Sewing, not Seeing, Red

Christmas prints on cotton, some with a little gold sparkle

A dear elderly - that is, older than me - friend keeps cleaning out her stash and giving me quilt cottons. Though my quilting activity is low, my traditional quilting activity is non-existent. Recently she gifted me a stack of red Christmas prints. I said Thank you.

Now I do love red. My dear sainted mother used to say that red is her neutral. When it's cold enough, I wear a long red wool coat bought at Talbot's decades ago in her honor. Red has a special place in my heart.

My local ASG has issued an art-inspred challenge to sew something - anything - inspired by Klimt's well-known Lady in Gold. The story behind the painting, particularly as portrayed in the movie staring Helen Mirren, is riveting and inspiring. I read a bit further about the painting and became curious about the dress the Woman in Gold wears in the painting.

Emilie Flöge shown here with Klimt

Emilie Flöge is the clothing designer behind the beautiful garments worn by those Viennese women in Klimt's colorful paintings. She has a storied past that piqued my interest. She was a companion of Klimt's, a hippie in her own time, a free spirit. Her designs are works of art, detailed, exquisite. 

Back panel

Her personal choice of clothing led to my response to the ASG challenge. I imagine such a linear dress as the one above might have been seen as radical in her own time. And Klimt is dressed similarly. You can see more of her designs here.

I chose a favorite pattern from Folkwear: 104 Egyptian shirt. I have used this pattern at least 4 previous times. There is something appealing to me in its rectangular lines. My most worn version is in an interesting white linen weave. Extended full length, it is called a galabia.

104 Egyptian shirt from Folkwear

By combining so many red prints, my hope was to get away from the Christmas theme. Some of the pieces were 1/2 yard; a few were a full yard. I cut them into 8" x 18" chunks. I created fabric, sort of, by sewing them together along the short ends, making one very long 8" wide strip of fabric. There was no plan to the order in which they were sewn together, except to avoid sewing identical fabrics together.

Center back panel of the Egyptian shirt

I chose the 8" width based on the size of the front and back pieces in the Egyptian shirt pattern. Along the way, I wondered if I needed to break up all that red print, perhaps with something like a black and white print piping. That did not work out - it looked more like Little House on the Prairie than it did Turn of the Century Vienna.

one of the sleeves

This pattern introduced me to the idea of flipping an exagerated facing to the outside of a garment. I have used that idea many times since on tops. I especially like the lines of this particular facing flipped to the outside. It reads exotic. I imagine that Emilie liked exotic. Perhaps this traditional Egyptian look would have appealed to her. 

For the facing, I used a remnant of red silk dupioni, sashiko-stitched in vertical lines. I backed it with cotton batiste. Once I had completed the garment, I thought to check to see how the shoulders lined up. Of course, I needed to do a little after-the-fact sashiko correction.

I added an interior back facing of the red print quilt cotton so that the back side of the cotton print does not show when it is hanging. I am pleased with how it looks hanging on the wall of my sewing room. 

The Egyptian shirt pattern resembles the lines of the Fit for Art Tabala Rasa pattern, another I've used multiple times. It also resembles the Sterling pattern from the Sewing Workshop. Good design is present in all cases. This traditional design includes clever and easy pockets in the side panels. 

My long-term plan for this piece is to use it as a summer weight robe. While at Shakerag this summer, my sweet roomie demonstrated the need for such when she accidentally locked herself out of our room following a shower in the communcal bathroom.

This piece already has a few stories sewn into it.

1001001

As I begin a new year around our planet, I am pausing to think about the joy I receive from my hobby of sewing and other making. 

It is no longer all about the fabric. I do love fabric and fabric shopping, and I salivate knowing I am about to enter a fabric store, but it does not drive me to making one garment after another, as I've done in the past. Instead I am looking at existing garments and imagining improvements.

Though I am still enamored of patterns and will always use them - why invent something that others invent for a living - I do not feel the need to constantly try another new-to-me pattern. I have a fairly large collection of unused patterns when that urge strikes.

North rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona

I want to push myself in new directions. In the last few weeks, I have been pulling out Diane Ericson patterns and I love her inspiring videos. Her patterns are unique, I think, in that the instructions are chocked full of ideas and variations on the pattern enclosed. The instructions are different from, say, Cutting Line Deisgn patterns, in that they invite creativity rather than precise results. 

Modified TSW Urban pants + self-drafted pullo-over

Here is my latest make. I am not too sure about wearing these pieces as an outfit. I may find them to be more useful as separates with other pieces. The fabric is light weight cotton pique from Five Eighths Seams in Charleston SC.

The pants are constructed with a slight modification to the Urban Pants pattern from the Sewing Workshop. Instead of tabs and buttons, I threaded a bias tube through a channel in the bottom hem. Then I gathered it slightly to give a little shape. 

The top is constructed from the pants remnants. I created to rectangles, roughly 25" x 25" each. I opened the center fron seam on the front piece enough to create a V neck. The triangles are folded to the inside and top stitched in place. I added a small pleat to each arm cap to bring in the silhouette a bit, but I may remove that and do something different. It is too cutsie right now.

It is not terribly creative but the process is engaging. I'll keep pushing Diane's approach to constructing garments.

A decade ago I spent one week with Diane at Design-Outside-the-Lines in Sisters, Oregon. It was the last one where she partnered with Marcy Tilton. I met some wonderful women and I was overwhelmed with inspiration. Though I was sort-of a deer-in-the-headlights during the workshop, I soaked up a playful attitude shared by all present.

Taos location for upcoming Design Outside the Lines

Now I am excited that I will spend another week with Diane in Taos, New Mexico next month. I am tickled. A space opened up and now I am working on the logistics.

Biking in Zion National Park

Meanwhile I have returned from a wonderful time with family in Las Vegas, NV, and Zion National Park in Utah. What a blast! My legs are still sore. My elbow scrapes are healing, as are the bruises. 

I bought two souvenir T shirts that I am treating as fabric. The price of the shirt does not change as sizes change so I bought the largest shirts I could. I cut open the side seams and began to experiment with some Diane-style ideas. I started with this very inexpensive, very large shirt from the Cirque de Soleil show I saw in Las Vegas.

After some play, I shopped by closet for clothes I made but never wear. This yellow shirt seemed to be ready for a remake. That yellow is cheerful but not good with my skin tone. So I never wear this shirt.

I used the Grainline Studio Lark shirt as my base. I was able to cut two long sleeves from the yellow striped shirt. I slit the front and back of the pink Love shirt with an S curve. Once I had assembled them, placing part of the back on the front and vice versa, I knew I had made a mistake. 

I sort-of wish I had kept the two images as they were in the original shirt and just cut them to fit the Lark pattern. My work-around was to cut some black-and-white striped knit into strips and zigzag onto the seam line. After washing and drying, it curled up and I'm OK with the result.

I hope that this new shirt gets more rotation than that yellow one. In any case, it was great fun to use for my experiment.

Canyoneering in Zion's slot canyons

*My title 1001001 is a palidrome when written in binary. Yep, I'm still a geek.

More Eco-Printing

 I am addicted.

I could not resist trying these eucalyptus leaves, leftovers from arrangements at church on Sunday.

I've learned that dogwood leaves from my yard are predictably good prints.

Here is the first layer of leaves, a combination placed on a length of cotton canvas that I've used previously.

Next is the layer of blank watercolor paper.

Here's my second layer of leaves. There will be a different set of prints on both sides of the paper. It is sturdy enough to resist bleed through from the leaves. I had trouble identifying the *right* and *wrong* sides of the eucalyptus, so I just ignored that aspect of the process. Note that this new layer of leaves means that the paper is in contact on both sides of the paper.

After one more layer of cloth (cotton muslin that has been used in previous prints), it is rolled tightly around a dowel and secured with cotton twill tape.

Then it's squeezed into the pot for some time simmering. 

