Time to Sew Again 2020

My 2-sprig textile design

from part of a copper batik stamp

I am cleaning up my sewing room, and organizing the fabrics I have on hand for the top 20 or so projects I have in mind. (Of which if I get 2 or 3 made, I'll be very happy.) I want to alter/make a couple of patterns, for a linen tank top to replace the one I used for sleeping for many years. And a linen princess-line tunic to go with my favorite multi-color long skirt, which I plan to embellish with card-weaving (time to get back to doing that too) along the seams. And from that a pattern for linen tunics/dresses with a bodice panel from one of my textile design fabrics. Maybe a Viking costume with card-weaving. . .

I have plenty of fabric on hand, linen and my (and Amy Vail's) textiles, a few pre-washed, for the first few projects. Time to get a washing machine again, once it is possible. Linens are beautiful, soft and strong, but definitely need to be pre-washed several times.

Here's another of the Empire/Regency inspired clothing designs I did several years ago for a Costume History/Fashion History class, using textile designs I did for the project.

Empire-inspired dress design
using my textile designs

It will be fun to get back to doing one of my favorite things. Maybe roses next. . .

Tablet-weaving / Card-weaving

One of my first learning projects, showing how you can make many patterns with one warp setup.

A new thing I researched and learned last year, and wrote an illustrated how-to paper on. And I really fell in love with it. The weaving process can be simple and quick (a few hours or days for a band). Or it can be very complex and time-consuming. I might not tackle those - my strength has always been to learn a simple technique, and then design complex patterns for it. And I am already doing that.

The technique is ancient (at least Roman, Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 1500BCE at Hallstatt, 1100BCE in Italy are recent discoveries), and related to weaving on the warp-weighted loom (which is at least neolithic in age). The woven bands can be very strong, "camel straps", or 1 cm wide delicate silk strips used for headbands (fillets), or clothing borders, sometimes woven-in. 

My enthusiasm for this is encouraging me to get involved again with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), which I have always considered myself part of the community of, and make some clothing. Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 12th century London. . .

But of course, current retro/boho fashions are also the perfect place to wear these decorative bands. Wish I had run across it back in the day.


One of the things I was doing while I wasn't posting. (While I didn't have internet from home)

More Nomad Dress Ideas (Folkwear#107)

Batik-look version of the Nomad Dress

This mock-up version of the Folkwear #107 Afghani Nomad Dress is made from some of my virtual-batik fabric designs at Spoonflower, a print-on-demand fabric designers' site. Although I have tested these 2 designs shown, the Arts and Crafts Deer and Grapes design, and the 2-Sprig design, the deer in quite a few colors, I have not yet made them in the same color, as shown here. This color prints as a deep rich Aquamarine.

 Love Explosion fabrics version of Nomad dress Folkwear#107

This is a more brightly-colored and multi-fabric mock-up, using some of my computer drawn quilting fabric designs. Of these, the hearts and the maple leaves are available, but the Love Explosion and this new color of my 2-Papercuts design I have not yet tried out. But this gives an idea how combining brighter colors would look. The hearts as shown here is a larger version than I tested, I think, but these vector designs can be made any size.

Soon I'll be ready to show the fabrics I'm working on now, derived from the copper batik stamps I just got, and others, which I am making into virtual embroideries instead of virtual batiks, and with textured backgrounds.

Nomad dress ideas

Folkwear #107 Afghani Nomad Dress pattern, using my ideas for Spoonflower "cross-stitch embroidery" fabric designs

 I am thinking of making a Nomad dress from Folkwear pattern #107. Seems like I have always wanted one. But somehow I never noticed this pattern. And here this style is, coming around again.

Back in the day, I would have embroidered  the bodice myself. Today, I am using some of my cross-stitch designs from the '80s to make Spoonflower fabric which I can have printed, and use for parts of the dress.

I'll probably use either fabrics I dye, or lightweight cotton batiks, or both, for most of the dress. Fabric from Spoonflower comes in many weights, but the cross-stitch patterns look best on the linen-cotton canvas, which is heavier than I would use for the whole dress.

To do this version, I need to put those cross-stitch designs on different background colors - I'm thinking of a deep, rich aquamarine which I just tested as a virtual batik. Once I've bought some of the new colors, they will be available for sale too.

Here's a different version, using some of my Decorator Collection coordinates. The bodice and sleeve prints are available for sale now. This one shows the waistband that the pattern has. These vector-drawing patterns can be any size; I'll have to test appropriate sizes for this dress.

Folkwear #107 Nomad dress pattern, another idea using my Decorator collection fabrics at Spoonflower

Sept. 9, 2014 New tjaps today! I captured a couple of my top choices. New virtual embroideries this time, instead of (or in addition to) virtual batiks. Coming soon, with luck. And this time, no chance for the mail carrier to deliver the package to the garbage can so it vanishes!

