alabama chanin Archives - Handmade by Carolyn

teal suede heels

08/05/2016 8:37 pm \ 32 Comments \ Carolyn

Heels!

I’ve made some high heeled wedges, specifically designed in colour, shape and height of heel to go with my newest Alabama Chanin outfit. Hurrah! I know, right? we can all breathe a sigh of relief now. I’m sure everyone else, just like me, has been lying awake at night, tossing and turning, losing sleep over the thought that I didn’t have any shoes that went with that Alabama Chanin ensemble. Nail biting stoof.

No? Just me then? wink wink

I didn’t have any fabric or leather in a colour that went well with my outfit; until…! While browsing through Spotlight one day, I spotted a pack of so-called premium leather remnants, the “leather” side is black but the “suede” side was a rather beautiful shade of deep oceanic teal. I thought it went very nicely with the blue/green shades of my newest onn-sohhm-ble (said in an ott Frawnch accent). So I bought a bag.

Well.

What was I thinking? All I can say is this; under no circumstances ever buy those “premium” leather remnants in a bag. Unless you really wish to pay $12 for a raggedy scramble of what is essentially awkwardly shaped, screwed-up scraps, typically around 4x15cm in size, barely big enough to make babies’ shoes, even. And if you’re making shoes for an adult human? nope! Premium?! LOL! I would LOVE to see the not-so premium stuff!! It must be heeeeeeeeinous!!! Because; not to harp on, but this stuff is crap. However. I steeled myself to it, determined to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear. Or, a polyester satin purse, at least. I was determined to NOT waste this leather and make the best of it that I absolutely could… but I do have to admit that these shoes are not my finest hour. This was the absolute best I could do!

Some of my most successful shoes have been my denim shoes; that are a hand carved balsa wood base covered with fabric. I decided to repeat that procedure for a pair of high wedges.. and so I hand carved a pair of soles. These turned out fine, all well and good.

balsa bases at right; at left is another future pair of pine clogs

Covering the bases, I used the absolute biggest pieces of scrap leather I could glean from my bag of paltry clippings… the colour wasn’t perfectly even throughout, some pieces were a deep deep oceanic blue, while some pieces were more of a faded, smoky grey/blue. I’m not against colour variatio, not at all! but they certainly make for more of a challenge. And when you’re piecing together pieces to cover a shoe base, it just doesn’t look so good to abut different shades around the shoe. You can see below; the liner of the right shoe is two pieces of very different colours, joining just front of the heel. I figured that wasn’t a bad spot for a join, because it couldn’t really be seen when I’m wearing it, underneath my foot there.

For the uppers; there are eight strips of leather per shoe, sewn at each end to a piece of sturdy cotton denim that is glued underneath the suede liner piece.

The eight strips form “arches”, which had to be tight enough to sit snugly over my instep, whilst at the same time still allowing the frontmost, widest part of my foot to fit through all the arches while I’m putting them on. This took some fiddling to nut out… also, the straps are essentially woven together across each other and so there are some straps that are key to the design, the middle one across my toes, the two long diagonal ones and one of the highest instep straps. These four provide the stable backbone for the others to be woven into and are essentially holding everything all in place. I then added the others more randomly, arranging and weaving them through decoratively, but they do also add strength.

Now, I say “random”; I’m all for random, but I’ve found that true randomness is more visually pleasing when there is some element of order and method in there somewhere. I like the fact that the strips appear to be a disordered riot of criss-crossing strips; however the shoes are actually exact mirror images of each other with the strips set in exactly the same places to each other. But when I put them on I do have to “arrange” them all! Underneath the shoes, I’ve glued pieces of thick, tough black rubber, so the shoes can stand up to the rigours of life on da streetz.

So, yay! new shoes! They are just the right height to go nicely and unobtrusively underneath my new Alabama Chanin skirts, keeping them up and out of the dirt. I think the skinny straps look quite nice against the design of my outfit; matching but not too derivative, in a harmonious colour; and a design quietly complementary while not stealing the show away from my embroidery! Bam! I’m happy 🙂 well, reasonably so anyway! And they will do absolutely fine, at least until my Year of Handmade is up and I can return with some joy to the undoubtedly more attractive rtw shoes in my collection!