It cannot be submerged completely in this pot so I'm on the look-out for a larger pot from the thrift shop.

The next day, I enjoyed the big reveal - some pretty prints on the cotton canvas.

After the paper has dried completely, it is fun to see the difference in the dogwood leaves and the eucalyptus leaves.

And here is the other side of those watercolor papers. I am enchanted - bookbinding is next!

O'Keefe Coatdress

When this pattern from Diane Ericson was published, I ordered it right away. I have decided that, even if I never use the actual pattern pieces, it's worth the price for all the creative ideas Diane tucks into her pattern instructions. This comes in the form of a spiral bound booklet that is more like a magazine than pattern instructions anyway.

One of many of Diane's samples from this pattern - here it is cropped.

After having such great fun with her French Fold Shrug, I was hungry for another creative adventure with Diane as my muse. And I am somewhat enamored of Georgia O'Keefe. Who isn't? She was such a force of nature during her time, answering primarily to her inner (and outer?) spirit, and not worrying too much about others' opinion of her.

Since I almost never buy fabric for a specific project, I shopped stash for the perfect piece to try this pattern. First though I pulled out an old cotton bed sheet and made a sort-of toile, using the cropped length on the pattern pieces,. This was not to be a wearable toile/muslin.

Use of a toile or muslin has its limits. A bed sheet is usually constructed with a fairly tight weave. This piece is soft due to its age. But it does not mimic my fashion fabric adequately.  I rather liked the way the toile fit through the shoulders and bustline.

My fashion fabric was in stash but not deeply. I purchased it at Mulberry Silks and Fine Fabrics in NC in early June. It is one of those luscious Nani Iro double cloth gauze wonders. This one is on a soft black background with a light scattering of flowers and leaves. There is also some yummy brown, and even a little touch of shiny gold thread. Beautiful piece.

And of course I had too little fabric. To use what I had as fully as possible, I placed the pattern tissue on it strategically letting the long dress length hang beyond my fabric. This omitted the collar and cuffs which was fine. I had an older cotton lawn from Gail K here in Atlanta that would be good as an accent. The lawn has the same hand as the cotton gauze.

After I basted it all together, I decided the dropped shoulder was not a great look. It was too dropped and, with this soft fabric, there appeared to be no shape to the garment.

I had to cut the back with a center seam and forgot to add seam allowances. You can see where I added in a piece of selvedge with the sweet Nani Iro marks to fix my goof.

Trying to raise a dropped shoulder, after the fabric has been cut, is not for the faint of heart. It requires messing with the side seams and the shape of the armhole and the shape of the sleeve, lots of kludgy after-the-fact stuff. I played around with lapping the side seams as Diane is prone to do. It is a cool technique. 

I omitted interfacing from the collar, as well as the cuffs. I added interfacing to the center front only to support the buttons and buttonholes. I also used a mix of buttons, a la Diane.

I like the finished collar - it's soft like the overall garment. In the spirit of Diane, I folded in in some pleats in the back collar and visibly stitched it down. 

A Diane Ericson sleeve is beautiful. It is one piece but, with the addition of a dart, executes like a shaped two piece sleeve. My final garment does not show this off properly, perhaps again due to the soft fabric. I plan to revisit some patterns that fit me nicely and convert the sleeves so that they hang with this soft curve at the elbow.

One of the interesting aspects of the Diane Ericson sleeve is that it is easy to use when fabric is limited. See my layout above. The only sleeve seam falls along the grainline. The dart mimics an underarm seam.

The bottom of the toile sleeve, which follows the crosswise grain here, shows the effect of Diane's sleeve design.

I think I may do something different with the cuffs. The softness does not work as well there as it does on the collar.

In the end, I sewed ordinary side seams down for about 6" and left the remainder open as a vent. The sleeves were attached in the round and look OK.

Here is the final piece, though Diane recommends that no garment need ever be final. That's a philosophy that resonates with me. Those cuffs are going to change, for sure. 

For now, it is OK.