Sewing with Handwoven Fabric

Here are a few highlights of my process. The main problems with handwoven fabric come from its loose and unstable state compared to store-bought fabric. First of all, the edges ravel almost immediately after cutting and so they must be secured as soon as possible. I have used a serger before on handwoven, but those were all rather straight edges. I cut out a test piece, one part of the sleeve, and serged it. As you can see in the photo above, compared to the pattern, it has been skewed out of shape by the serging. I was actually able to stretch it back into the right size and use it, but it was a good indicator that serging was out for this project.

I would highly recommend using as large of a table for cutting as possible. I used to just lay fabric out on the floor to cut, but that is a huge pain--mostly for your back!

I ended up doing two things to stabilize and secure the edges. After cutting out all of the pieces, I fused very thin interfacing strips along every cut edge. This worked wonderfully to prevent the fabric from becoming pulled out of shape, and it kept the fraying to a minimum while I was working with it.

Here you can see how different the fabric looks after pressing, compared to unpressed. It was extremely shiny after pressing. Because of that, I did as little pressing of the finished garment that I could.

The other finishing technique I used was to cover all the raw edges inside with bias tape. This makes the inside look very clean and neat, and it prevents any sort of fraying. The only drawback is that the already somewhat bulky seams are now bulkier. Surprisingly, it's not visibly noticeable, only when you're wearing it do you notice.

My other tip for the day is: follow directions and stay-stitch the neckline! I don't know about you, but I always skipped stay-stitching. It seems like such a worthless step if you're going to sew it anyway, right? Well, remember my stretched out/wonky neckline on the brown version of this? I did not change the pattern at all, I just stay-stiched it and my neckline came out perfect. Live and learn!

Do you have a sewing tip that's either a short cut or something you've learned cannot be skipped? Share it with us!

Inheritance Dress

It's finished and my entry form is submitted! Whew!

I'll post details about making it soon. Below is my artist's statement.

I feel the need to make clothing that tells a story. When I wear a garment, I imagine places I could travel to and adventures I could have in it. In my Inheritance dress, I can picture myself climbing ancient trees somewhere in Europe, maybe I’m sailing the Mediterranean… Although I might imagine incredible adventures about this garment, I will still wear it in my normal, everyday life. Clothing that is made to wear in everyday life, yet has a unique and extraordinary quality is what excites me. I could make an evening gown, but I couldn’t wear it whenever I felt like taking a walk down the street. I find myself embracing Anita Mayer’s idea of wearing something magical and unique every day.

There is something magical about the word inheritance. It conjures up thoughts of finding a hidden treasure; like a gift of something ancient. At first glance the fabric seems plain, but it has a surprising subtlety of iridescence that gives rich depth to the cloth. Like it could have been from a royal robe unearthed after centuries. For me this ancient gift takes the form of a new life through faith in Jesus Christ. I have recently been studying with my church Paul’s letter to the Colossians and this passage had an impression on me: “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.” Being so immersed in making clothing, I am always intrigued by the role of clothing in the Bible. During our discussion, we talked about the ancient custom of putting on a new garment when receiving an inheritance. Believers in Christ have been made God’s children and thus receive His inheritance, so we put on the new clothing of serving Him with joy. When I wear this garment, I want to be encouraged to show compassion and kindness, no matter what adventures life brings. I want to be reminded of the hidden beauty of God’s kingdom and my identity in Him. That is the real story being told every day.

Pattern making

I'm trying pattern making again. Of course I'm self-taught so it's all a guessing game and past results have not been pretty. Ah, the challenge! This time is different because I'm using a shirt/tunic that I own to "rub" the pattern from.

I absolutely love this tunic. It goes with everything. It can be dressed up or down. And best of all, I can nurse the baby in it because of those handy buttons in front. I can't remember if I've ranted on here before about how my wardrobe pre-baby was all pull over dresses and, well, that just doesn't work when you're nursing. So this was a great find last summer and I want to duplicate it with my handwoven fabric.