Posted in: shoes, Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, own design, shoes

Magdalena Dusk; an Alabama Chanin project

09/04/2016 9:22 pm \ 77 Comments \ Carolyn

Finally! my Alabama Chanin outfit! It’s finished, and now done and dusted! Yay! I may look all cool, calm and collected on the outside here but on the inside I’m cheering like a madman.

Phew. This project has been quite an undertaking… quite an undertaking, to say the least. I had received a length of beautiful Alabama Chanin cotton jersey in colour Dusk from the lovely Lisa, of Lisa’s Carolina, and I really wanted to do the fabric justice, to honour its Alabama origins and make something worthy and not to do things by halves. I decided I just had to go the whole nine yards and make another full-on ensemble. The Full Monty Alabama Chanin. Obviously!

There was enough of the blue to make one skirt and a few bindings, so I needed to make some more colours…. I bought some plain white cotton jersey from Spotlight, cut some scraps and played about with dyeing; experimenting with greys, greens, greeny-blues, blue-y greens, blue-y greys and greeny-greys, plus I’d also had some pink cotton that I dyed blue, to get some purple-y blue into the mix too.

candidates!

Ultimately I rejected my purple- and grey-toned experiments and settled upon greens; shades of teal and sea green, which I thought subtly highlighted and championed the dusky blue the absolute best, toning it without drowning it amongst other shades of blue. I think; if you’re trying to showcase a colour in an ensemble/design, then it’s best for that colour to be the only one of its shade, and for the contrasting colours to be all a different shade and variations of each other, not of the showcase colour. As clear as mud? Yep, I thought so! Sorry, maybe that’s not making much sense, but at least I know what I’m talking about.

Pattern; all patterns are from the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, by Natalie Chanin. I made a full-length skirt, a fully-embroidered mid-length skirt and a fitted tank. Every single component is sewn by hand, in the Alabama Chanin way 🙂

So: the mid-length skirt! Which is the biggie in my ensemble, taking a few months to embroider the pieces! The skirt itself is my precious Dusk Alabama Chanin cotton jersey, and the motifs I’d dyed some white cotton jersey from Spotlight to be a teal/sea-green and to purposely be a little variegated with strong tones paling to lighter tones appearing shaded in an ombre kind of a way across the piece. All the details of the stencilling and early preparations pre-embroidery, are fully described in this post here. This part actually took aaaaages, or it felt like it at the time. Obviously, once I got embroidering then that was the bit that REALLY took ages! I had decided upon blanket stitch embroidery to attach the motifs, using light tan Gutermann’s upholstery thread. I liked the colour and the look of the embroidery, but this particular stitch was probably not the ideal choice. It is an enormously time-consuming stitch and I found myself questioning my own sanity/stupidity in choosing it, many a time. I’m glad I did persevere now though, since I really do love how it looks. Although it did take a lot of time, it wasn’t too bad, since our trip to Japan involved several plane, train and bus rides with hours and hours and hours of enforced sitting, so I got plenty of embroidery done during those times… I had completed two whole skirt panels by the time we got home! YAY! I then would have finished pretty quickly if I had then not dropped the ball for the next few weeks… oops. But once I put my mind to it and got going again I finished the embroidery pretty soon; and with the embroidery done the whole ensemble felt practically home and hosed!

I joined the pieces, hand-felling the seams using the same light tan upholstery thread as the embroidery;and I found a light yellow/beige fold-over elastic at Spotlight that looked quite nice for the waistband binding.. not that you’re ever likely to see that bit! It’s actually button elastic, for waistbands, and has buttonholes in it along the fold, but that’s ok. The colour is great, and since fold over elastic is a rare beast in Perth, in any colour, I counted myself pretty lucky to have found it!

The full length underskirt: originally white cotton jersey from Spotlight, and I dyed it to be just slightly variegated, strong teal-y/sea-green. I wanted it to be a little bit uneven in its shade, so as to fit in with the whole handmade, rustic aesthetic of Alabama Chanin. The underskirt is entirely handsewn with emerald green upholstery thread, with felled seams, and a single strip of randomly hand-ruched/ruffled cotton jersey around the lower edge. I’d originally stitched on three evenly spaced strips of ruffled cotton, but removed the upper two, because three rows didn’t look as nice as I’d hoped. The upper edge of the petticoat is finished with teal elastic, handstitched on with herringbone embroidery stitch. This was the first piece to be finished in this ensemble, believe it or not!

btw, I’ve had some feedback already that some think the underskirt is too long… opinions?

