After two big Christmas pieces, I’ve been taking it a bit easy this year (so far) and haven’t done much more than a couple of simple wardrobe refashions by way of battery recharging. But the pile of UFOs from the cloth-to-cloth course have been nagging at me every time I went into the studi-attic-o, begging to be picked up and worked through to completion. There’s a pair that go together, and want some friends to join them to make a quilt …. but having just finished one quilt I can’t contemplate starting another straight away – too much emotional energy required that I simply don’t have yet.
But I loved this little chiffon piece, with the silk circles woven in, and as I was looking at it last week, it occurred to me that it could become a great skirt.
On its own, this is far too small to be even the skimpiest of minis (even if that was my look, which it most definitely is not!), so I’ve woven another panel in the same two chiffon fabrics to extend it …. together they give me enough width (and length) to put a skirt together … fortunately I’ve got enough of the silk left to weave circles into this second piece as well …. I’ve not decided about the final stitching down yet, but I think it will have to be fairly light … I’m thinking whites, silvers, pale shimmering greens, and possibly floral in some way, to make the circles part of a coherent whole – not sure yet.
I like that it’s just kind of evolving as I go along, and I like just going with the flow on it, and letting the cloth speak to me and tell me what it needs.
I’m kind of winging the whole process, not really using a single pattern, but picking up elements from patterns I’ve used before AND my lovely Sew What – Skirts (Francesca Den Hartog) for getting dimensions and angles right.
I like a low waistline, more of a hipster than a waist really, so I’ve cannibalised the remnants of an old soft-brown suede jacket (leftovers from Honey’s ‘Susan’ costume a couple of years ago, and proof that nothin in stash ever goes to waste) to make quite a broad hip waistband. It’s going to need interfacing, and I think I’m going to reinforce it with another piece of fabric on the inside, just to offset the natural stretch/sag in the suede ….
I’m still dithering, too, about the hem …. I worry that too neat of a hem will spoil the overall effect, so I’m wondering about scalloping the edges … but that could (WILL!) be a total nightmare with all those strips of chiffon.
It occurs to me, too, that I’ll have to be careful where I wear it, since it’s going to be a nightmare to clean, should an accident occur to it. Gah! Why do I always think of that too late ….
Ah well … the process continues – let’s see where we end up!
I’m particularly pleased that I got ‘The Poetics of Space’, as I’ve been wanting to read it for a while now.
– I’m going to have to think of something else to do with them.
