Daryl's Blog

I have posted a notice of the upcoming Association of Southern California Handweavers Conference, under ‘Upcoming Events’, over in the side menus.  I am teaching a jacket workshop, from your handwoven fabric, though it isn’t necessary to have handwoven fabric to take the workshop.  I’ve had students raid the linen closet and bring in an old blanket at the last minute.  So if you are in the Southern California area, or are planning to be in March, check out the conference and my workshop, if you want to sew, especially handwoven fabrics, this is a terrific beginner class to get you on your way.  I’ve updated the look of the pattern a bit, and included a closure by interrupting the piping to make button loops!

Thanks for all the comments I’ve received so far.  Some of you have been too timid to actually post one for all to read, but I appreciate the private comments as well, and yes, I agree with all of you that the two choices I’ve posted so far, for the Frosted Florals fabric, are not quite there.  They don’t play off the wonderful drape or celebrate the gorgeous colorways and striping of the handwoven fabric.  So, thrilled to have such great critical feedback, I spent the morning, redraping the fabric, playing around with other options, and feeling like I have Tim Gunn standing over me saying, “Make it work!”, I am jumping in with both feet into my own design.

When I turned the handwoven fabric upside down to drape the left half of the garment, (without cutting into the fabric) I couldn’t believe how well the colors blended across the two halves.  I think this can work, even though the two halves aren’t mirror images of themselves.  The bodice needs to be bias, in order to drape, but the lower skirt would be cut in one piece from the center back around to the center front, with darts and tucks to maintain grainlines and shaping.

Now to draft a pattern, test it out in two halves, and see if it fits on the fabric I have.   Stay tuned…

Here are the images of the second style of dress I am contemplating for the Frosted Florals Rayon fabric.   Again, I made up the dress in a fabric on my shelf to see if I liked it on me.  This one is a soft gather over one shoulder, with pleating at the waist, which is beautiful with the stripes in the woven fabric.  This garment fits better on the fabric, and I like that the division line is closer to the waist instead of up under the bust, which means I’ll have an easier time matching the horizontal color bands at the side seams.  My only hesitation with this style, is when the bodice is gathered into the one shouldered look, it throws the vertical lines of the stripe visually off balanced, and I’m not sure I will like that.  I have to play with it more…  This style will use up more of the fabric, and that is a good thing.

Feel free to comment if you have an opinion one way or another on the choice of styles.  To comment, click on the title of this post, and a comments dialogue box will open up for viewing.  You do not have to be registered to leave a comment. (Which is one of the reasons I switched to WordPress for my blogging page.)

FYI, the fabric on the dress form is actually draped and pinned to simulate the look of the finished pattern.  I do this a lot.  There is nothing cut from the yardage, and nothing sewn or refined.  It helps to get a general idea of where color areas might be placed.  I threw a piece of hem tape around the middle to give an idea of the waist placement.

I laid out this project back in December, you can reread the project in the archives.  The deadline for submission for the fashion show at the Surface Design Association’s Conference, Off the Grid in Kansas City, MO May28-May31, 2009 is coming up fast.  I believe it is Feb 1, 2009.  http://www.surfacedesign.org Looking back over the projects I’ve outlined so far, I want to work on the ones that most fit the fashion show theme for a surface design conference, rather than a handweaver’s conference.  Project one, the frosted florals fabric involves hand dyed warps and some textural weaving in the structure choice, and I think would be dynamic on the runway and in photographs.  So for now I’ll concentrate on that one.  I do my best work, or rather my most productive output under deadlines…

I have two possibilities for this project.  The December 2008 Burda had some gorgeous dresses involving draping and pleating, two would be effective with this slinky rayon fabric, and the unbroken length of the dyed fabric down the front would be stunning.  So I’ve done a sketch, and made the pattern up into an actual dress to really see which I like on my body, and then I’ve done a preliminary layout for each of the two designs I’m contemplating.  The styling may be wonderful, but if the patterns don’t fit on the narrow fabric, no sense pursuing it.

This is the first choice, and I love the soft pleating and drape which really shows off the fabric striping.  The pattern is a bit wider than the fabric, but not by much, and I can always do my famous cheat, where I find a narrow piece of the fabric on the selvedge, that continues the coloration of the area where the fabric is missing, and butt the two selvedges together, making just that area wide enough for the pattern piece.  I do it all the time, and it is really invisible, I will hand stitch, or machine stitch with a very very narrow zig zag, catching the two selvedges.

I’ll follow up with the second choice tomorrow.  Stay tuned…

Project 5 is a bolt of fabric I had sitting on the loom for a long time.  It wasn’t really exciting me, after all the dyed warps I’d been doing over the previous year, it was sort of ordinary, yet the subtle coloring when you looked closely at the fabric was exquisite.  The fabric will work well for a more classic coat, mid weight, and I can bulk it up with an interlining.

This fabric, called Arctic Sky, was based on a forecast from Handwoven Magazine I did for the Jan/Feb 2007 issue of Handwoven Magazine.  I loved the rich blues into plums, spiced up with the new lime green, or rather new at the time, lime green has become the new neutral.  It is a fantastic color for a handweaver to use intermittently within a fabric.

I originally set this warp up on my 8 shaft, not because it needed to be, but when I have sticky wool warps, I find that by spreading them over eight shafts instead of four, I get less skipped sticky warp issues.

I have about 6 yards of 21″ wide fabric, not a huge amount, but enough I think for a trench type coat, and I have a beautiful silk Sari from my husband’s gift stash, in a rich green, that might work with the fabric.  I’m big on using what I already have.  And I have this odd little sash/narrow scarf that I felted with a friend, in that fabulous lime green color.  I can see using the natural edge of the felt as a narrow accent down the edge of a band or belt.  It is a strong color, so just an accent would be appropriate.  Almost like a piping.   I could really use a good spring trench coat.

Meanwhile, Brianna is making slow steady progress on the placemat exchange warp.  She had the chain wound by early evening last night, and started on sleying the reed.  She finished putting the warp chain into the reed before she went to bed last night, and when she got home from work today, she started threading the overshot pattern. She just called over to say she was half finished.  The fact that she seems to really enjoy warping the loom just makes my heart sing!  Yippee!