Tank top; white cotton jersey from Spotlight, dyed in the lightest shade of eau-de-nil green, and with armhole and neckline binding in the Dusk blue Alabama Chanin cotton jersey. The tank top is handsewn with light tan upholstery cotton, the same as the skirt embroidery, with felled seams and herringbone embroidery to attach the neckline and armhole binding.

All the details, summed up succinctly in just one pic:

So that’s it re the outfit…

And now for a little story about that weird and bizarre, modern-day phenomenon, the blog photo shoot…

I’d delayed posting this because I wanted to take some really nice pictures with a pretty background, something better than just these ones taken in our boring old garage… so I pick an absolutely beautiful location at my parents’ house … and a hopefully beautiful time of day … dusk would be an appropriately poetic time of day, yes? because the colour of my Alabama Chanin fabric is named “dusk” Ok, perfect! However turns out dusk is actually a terrible time to take pictures, … all my first batch of pictures were a giant fail… everything very dark and you can hardly see a thing, ha! So I disconsolately packed up to go back to the house; to try again the next day.

And did I mention my chosen photo shoot location is a paddock quite a long walk from the house? Honestly, the things we do… I walked down in jeans, disrobed, re-robed, in the paddock, as you do…. TWICE, on two consecutive days… all under the bemused and intensely interested gaze of a mob of kangaroos. Well obviously, they must have been admiring my Alabama Chanin finery? hmmm?

hey guys!

The second day I timed my arrival to be just before sunset, with that lovely pre-dusk golden glow … and wasn’t til I’d got all set up and going with my pictures I realised I’d left my sunnies back at the house and so I’m squinting in Every Single Picture… (groan)

And in the end I felt like the “boring” garage photos weren’t really all that bad and actually the details show up pretty well against that quiet blank background, so I’m posting a few of those too. Sorry for the picture overload.

Moral of the story; blog photo shoots can verge on the ludicrous

Anyway!! it’s done… Thank you so much to my friend Lisa, of Lisa’s Carolina, for the gift of the Alabama Chanin cotton. It’s such a gorgeous colour and I hope I managed to make something that is worthy of the fabric 🙂

Details:

Tank top, skirt, underskirt; all patterns from the Alabama Studio Sewing + Design by Natalie Chanin. Blue cotton jersey is from Alabama Chanin, other fabrics from hand-dyed by me. Embroidery design, half of the Magdalena design by Alabama Chain, embroidered in blanket stitch.

Posted in: sewing \ Tagged: alabama chanin, alabama studio sewing + design, dyeing, embroidery, handicrafts, skirt, top

an Alabama Chanin project; “Magdalena Dusk”

07/11/2015 8:29 am \ 33 Comments \ Carolyn

The very lovely Lisa, of Lisa’s Carolina Handmade very kindly sent to me some really beautiful and special fabric; some 100% organic cotton jersey from the Alabama Chanin store in the United States. How sweet is that?!!! I’m so grateful to Lisa… and so excited about what I could do with this very precious stuff. Obviously only an Alabama Chanin project would do. SO I’ve been busy planning, plotting and generally scheming as to what could do the fabric justice.
The colour is Dusk, which is a kind of blue-y/greeny/grey with a mostly blue-ish bent to it, if that makes any sense. I had enough for a skirt and also to fully bind and appliqué a tank top. I liked the idea of another allover, fully embellished Alabama Chanin project since I reeeeeeeeally love my first ensemble; so I bought some plain white cotton jersey from Spotlight, broke out the dyes and got cracking. My aim was to make some colours to blend in nicely with the Dusk. Since the dusk is a mostly blue with green/grey tinge, I was going for some mostly green with blue/grey tinge, and also some mostly grey with a blue/green tinge; meaning they will hopefully blend in really nicely with each other. Several days of dyeing and some more dyeing and then some over-dyeing to fine-tune some of the colours; and I have a nice range of blue/green/grey shades to go nicely with my Dusk..

Dusk is the middle one in the lower row

I used iDye for natural fabrics in a mix of colours; mostly Royal Blue, Golden Yellow and Brown. I really liked the shades of grey I was getting with the iDye Brown to “dirty” the various teals, but the “grey” wasn’t quite grey enough, so over dyed those pieces further with just a touch of iDye in Black. This turned out just close enough to perfect! The colours are a little blotchy and swirly and I am very happy with that, since the Alabama Chanin jersey has a veeeery subtly motley tone to it too. I really like the contrasts and variations in tones of the fabrics.

