Blog Entries – Page 159

Jacket Workshop, Final Call

Workshop Jacket

I don’t often get a chance to give the jacket making workshop I just gave to the ASCH Conference in Southern California, in the north east. Since I’ve taught this workshop in this area for many years, there are fewer opportunities to offer it. I spoke with Steve McKenzie from the Arts Workshop at the Newark Museum yesterday, and he said there were still some openings in the workshop, it isn’t too late to sign up.

This is a terrific class for anyone, not just handweavers, to get into sewing clothing, I guide you through the process step by step, starting with a basic jacket which is drafted to fit your body. At the Newark Museum, we are able to do the class over four days, instead of three, to ensure participants will finish.

So if you live anywhere within driving distance of the Newark Museum in northern NJ, this is a great opportunity to take this class, I don’t have another one on the calendar in this area in the next couple years. The goal here is to get you sewing again, or even just sewing, if you are new to this skill. All the information is below. The museum has a number of Bernina sewing machines, so no need to drag a machine to Newark. Parking is safe, the museum is beautiful, the cafe delicious, and the studios are well equipped. And there is plenty of public transportation from NYC.

If you have already taken this workshop with me, and are looking for “what next”, I encourage you to take the workshop again, and this time, bring your own pattern and work out a muslin for your next sewing adventure.

Sewing 101: Garment Construction – Making a Simple
Unlined Jacket
with Daryl Lancaster

This is the perfect class for anyone who feels “sewing challenged.” Participants make a well-fitted jacket using an instructor-provided pattern and store bought, handwoven, or felted fabric. Making the jacket is an easy way to learn the basics of sewing and garment construction.
Students who have taken the class before may bring their own pattern. Sewing machines provided.

All Levels
Four Days, Friday through Monday, March 20 – 23,
10 am to 5 pm
Members $290; Non-members $320; Materials $30

http://www.newarkmuseum.org/ArtsWorkshop.html

A “Small World” Story

I have a great story to share, one of those “Small World” stories, one where I have been waiting for a final chapter for many years, and now I can put some closure on it.

So here is the set-up. One of my favorite seminar/lectures I give, is one I do on finishing fabric, and selection of setts, for handwoven yardage, which is quite a bit different than the sett you would chose for a hand-woven scarf. (For the non weavers reading this, sett is how many threads you put together in one inch). I love this lecture for two reasons, one, it involves a whole pile of touchy-feely samples, lots of before and after, as in a) straight from the loom, b) gently washed in the bathroom sink and air dried, and c) thrown in the washer and dryer along with the regular laundry. The other reason I love this lecture, is the look on the participant’s faces when they see how the washer and/or dryer can be a fabulous part of the design team. Most handweavers lack the courage to plunge their yardage, into the washing machine, and then throw it in the dryer, thinking it will produce a mess, or cardboard. This is one place where sampling is a fantastic and absolutely essential idea. Sharon Alderman, author of Mastering Weave Structures from Interweave Press, wandered into my classroom during one of the breaks and happily added her support of “It isn’t finished until it has been washed”!

But that isn’t the actual story. A number of years ago, I was giving the lecture at a conference, the name of which escapes me. It may have been 2001, at a conference called Creative Strands, a small venue in the mid-atlantic region, which was held at Bucknell College in PA. Anyway, I do know the conference where I gave this lecture was somewhere in the north east, I can picture the classroom, but not much else.

I gave this lecture, on finishing your handwoven fabric, and after the lecture, one of the participants handed me a lovely, drapey piece of yardage, which she said, after listening to my lecture, wasn’t finished properly, sett properly, or was even pretty. I didn’t agree about the pretty part, I loved the combination of aqua, plum and brown, and the gorgeous collection of knitting yarns that were used for the weaving. It was at least three yards of fabric as I recall, and the participant, (whose name escaped me shortly after the conference and I’ve been wracking my brain ever since to remember), didn’t want the fabric anymore, and insisted that I take it. Not one to ever pass up a free addition to the stash, and very confident that this fabric would really be great once I washed it aggressively, I agreed to take it off her hands. I assumed that the workshop participant was actually the weaver. Little did I know…

So after I returned from this conference, many years ago, I washed and dried the yardage, as I normally would, seven times. Nothing happened. Which led me to finally realize that the yarns were mostly acrylic, and no amount of washing and drying would change the ultimate structure of the yarn. So I was left with a lovely, poorly sett fabric, for garments purposes, it would have been great for a scarf. Which means, we go onto plan B.