Making this pattern has been very time consuming. In the picture above you can see the three different versions of the front bodice, from left to right, 1) traced from the flat garment, 2) traced on the dressform, 3) combined the two and retraced on the dressform. I was checking and rechecking the measurements--"measure twice, cut once" turned into measure 50 times, cut once.

Here is a "mock-up" that I made to check my pattern fit from fabric I had laying around. It came out surprisingly well with one major problem. As you can see in the above picture, the neckline is completely stretched out and wonky. And the button placket is not centered at all! Sometimes I will make the buttons off center on purpose.... this was not on purpose.

The best thing about this pattern is that it isn't precisely fitted. The back has a tie that cinches and makes the front tight. That made getting the fit right a lot easier.

I still haven't gotten the neckline quite right. I'm wondering if it was the bias tape stretching it and because I didn't stay-stitch it like you're supposed to. Any thoughts on getting necklines to behave?

Stay tuned for the handwoven version of this... it's in progress!

Fabric!

Winter has been busy! I've begun a new weaving project which will end up being yardage for a garment to be entered in this garment contest at Handwoven magazine. Whew... I'm worn out just writing about it. Considering I started working on this before Thanksgiving, it's taking longer than usual, although Christmas kind of got in the way of working on it.

I wanted to share some of the things I'm doing differently with this project to help it go more smoothly than the tartan did. First of all I got myself a lamp to clip on the loom, as you can see in the picture. Don't underestimate the importance of lighting!

This is a shot of the main cloth, it's one of the treadling patterns from a German Bird's Eye (in Marguerite Davison's book). The warp is this bold royal blue (the closest thing I could find to what I wanted--still not happy) in 8/2 tencel. The weft is a medium cardboard brown--the only brown tencel I could find anywhere! My original color ideas were completely different and I'm still not completely satisfied with this combination... but I didn't want to bore you with my 3 month thought process on colors. Do you ever have difficulty picking color combinations? Do you have trouble finding the color, that elusive perfect shade that does not exist? I do.

One thing that I learned from weaving the tartan cloth was making sturdy selvedges to prevent warp threads from breaking. Here you can see this green 5/2 perle cotton on my selvedge. I put a good 1/2 inch of it doubled up so there is no chance of the tencel being rubbed and snapped. With a 30 inch wide warp, this is essential since it will be drawing in to around 27 inches.

The other plan for this project is that I will be able to tie on to the warp threads again after I cut off the fabric. Basically that means I won't have to take each thread and put it through the reed and the heddles again, I'll just have to tie a new thread on to the old ones. Another reason why I chose the German Bird's Eye pattern--it has 5 different treadling patterns. In the picture above you can see what you get when you do the plain weave treadling. It's sort of a plain weave with a group of 3 every 1/2 inch or so.

More on this soon!

Fashion Show Highlights

Backstage at the fashion show, we were all admiring the fantastic woven creations. Here is Daryl Lancaster wearing her evening gown--stunning!


This girl was a student at the college, helping with the lighting. They convinced her to model a piece titled "warrior princess", it's handwoven armor. I thought she pulled it off wonderfully.


A handwoven cape--looks so warm and elegant. This lovely model wove it herself.


Me in my skirt. After the fashion show, there was a reception in the foyer outside. I was bombarded by people admiring my skirt and asking questions about it. The most frequent comment was something like, "It just flows so well" or "I love how it drapes".


Here is an upclose view that shows the iridescent fabric better. You can read more about how I made it here.

The best part about the fashion show was getting compliments from famous weavers. I don't mean to brag, but I was floored that women who I've admired immensely were so excited about something I made.

Oh... and I won first place too, that was unexpected!

Felt Inspiration

This fabulous outfit is made from felt! Wow, talk about inspiration. It is part of the current exhibit Fashioning Felt at the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum. The artist is Christine Birkle who operates a shop in Berlin called Hut Up.
The amazing thing about her work is that she doesn't sew at all. She uses the shrinking properties of the wool to shape the fabric at the waist, armholes, and neckline.
All I can say is--I want to try this!
More pictures here.