The next thing was to choose a stencil design. I toyed with the idea of going with Anna’s Garden again, like with my first Alabama Chanin project and also the project I stencilled for Mum. I really LOVE that design! But of course I eventually decided I should go with something new. I finally chose Magdalena from the Alabama Chanin website, available here. I resized it slightly, traced it onto drafting film from Jacksons art supplies, cut out the stencil. I’d nearly finished tracing before it dawned on me that the upper part of the design is actually identical to the lower part, just on a smaller scale! *light bulb*

At that point I had started to realise that smaller part of the design might be too small a scale for what I wanted to do, so I’ve pretty much decided to just use the lower, larger scale part for my project. I haven’t ruled out using the entire design on a future project but for this one I’m just going for the one size motif, repeated all over. 🙂

I bought some spray paint from Bunnings; White Knight “Squirts”, colour Flat Black, to stencil the design to the back of the upper fabric. A few experimental “sprays” onto newspaper made me realise this was intense stuff! So I cut a piece of silk organza, the type used for making silk screens and laid it over the stencil.

This lightened the spray considerably, the resultant coverage is satisfactorily sheer and shadowy, and not so much of an intense thick solid coat of paint on my fabric like it would have been otherwise.

At this point I decided that I quite liked the look of it printed just like this actually! and gave serious thought to dyeing more fabric, printing it like this and making it up as the finished thing; boom done. Hmmm, do I really need two of the same print in my wardrobe?

Maybe not… damn.

I’ve started cutting out my motifs and just lightly sticking them in place to the base fabric. For this I use acrylic glue from Bunnings and just applied the lightest of thin coats of glue to the motifs. I did this using the cut-off finger of an old rubber glove, dipped it with glue, which I then dabbed sparingly onto the back of each motif. It’s not a very secure attachment but it’s not meant to be permanent, just enough to hold them in place, rolled up, until I can get everything stitched on securely.

And then it’s on to the process of stitching and appliquéing! This could take some time, but with a bit of ~~luck~~ dedication and application and doing just a little bit at a time, frequently; my outfit could even be ready for next autumn.

In fact; yes, I think I can do it. I’m better with a deadline and having a definite concrete goal to work towards keeps me on track… soooo I’m making the pledge now!

I AM going to finish this by the end of March, next year.

Now I just have to keep my promise to myself…. fingers crossed!

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, dyeing, printing

raspberry/navy Alabama Chanin tank top

26/03/2015 2:04 am \ 36 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve finally finished my latest Alabama Chanin project…
Below is how it appeared on this blog previously…? (shudder) well, that dress has undergone extensive renovation over the past five months and now at last, I am quite satisfied.

I received loads of fantastic suggestions, thank you so very much to everyone who gave me so much helpful and wonderfully thoughtful advice 🙂 I am very grateful 🙂 *mwah*
The pattern is the fitted top from Alabama Studio Sewing + Style, by Natalie Chanin, and I had modified it slightly by giving it a higher rise at the neckline at CB, which will help keep the straps firmly on my shoulders and not slip off, like they occasionally do in my previous, first version of this pattern. The print is Abbie’s Flower design from the same book, enlarged by hand and printed as described here, and I employed the reverse appliqué method from the book, stitching running stitch around all motifs using crimson Gutermann upholstery thread, and then cutting the printed motifs away to reveal the base layer of fabric underneath.

I really liked Ann’s suggestion to bring some navy into the equation. I bought some royal blue cotton jersey from KnitWit. This was but a starting point; the original blue was a nice colour, but flat and not quite as edgy as I would have liked against the warmth and liveliness of the raspberry. Some dyeing fun was called for. I made haste for the lair and dragged out ye olde dye-pot, mwahahahaha
A short stint in a half-strength bath of iDye in Brown later and it was darkened and deepened up very nicely; transformed it into a very satisfactory shade of mottled dirty-navy.

Hehe, I just re-read that description and had to laugh at how the exact opposite of attractive that colour sounds! well, I do love me some ugly colours, hehe.
The seams are all hand stitched in running stitch, with the occasional backstitch to “stop” the seam, something I learnt to do in hand- stitching quilts; and the seams then felled using running stitch, as per the Alabama Chanin way.