Plan B would probably require fusing something onto the back of the fabric, like Fusi-Knit or a Texturized Weft product, and then the yardage would be fine for a jacket or vest. There probably wasn’t enough fabric for a jacket, but all the fall fashion catalogs were showing the cutest tweed skirts with just fringe on the bottom. My rule for handwoven yardage, is it must be stable enough to support the construction details for the garment design I have selected. If it isn’t, then I support it in some way, like a fusible interfacing, or possibly the Chanel method of mounting the fabric directly onto the lining with rows of machine stitching, which I outline in my book on Seams and Edge Finishings.

So what if the garment I am making has little in the way of construction details? What if I made one of those cute little tweed skirts, and interfaced the waistband, and then just let the skirt hang from the waistband, with fringe on the bottom? I had just enough fabric for this adventure, and I decided that this piece of donated fabric would become a skirt.

I made the skirt up, and put in a drop lining. I have worn the skirt for years, it is one of my favorites, still in style, with black tights and black boots, it fits neatly in my suitcase, and I just love it. I always get compliments, even after all these years. and the sett has held beautifully, no sagging, and I’m thrilled to have been the recipient of the yardage.

So fast forward to the second day of my three day jacket class at the conference last week in California. I am giving this lecture to my students, and as I tell this story, and pass around the fabric sample I keep in my bag, one of the participants gets the oddest look on her face. She holds onto the fabric, studying each of the little visible warp threads, and suddenly says to the class, in a sort of embarrassed way, “I think I wove this fabric!”. We were all sort of speechless, and then once I recovered, trying to figure out how the fabric got from this student in California to a conference in the north east, we started putting together the puzzle pieces. Some are still missing, because it wasn’t Patricia Martin, my student in the California workshop, who originally gave me the fabric.

Apparently she wove a lot of yardage like this about 15 years ago. A prolific weaver, Patricia has a great eye, and churns out work effortlessly. This particular yardage, which she became increasingly confident she had woven because she recognized all of the warps used, some were still on her shelf, was one she didn’t particularly like once she was finished with it, and passed it on to some unknown person in some unknown situation, maybe at a guild swap. How it traveled across the country is still a mystery.

So, I am really thrilled to include Patricia Martin in this blog, she shouldn’t be embarrassed, we all have things we aren’t particularly drawn to, even after we make them, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t wonderful and someone else may think it is the greatest thing since sliced bread. My only regret is I didn’t weave this, because it is actually one of my favorite pieces of yardage, and one of my favorite skirts to wear.

Take a good look at the jacket that Patricia is wearing in the photo. Patricia brought to class, three small cuts of handwoven yardage, some with additional shibori dyeing, none of which were enough to make a jacket by themselves, but with a lot of patience, and some creative cutting and piecing, Patricia combined all three pieces of yardage into one wonderful jacket. There are still a lot of pins holding it together, but she looks terrific, and it gets the gold star for being one of the more creative jackets made in one of my classes.

So I’ve now discovered the original weaver for my skirt. I couldn’t have been happier. I am wearing the skirt as I write. Thank you Patricia, for taking the class, and being a great handweaver, and generously allowing me to tell the story!

The Morning After

I have a post conference hang-over. No, this doesn’t involve alcohol, it involves a time change, 6 intense days of pure adrenalin, a red-eye fight that routed through Houston, and walking back into life with family. I wouldn’t change any of it, but I have to be kind to myself and not have too many expectations of hitting the ground running after a week away. There is a re-entry process, the unpacking, the laundry, the email, the snail mail, the banking, the organizing of my house and life after an absence. I try to do as much as I can when I first come through the front door, taking advantage of the huge amount of adrenalin still running through me, because when it finally shuts off, I am pretty worthless.

So that’s about where I am now. Running on about 3 cylinders, wicked headache from sleeping in too long this morning. I did manage to get all the banking done yesterday, unpack, update the bookkeeping, pack all the book orders that came in while I was gone, and get the extra interfacing cut and ready for shipping for the students that wanted it. I raced over to the post office yesterday afternoon, and was shocked to find it closed, and then my half functioning brain rose from the fog to remember that no one changed the clocks in my studio, and it was an hour later than I thought. Duh…

So I am probably going to blow off the rest of the day, after I post one additional blog, and dust the downstairs of my house, and then go to the movies with my daughter who is dying to see The Watchman, since they read it in her sophmore Honors English class. She loves the genre, and can’t wait to see the movie. I am really looking forward to my yoga class tonight.

