric that you won't find in many other places — Sukgosa!

Sukgosa is a semi-sheer, fine-weight traditional Korean fabric — a light but crisp plain weave silk, sprinkled with openwork (sheer and slightly shiny) patterns of flowers, clouds, birds and auspicious symbols.

Here is a photo of those openwork patterns, taken against a white background. You can see how sheer the patterns are — and that layering this fabric on different background fabric colors will create interesting effects!

In Korea, Sukgosa fabrics are used to make modern, historical and heirloom clothes and crafts — like summer weight Korean hanbok garments, bojagi (or pojagi) covering cloths and traditional jogakbo (patchwork quilting).

But as beautiful figured silks, you can also use them for garment linings and decorative overlays, hair bows, fabric flowers and many other delicate accessories.

And of course, you can make heirloom-quality doll clothes using sukgosa as well. We used the Pale Sky Blue sukgosa from our collection to make our Nellie's pretty pleated sash and back bow.

NOTE: as a lightweight, semi-sheer fabric, sukgosa will need to be lined or flat-lined if tailoring or opacity is required.

Like our 100% silk organzas, both of these new silk fabrics — the shantungs and the sukgosas — cut and pin with ordinary sharp tools, run through the sewing machine like a dream, steam gently into billowing folds — or press absolutely flat like paper.

Before pressing silk fabric, pre-heat your iron so it won't spit or leak and test your temperature setting on a scrap of your material. We also recommend using a press cloth and pressing on the reverse of your material whenever possible.

Silk fabrics are often marked DRY CLEAN ONLY, but we have found that many can be pre-washed in cold water. The fabric may lose some of its crispness, though — and the darker, richer colors may not be completely colorfast. Rinsing with cold water and vinegar will help, but it is a good idea not to store dark or vividly colored silk garments in contact with delicate objects, and NEVER to put damp fabric on a doll or craft project.

If you like what you see, please DON'T WAIT TOO LONG TO ORDER. We have a limited supply of these fabrics. Once a color sells out, it's sold out for good.

And remember — Lee & Pearl offer FREE First Class USPS shipping on all orders $35-and-up within the United States. So browse all our listings before checking out. It doesn't matter if you fill your cart from different sections of our Etsy store. As long as your Lee & Pearl total is $35-and-up, it ships FREE in the US!

CLICK HERE to visit the Fabric & Trim section of the L&P Etsy shop to see our beautiful NEW silk fabrics!

Want '80s fashion fun for your dolls? Sign up for the Lee & Pearl mailing list to get our FREE exclusive subscriber Pattern 1984: Retro '80s Romper for 18 Inch Dolls — as well as pattern announcements, tutorials and behind-the-scenes news from Lee & Pearl delivered directly to your inbox.

CLICK HERE to sign up for the Lee & Pearl mailing list