I cut the binding strips for the armholes and neckline from the same dyed navy jersey and hand stitched them down in herringbone stitch using navy blue Gutermann upholstery thread.

A new tip; in my previous Alabama Chanin embroidery forays, I pinned the fabric layers together for the embroidery stage, this time I thought of a better solution. I pinned and basted around all raw edges, then simply ran rough basting lines of long stitches, about 4-5cm apart, right across the pieces using my sewing machine. Quick and dirty, nicely stable, and the long stitches are very easy to pull out as the embroidery progressed. And far better than having to worry if my pins were going to fall out, only to get discovered on the sofa and produced as hard evidence in the Case against Sewing Taking Over the House. Please, take a moment to consider the danger to one’s beloved husband whose bottom came to rest right beside that tiny little pearl-headed pin! not to mention one’s innocent offspring and cute fluffy pets!
Hehe, no need to add further fuel to that particular flame 🙂

My next Alabama Chanin project? already in the works! Fortunately I made my original dress double layered and so I still have quite a good quantity of the raspberry fabric left after cutting this out; and I also dyed enough of the navy so that now a matching, though not identically patterned, skirt is awaiting in the wings to be made, as we speak. Type? Read? One day, someone is going to come with a satisfactory verb for this kind of interaction 😉
Anyway, I am super pleased with my new Alabama Chanin top, and the good thing about that satisfaction is the renewed enthusiasm it brings for me to get on with that skirt quick sticks, to have something else to wear it with. Ever onwards!

Details:
Top; the fitted top from the Alabama Studio Sewing + Style book, hand-dyed, -printed, -embroidered and -stitched in two different colour fabrics
Jeans; the Closet Case patterns Ginger jeans, navy stretch cotton denim, details here

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, dyeing, embroidery, handcrafts, top

2015 plans

10/01/2015 7:47 am \ 30 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello!
I’ve been thinking about my 2015 wardrobe requirements and sewing plans for this year. To be honest I was kinda shocked at the sheer number of things I sewed last year, and not in a good way! It wasn’t lost on me that my favourite projects for last year were also the ones upon which I lavished the most time and thought. So I’m thinking that to slow down, take my time, be more mindful; would be both a rewarding and sensible thing to do. I mean, I have clothes. Quite enough really. But I still want to sew. So it makes sense to concentrate on making fewer, but more individually labour intensive things, with an eye to provenance, longevity and quality of finish.
You know that word of the year thing? I haven’t had one before but it’s a fun concept, yes? Anyway I’m giving it a burl. This year I wish to be more thoughtful in my sewing.
My on-going pledge to abstain from RTW will continue, so there may be a certain amount of maintaining-my-basic-wardrobe kind of sewing happening too, but I still would like to stretch myself with a few new patterns and skills. It would be cool to make a few more Pattern Magic things. And shoes! And some Alabama Chanin sewing, which is definitely an exercise in slow thoughtful sewing!

Also, and in the same vein, last year Nicki of this is moonlight contacted me about participating in her one Year one Outfit project. You can read all about it on her blog; essentially the project involves making for yourself an outfit using all materials sourced and produced locally. Obviously this does not mean simply visiting the local Spotlight store! but at a much more grass roots level. So for me, finding Western Australian farmers and sustainable producers of their own yarns and/or fabrics, and making a high quality outfit using only these. This also pertains to all dyes and finishing touches! The only thing I think maybe we can give ourselves a pass on is thread, since I think the only threads we can get here are Gutermann’s. I’m pretty excited about this project and my brain is already buzzing with opportunities. This one should be quite a challenge!
I’ll just give one clue as to just one of my ideas, contained in an instagram I posted late last year from my friend J’s farm in Cunderdin… 😉

Also;
I was quite inspired by Lauriana and Sue‘s vintage pattern journeys of last year. The vintage sewing pattern pledge is conceived and hosted by Marie of A Stitching Odyssey, and I only wish I’d thought of joining in last year! Whatevs, this year I’m IN.

During 2015, I hope to sew up at least five of my vintage sewing patterns.

