Now Sewing: embroidery

Showing posts with label embroidery. Show all posts

Friday, June 28, 2024

Weekly Slow Stitch Projects with k3n - halfway!

Back in December 2023, I decided to subscribe to k3n clothtales on youtube. She is a prolific, generous and inspiring artist, specializing is slow stitch. She announced that she would be posting every Monday a smallish hand-stitched project. She suggested that we create a stitch journal with 52 pages - one for each week.

For my stitch journal, I pulled out some old jeans I had thrifted and created a book cover. I bound the 52 pages to it. I chose to machine stitch the cover after remembering that it is not fun to hand-stitch jeans denim. In my supplies, I had an eco-dyed piece of wool already cut in the primitive shape of a bird. I hand-stitched that to the cover. The cording was created using k3n's method of twisting strips of fabric.

On Monday Jan 1, k3n posted the first little project. Each week has a theme. Since we are now halfway through 2024, I thought I might go ahead and post each of my tiny pieces with the theme for that week. My pieces tend to be about 5" x 5.5" in order to fit into my book. One of my first lessons was how fun it is to stitch a finished piece to a piece of paper in my stitch journal!

week 1 - community

week 2 - light and dark

week 3 - diversity

week 4 - choices

week 5 - hidden stories

week 6 - listen to the cloth

week 7 - held together by threads of love

week 8 - both sides now

week 9 - palindrone poems

week 10 - the thing with feathers

week 11 - respecting traditions

week 12 - if you love something...

Monday, May 8, 2023

Fractal Dress 2.0

In April 2022, I was lucky enough to attend an Alabama Chanin workshop from their School of Making. It is such a fun place to play and sew and chat. The workshop includes your choice of one of their kits. A kit is created for you and ready to start the second day of the workshop. Students are able to select from a number of their garments, as well as a few non-garments (baby blanket, for example). The kits include two layers of their organic cotton knit. One layer is stenciled professionally in the stencil of your choice. Each piece of the pattern is cut out and ready to embroider.

After trying on a number of their samples, I chose the Fractal Dress. It has a lantern shape and about a gazillion panels - 4 on the front bodice, 4 on the back bodice, 4 on the skirt front, 4 on the skirt back, 2 on each sleeve, and the collar.

My kit:

Pattern: Fractal dress, size S
Outer knit: brown (earth)
Inner knit: brown (earth)
Stencil: Abbie's Flower
Embroidery floss: Slate

Each kit includes two 8x10 rectangles, one with the stencil and one without it. This is a wonderful part of the kit, as it gives you the opportunity to test your ideas about how to stitch. There are so many ways to go - applique, reverse applique, and on and on.

The stencil I chose, Abbie's Flower, is complex. That is, there is not a lot of open space either between motifs, or within motifs. This makes the embroidery options challenging, IMO. Typically the embroidery motifs are outlined with an embroidery stitch. Then fabric from the inside, or the outside of each motif is cut away. This can produce a beautiful effect especially if the outer dress is a different color from the inner dress. The effect is lovely and, with a different motif, it will dramatically reduce the overall weight of the finished garment, in addition to allowing the under fabric to peek out.

After completing my 8x10 sample, I became convinced that the dress would be like armor if I constructed as two layers. There was simply too little to cut away, no matter whether I chose applique, or reverse applique, or negative reverse applique.

In a previous kit, I used a more open stencil. In that case, cutting away fabric gave the jacket a lovely drape that did not feel heavy at all.

And that is how I ended up with two dresses instead of one. I completed the plain one a while back and I've enjoyed wearing it. It is the fabric that would have been the underlayer of the dress.

As you may know, the kit comes with the pieces already cut out. There is no pattern included, although I could have purchased it. In retrospect, I certainly should have done so. It would have saved me a lot of hand-wringing during assembly of each of the two dresses.

Each panel is supposed to be labeled. I noticed some ambiguity in their labeling while I was still there and sent it back for more specific labels. It helped but they were inconsistently applied to all pieces. And, in the case of the skirt, it was going to be easy to sew pieces together upside down. Given the lantern shape of the dress, the waistline is actually larger around than the lower hem of the dress. But the difference is quite small, as it is spread over 8 panels. Finally I called them and asked for very specific measurements for the top and bottom of each skirt piece. I still had to identify some pieces by process of elimination.

Having said all of that, I actually enjoyed making both versions of the dress. And I love the effect of each. My *outer* dress, like the plain one, is single layer. I outlined each motif with a back stitch. It was fun to make it a bit jagged to mimic the edge of leaves.

And, obviously, I did finally finish it. Now I want to another kit to stitch, perhaps a long skirt next. I'll have to save up for that!

Thursday, September 22, 2022

The Fractal 1.0

I'm wearing the sample they provide for trying out sizes.

In April, I was lucky enough to attend my second workshop at Alabama Chanin in Florence SC. It was such a fun and inspiring time with fellow sewing enthusiasts and gorgeous clothing. The price includes one kit. This time I chose the fractal dress, an interesting silhouette with 21 sections - 4 upper fronts, 4 lower fronts, 4 upper backs, 4 lower backs, 2 piece dolman sleeves, and a collar.

Pattern: Fractal dress, size S
Outer knit: brown (earth)
Inner knit: brown (earth)
Stencil: Abbie's Flower
Embroidery floss: Dove

There was a version of the Peacoat displayed in the AC shop with this stencil and color scheme. All of us drooled over it.

Sample from the Peacoat on Display

The first time I attended an AC workshop, I chose the Peacoat as my project so I did not want another version of that particular pattern. Instead I chose the Fractal dress with the same stencil and color scheme.

Each kit comes with an 8x10 sample of the stenciled fabric and another 8x10 without the stencil for trying out ideas. I used negative reverse applique on my sample and concluded that I did not like that effect. (Note to self: it actually looks nice, so maybe I'll use it on a future project.)

So I returned to my trusty reverse applique. I used this in my Peacoat and enjoyed the entire process. I completed one section with that in mind before bailing and selecting a different approach.

One sleeve section, stitched double layer, nothing cut away

My 3rd and final selection was to use a single layer of the knit. Nothing will be cut away, of course. I am using a version of the back-stitch to outline the motifs. I really, really like the way that sort-of choppy back-stitch relates to the leaf shapes. At first, I worried about that choppy stitching but then I embraced it as very leaf-like. I use 2 strands of the Dove embroidery floss.

This version of the dress is on-going. The stitching is very time-consuming and meditative. I don't want it to end! You can see how far I've progressed in the picture above. Of course, my decision to stitch single-layer presented me with another whole dress without any stenciling. How fun is that!?!

Tried out the Herringbone stitch in Dove floss

After a particularly inspiring session at my ASG neighborhood group, City-wide Couture, with our local beautiful Toni Morrison, I was anxious to try her idea of stitching wrong sides together (WST), using a decorative stitch to keep the seams pressed open. The seam allowances are only 1/4" so it's hard to keep the seams pressed open otherwise.

Feather stitch in Dove gray floss

Though I do love the Dove (light gray) floss against this dark brown, I wanted something a little different. I am surprised by how much I like this burnt orange against that dark brown. I am enjoying thinking about fall clothes and this combination fits in nicely.

I sewed the underarm seams right sides together per usual, choosing to accent the other WST seams with my go-to elastic stitch, the feather stitch. It was such great fun. And I've decided that this is a top, rather than another Fractal dress.

Yes, it's a bit short for a top, but I think it will be fun to wear. And I'm amazed at how well it coordinates with clothes in my closet, some quite old.