So I am being kind to myself today, and am hoping that by tomorrow, I’ll be up to 4 cylinders, and ready to start into some of the projects lying on my desk, along with the Arctic Sky jacket and my sister’s website.

California Finale

I’m sitting in the Ontario, California airport. The ticket counter doesn’t even open for another couple hours. I have a flight to Houston at 1am. So I have a long wait. But no matter. I love airports actually. I am anonymous, I can sit and read, sleep, play with my laptop, and be alone. Which after five days at a whirlwind intense conference, I desperately need.

This was an amazing experience, in so many ways. I got a major creative infusion, and shared so much with so many old and new friends, I got some much needed creative feedback, and am able to make a bank deposit again after so many months of not teaching. All five days of my seminars and workshops were great. The students enthusiastic, and easy to work with. Very Californian! The weather was refreshing after leaving Newark right after a snow storm. Not too hot, but warm enough in the sun to eat outside. I had some amazing food, and got to know my roommate, Judy Ness, wonderful person, and superb rug weaver. I love meeting new people, getting to know them, sharing a room, turns out she does yoga in the morning like me, we both celebrated the sunrise, noting that our room in the Marriott faced east. We would wander off in the early mornings for breakfast, and on Saturday morning, finding our favorite place closed on weekends, we found a Coffee Bean, where we got a bite, listening to a young guy on an acoustic guitar playing Led Zeppelin. It was an interesting California experience.

On the way back from our breakfast, in the middle of the street, vendors were setting up their booths with fresh produce, fruits and vegetables, for a weekly farmers market. For someone who recently left NJ in the snow, this was a feast of color, texture and some amazing shapes I’ve never seen. I’ve changed the wallpaper on my desk top to be this splash of green and red in the fresh lettuces on display. The eggplants were a gorgeous color, on the aqua color tablecloth, and I can see using the color combination in a new piece. I love artichokes, and I’ve never seen artichokes this big.

Saturday’s class was on photographing your work. Students sent in their images ahead of time, and after the three hour presentation I did on what to do and what not to do, plus all the technical information, we sat around critiquing their images. All of us learned a lot, and appreciated each other’s feedback.

I finished up the class, and raced over to the convention center for the fashion show rehearsal. I have attended many many conference fashion shows, and I will say, hands down, the Association of Southern California Handweavers puts on the best one of all. The level of talent is huge, and the coordination and organizing of the show is always excellent. And what I love about this particular show, is that the weavers and fiber artists themselves do the modeling. Having a professional model in your work is nice, but seeing the person who made the work, wearing something from their hands, presents the complete package. These women and men were thoroughly enjoying themselves, and though I spent most of the show backstage waiting for my entrance, the crowd from what I could hear was thrilled with the production.

My turn came about 3/4 of the way through the show, and the blinding runway lights notwithstanding, the cheering supportive audience made it clear, the dress I worked so hard on was a hit. I blogged about this dress, all through January and February, I called it Frosted Florals, and I felt great in the dress, it was all worth it. My roommate did her best shooting photos of me from her seat in the audience, and she captured the moment well. Later she snuck backstage to get an additional photo of me in the dress.

Sunday morning started really early, with the time change, and the early morning coffee with keynote speaker John Marshall, I know John, we have taught together at many conferences, but I’ve oddly never heard him speak, and he was terrific. He said a lot of things that I’ve never thought about, talked a lot about color literacy, seeing in three dimension, which I do, and I found, as tired as I was, I hung on every word.

My final seminar was teaching inkle weaving for about 15 students. They brought some challenging looms, and it was a group effort to get everyone warped up, but they stuck with it, and produced some beautiful bands, many of them advancing to pick-up techniques by the afternoon.

I was packed up by five, and waiting with my feet up for my ride to the airport. It was an exhausting week. Now I’ll just curl up with my Janet Evanovich Stephanie Plum novel, great airport reading, and wait for the ticket agent so I can check my 140 pounds of luggage. It was a great week, but I sure will be glad to get home.

California Day Three

Yippee! Everyone finished their jackets, except for a few hours of handwork, and I’ve never been so proud of a class. They all posed for a group shot and and all the jackets are beautiful. Carl was the one male in the class and his black jacket is fabulous. The structure was a blue on black diamond pattern.

The keynote speaker tonight was Loretta Oliver, a wonderful weaver/feltmaker. She showed some beautiful work, talked about her creative adventures, and left us all inspired. Then it was Shop ’till you drop at the vendor hall. I was able to find a shallow damask boat shuttle from Glimakra, Thanks Sally for the recommendation.