So, I shall see how I go! Some of these things might overlap.
Oh, and also this year, I will join in with Anne of Pretty Grievances‘ Jungle January for the first time; it’s in its third year so what took me so long?! and hopefully Zoe‘s Me-Made May, as per usual.
wrt the former; my Jungle January fabric is flapping on the line, drying, as we speak! um, should that be type? read? anyway all I shall reveal for now is that it is totally different from the expected, mwahaha. 😉
To be appearing here, very soon…

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, jungle january, one year one outfit, random life stuff, vintage pattern pledge

raspberry Alabama Chanin tank dress

08/10/2014 5:45 am \ 53 Comments \ Carolyn

I’ve finished a handmade dress. It’s dyed, printed and stitched together entirely by me.
This is a fitted tank dress, the pattern is from the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, by Natalie Chanin. I dyed shocking pink linen jersey knit to fortuitously achieve this rather nice, motley, deep raspberry pink, which I love, and the print is the Abbie’s Flower design from the same book, enlarged by hand and screen-printed in deep burgundy textile paint, all described here.
So. I should be pleased with it, but actually I’m teetering on not. I’m pleased it’s finished, let’s put it that way!
Actually I’m borderline depressed with it. See, I did have grand plans for further handwork and embroidery. Those plans came to nought.
I trialled several different embroidery and even beading ideas but everything I tried just looked awfully heavy-handed The size of my print is quite petite, and it’s also detailed and well defined and more than a bit busy, and so doesn’t really lend itself well to the embellished Alabama Chanin look, I think. Eventually, frustrated, I ceased diddling about, picked everything off, and just sewed it together.
Defeated.
So I was pretty over it even before the poor thing got sewn together. Probably why I shoved it into the cupboard and all but forgot about it until my recent wardrobe spring clean. Hey, new dress! Guess I should wear this thing, hmmm.

The seams are all stitched and felled by hand, and the simple armhole and neckline binding applied with herringbone stitch by hand.

Also, I’m undecided that the tank dress silhouette is very flattering to me. It’s a funny thing really because I totally adore my long AC skirt and matching tank top worn together, a combination which one might argue could pass at a short distance for a tank dress just exactly like this. Somehow having the break between top and skirt is a huge improvement to my eye. As a dress, with a continuous unbroken fall of fabric from shoulder to hem; I dunno, I just don’t like it as much. It’s irrational and I can’t explain it.
This is why I’m probably always going to wear it with a little cardigan, as above.
It’s not out of the question that I’ll refashion this into a separate skirt and top one day. In the meantime I don’t mind it worn over my Metalicus petticoat like this. I’ll see how it goes for a while.
Maybe it’ll grow on me.

Details:
Dress; fitted tank dress from the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design by Natalie Chanin, in linen jersey, hand- dyed, printed and stitched by me
Petticoat; Metalicus
Cardigan; Country Road
Thongs; Havaianas

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, daily outfit, dress, embroidery, handcrafts, Sienna

Mum’s Alabama Chanin skirt

02/08/2014 1:38 pm \ 61 Comments \ Carolyn

I am so glad that Mum brought around her finished Alabama Chanin skirt for me to ooh and ah over; and has allowed me to photograph her wearing it and to show it here on my blog too… thank you so much, Mum!

This is the mid-length skirt from the book, Alabama Studio Sewing + Design, by Natalie Chanin. Mum used a deep blue upper layer over a black lower layer, both cotton jerseys bought in Tessuti’s in Melbourne during our truly fah-bulous Mum/daughter/grand-daughter trip over there together last November.

The upper layer is stencilled with the Anna’s Garden design from the same book, enlarged by 306%, then the two layers are embroidered together using Gutermann’s upholstery thread in a pale grey. The stencilled areas are then cut away in the “reverse appliqué” method to reveal the black under-layer. Mum used a doubled strand of upholstery thread as per the book’s instructions, but found the two strands a pain in the neck to work with; they constantly got twisted up awkwardly together and were subsequently difficult to pull through. Just for comparison sake, I used only a single strand in embroidering my own two pieces.
The surface embroidery is all done by hand of course, and Mum decided to sew the finished pieces together by machine. The waistband is pale grey fold over elastic, also from Tessuti’s.
The stencil was applied to the upper layer in watered-down acrylic house paint using a small foam roller as described here. Since I did the stencilling for Mum I know there is one more piece in the works! and now I’m roolly excited to see that one too! 🙂

Posted in: Uncategorized \ Tagged: alabama chanin, embroidery, handcrafts, Mum, skirt

