What a week it has been. This time last week I was doing the countdown, fearing I’d have jury duty, and glad I had written my article for Sew News, and cleared my calendar.
Just in case…
And I was keeping an eye on the ever increasing historic blizzard warnings…
Just in case…
Monday, while the blizzard warnings grew dire and ominous, and all the milk and bread disappeared off the shelves of the local grocery store, my inbox began to fill with emails from Interweave Press, publishers of Handwoven Magazine (I was their features editor for about 6 years back in the early 2000’s) and the powers that be that produce their webinars. I have been in loose discussion with them for awhile, nothing concrete, but as the blizzard loomed (pun intended) the emails began to come in ernst. Coincidence?
Monday night I got the final text that said all Jurors were excused for Tuesday January 27th. I went to bed knowing I’d have a lovely three weeks to work on things I wanted to work on, get some new work out of the studio, and take a more relaxed approach to my pending seven weeks of travel.
And the universe had other ideas…
So while most people had a snow day on Tuesday from the historic blizzard that completely skirted northern NJ and NYC, (we got about 4 inches of fine blowing powder), I was in heavy discussions with Interweave Press, and Weaving Today and by the time Tuesday finished, I was scheduled to write two articles for a fall publication of Handwoven, due sometime around mid year, and a five part Webinar series, on Garment Construction for Handweavers. OMG! (Note the date, January 27th)
The first installment of this mostly monthly series of Webinars (working around my crazy travel schedule), is scheduled to air February 23rd. Of this year. That would be a little over three weeks away… The contracts, marketing outlines, promo images and an instructor questionaire were all due 21 days before the airing and the presentation (50 minutes plue Q&A) due two weeks before. That meant that everything but the actual presentation was due in the next 48 hours? OMG!
Needless to say, I instantly forgot dreams of an easier February, and dove in head first on Wednesday filling out said contracts and marketing outlines, asking a million questions, and beginning the long process of repackaging that which I know better than probably anybody on the planet, how to take glorious handwoven fabric and turn it into something to make your soul sing! And your body to look pretty great too! I’ve been making handwoven clothing since the late 1970’s. I have a lot to say on the subject. Note, none of this would have been possible had I not cleared my calendar for possible jury duty…
So the first installment airs live on Monday February 23, 2015 at 1pm EST. The cost is $19.99, and you’ll get to ask questions at the end, and then get the download. If you miss the live performance, you’ll be able to download the episode after it is packaged. I’ll have more details once the links have gone up for the first installment, which covers weaving yardage for garments and tips for handling handwoven yardage.
Tuesday night, while the media went into damage control mode for predicting a historic storm that “frizzled”, (fizzled blizzard), I did what any self respecting fiber artist would do in the middle of a winter non event, I made a sleeveless silk blouse. Summer is only a few months away. And I’m going to be teaching in North Carolina in only a few short weeks. It won’t be summer, but hey, I can dream…
Last September I had drafted and tested a free Marfy download [1] from their website (Marfy is an Italian pattern company), a lovely skirt, sleeveless blouse and jacket pattern. I hadn’t used Marfy patterns before, mostly because when you buy an actual pattern from them, you only get one size, hand cut, with minimal markings and NO directions. Since I am like most, a combination of sizes, I really rely on the grading schematic of a multi size pattern. It makes life a lot easier. But the downloads came in multi sizes, just had to trace my combination of sizes and add seam allowances, and then I sat on the patterns until a few weeks ago when I actually made up the skirt (Marfy 0757) from a wool/tencel blend. Gorgeous fabric, underlined with vintage Sibonne. I finished the handwork this week.
This is basically all I had to work with, there were no directions, just this vague photo.
[2]
And so the silk charmeuse blouse (Marfy 1913), from a remnant I bought at the now defunct Waechter’s Silk Shop in Asheville (I’m still in mourning) was cut out, with dust to spare there was so little fabric, and I put together this lovely blouse with an elastic hem Tuesday night while the media were all in a tizzy over the fizzled blizzard and everyone in town had more bread and milk than they knew what to do with. The blouse is shown with the wool/tencel skirt mentioned above.
[3]
I spent all of Thursday and Friday hunkered down at the computer putting together part one of my Garment Construction Part 1 Webinar, to the point where I was stiff and bleary eyed, and seriously craving doing anything to get me away from the computer. Friday night I decided to sew something, anything, because when I get bogged down in the how-to tutorials, all I want to do is actually make something. This happens when I teach for long periods, I just want to dive in and sew something, and so I revisited an old favorite I’d been mulling over for awhile.
[4]
I want to make up this fabric. It is all handdyed and handwoven, with a supplemental warp, and I finally decided that it would work well as a simple tunic. Tunics are hot right now in all the fashion magazines, so 1970’s, a silhouette I haven’t worked with in awhile. In the 1980’s during my craft fair days, I made this tunic, loosely based on a very old Burda pattern, the cover and instructions in English are long gone, but I had the patterns I had drafted and modified, and I reworked the size and length, and made up a muslin. This is the original tunic…
[5]
I tweaked the size further, made a few more alterations, and grabbed the first fabric off the shelf that said, “tunic”, a rayon ombré jacquard, and a companion silk jacquard remnant from Thai Silks in black, and set out to make up the tunic as a test before cutting into my handwoven.
[6]
[7]
[8]
I mostly like it.
But I’m thinking it is too long. I tucked up the shirttail hem about four inches and I like the proportions better. This is why we do dry runs in other fabric first before cutting into our precious handwoven fabric, Oops! That’s a spoiler from Part 2 of my Garment Construction Webinar…
[9]
Incidentally there is a forecast of 5-10 inches of snow tonight. The media are all oddly quiet… Stay tuned…