Further Alabama Chanin-ing

17/05/2014 2:40 am \ 23 Comments \ Carolyn

Hello! I am getting started on my next Alabama Chanin project.
Yes, an authentically executed Alabama Chanin creation is a big time commitment but I really enjoyed making my 3-piece set and it is nice to have a hand-held project to work on slowly, something easily transportable that doesn’t require much space or special equipment or a lot of thought but that you can just pick it up and get on with, a little bit at a time.
I’m using some hot pink jersey knit from my stash, bought in the Fabric Store in Melbourne during one of my trips over there with Mum and Cassie, I’ve forgotten which one now. Probably the previous one, hmmm… Actually, I had pulled this fabric out in the early planning stages of my recent SWAP and marked it as a definite; that was before eyeballing the rest of the long term stash residents that I was keen to sew up and realised that colour-wise, it didn’t fit in at all.
And it still didn’t. Really, hot pink? I don’t know what I was thinking. My current way of thinking wrt my wardrobe is to have it mostly subtly and/or autumnally shaded, and while in theory I like hot pink, in reality I was just like; ah, No.
So, step one; wash, soak and dye the fabric. I used a small shake each of iDye in Brown, Yellow and Chestnut in the dye-pot. Sounds hideous? well I did do a small sample first and thought it a huge improvement. So that was a go. My fabric was a slightly variegated hot pink and became a slightly variegated rusty-purply raspberry.

Cutting and Printing: This is where things got tricky… I received an email recently from Carolyn in Florida, asking about the curl factor of jersey and how did it affect the Alabama Chanin technique. Well, in the case of this particular fabric as can be seen in the photo above, the curl factor was extreme and the edges of my fabric curled up so badly. And they just would not lie flat by themselves. From a screen printing point of view this is disastrous. I wanted to have my screen print go right up to the very edges of the fabric, and so the edges just had to lie as flat as possible. So for a quick and easy fix-it I just used regular household sticky tape to tape just the very edge of the fabric down to my backing newspaper, just inside the seam allowance and immediately prior to printing. Not a pretty or elegant solution, but it worked pretty well!

Printing the fabric seems to have tamed the curl quite a lot too! The seam allowance for Alabama Chanin designs is small, like 5mm or so, so you do need to print right up close to the edge. I’ve found from my first project that I prefer to have my embroidery right up to but preferably not within the seam allowances, though.

I will say; if your fabric does curl very badly I can see the case for printing then cutting out. I do have my reasons for preferring to print after cutting out; reduces waste of expensive printing ink since you’re only printing what you are using: heckuvva lot easier when manipulating the smaller pieces to get a very good placement of print. That last point is my primary reason for doing it this way, and I’m still glad I did cut out first. I guess this is something that the individual will have to decide for themselves when embarking on a project like this 🙂

The Stencil: This time I chose the Abbie’s Flower stencil from the book Alabama Chanin Studio + Design, by Natalie Chanin. I enlarged it by approximately three times using the good ol’-fashioned method of drawing a grid on the design, then drawing a bigger grid on your paper in which you painstakingly copy each little square on the bigger scale. Like we used to use in primary school; from back in the dark ages, before photocopiers. Ha!

I thought the overall motif was still a bit small and my least favourite part of printing is placement of the screen for repeat printings. I mean; if your motif is larger in area then you decrease the number of times you have to re-place the screen on your piece of fabric; and the less placement the better, imo. So I ad-libbed putting more motifs from the Abby’s Flower stencil around about and added in a few random leaves and curlicues of my own too, until my stencil covered the maximum area I could get on my screen.

The embroidery technique I have chosen for this project requires keeping the printed motifs intact in the final garment, so I needed to print the motifs in proper fabric paint instead of the discardable house-paint that I used for my first project. I used Permaset water based Textile Printing Ink from Jacksons, and mixed a deep oxblood red/brown colour using orange, crimson and a bit of green.
My green had a few chunky bits in it that didn’t mix in properly, and I really like the few areas of streaky green that showed up in the screen print. It’s almost a pity that they will be mostly covered up by my embroidery!

My print placement was not perfect: note; it never is! and after I’d finished I noticed a few largish gaps that stood out visually in a not-good way. So the next day I mixed up a teeny bit more paint, cut a new, very small paper stencil of two leaves and carefully printed in a few of these in the gap areas. The design looks quite irregular so I think it worked out very well. They stand out like a sore thumb right now because they are a deeper colour but I’m thinking they’ll probably blend in OK once I get embroidering 🙂