Empire Inspired Dress Design with my Fabric

Empire-waist dress in Regency Stripe fabric, dark bluegreen

Regency-inspired dresses and fabrics April 2014 (written 4/16/2014)

This spring I was taking a costume history (fashion history) class. And one assignment we had was to design some modern clothing inspired by a historical period.

In the days when I was an active Society for Creative Anachronism member, I designed, drew patterns for, and made 12th century and Renaissance clothes for myself. But for this assignment, I decided to do Empire/Regency inspired designs, since I knew from my long-ago experience that those dresses, if cut right, could be flattering. If not, like the granny dress revival from the 60s, they can look like a sack of potatos tied with a string.

The secret, also mostly not apparently known by the designers of recent empire-waist tops, is that they have to flare from that high waist, not be cut straight.

The fun thing about doing this type of assignment today is the great research possibilities for the historical references. Even the current costume books may have larger color pictures, compared to 20th century ones. But of course, the internet sources are the great difference.

Turns out there are thriving Regency/Jane Austen communities out there, including commercial patterns drawn to re-create real period designs, which have to be worn over period underthings or they won't fit. (No wonder some of the period paintings and drawings, like some by Ingres, don't look right in their proportions. Their stays pushed the bust way, way up.)

But of course, I was doing modern clothes designs, in fact, things I might want to wear myself. And, since my clothes designing has always been fabric-driven, and since textile design is now my passion, first I had to design the fabrics...

Besides some overall prints, I wanted some border prints which might look like embroidery patterns. And I will be making engineered versions which can be placed around curved, flared hems and necklines, as well as straight for on sleeves.

This stripe is not like any period fabric, although maybe it has a little rococo flavor. But I like it on this dress. I designed it smaller, but liked the effect when I stretched it larger to put on the drawing, so I made a larger version of the fabric too. There's a link on the picture to one of the fabric pages at Spoonflower. I will be making one even taller too, and soon this large-scale darker one with a textured background will be available.


**Other versions coming, including border prints which look fairly in period, one based on a vintage copper batik stamp.

And, I'm working on some fabrics to recreate the big surprise I found in my research - shawl dresses in rich colors with deep borders, made from imported Kashmir shawls, or the European copies made in merino wool. Josephine had several. They weren't always wearing those drafty transparent white muslins...

Gorgeous dresses everywhere

I had to look at the Fashion Week shows for spring 2008 for a textiles class. And there are, dresses everywhere, hooray. These costumy Mermaids-in-the-waves are by Zac Posen. What gorgeous hand-painted fabrics!

elle.com is a good place to check them all out. There's a discussion over at Dressaday about some beautiful and wearable dresses by Derek Lam.

But lots of other designers are showing dresses this season, many in great patterned fabrics, others solids including a beautiful indigo.

Take a look at Donna Karan, DKNY, Diane von Furstenberg, Calvin Klein . . . and lots of others. I'll add more names as I find them.

(This picture, unlike all others on this blog, is not mine. Maybe I'll replace it with a drawing soon.)

You never know who someone is in their secret life

I never *got* Halloween. From my medievalist years I had lots of costumes, and loved an opportunity to wear them. But they would always ask what I was. "The Snow Queen? Lady Night?" "Huh? I'm just me. Twelfth century, daughter of a country knight. One new outfit a year. It's part of what I do to make the new clothes for everyone in the household." "Huh?"

Then when I worked outdoors in the nursery, after a couple of years of trailing my (washable tourney) hems through the mud, one year I thought I'd wear this. Easy. Everyday clothes, uniform shirt, and my pierced circlet. I was hoping for some double-takes.

One gentleman customer asked me who I was. "Oh, just me. What I wear everyday. You never know who someone is in their secret life." I'm not sure if he had seen the circlet, or not until I walked away. It's even funnier that way.

Everyone is the hero of their own story.

Wearing wide-sleeved dresses 1

I made a comment over at Dressaday Oct 4 about wide sleeved dresses. I'll reproduce that here, and then elaborate. I was looking for my Photoshopped version of this picture to illustrate. (I had cut it apart to put into an oval frame, and had to Photoshop it back together.) The comment is referring to the great dress by Kit LaCroix, posted at Dressaday, but is appropriate for this one too.

"My experience with wide sleeves is that if they are short and wide like this, they won't be causing many problems (except not fitting into narrow coat sleeves—fold them back over your shoulders). They aren't down to the wrist, so they won't be near enough to get into trouble.

As for long sleeves, the medium width ones are the trouble, whether it's wide cuffs or wide sleeves. If they are about 10 inches wide, they will be trailing in the soup & knocking over wine glasses. I think wide cuffs on tight sleeves might remain a problem no matter how wide too.

But the sleeves which are really wide and open at the wrist, once they get past about 2 feet wide, are caught by the edge of the table and stay out of the way nicely. Three feet or 4 feet wide, trailing down to the ground, no problem. And lots of fun to wear and choose contrasting linings for.

"But", you say, "what about over a campfire, eh? Ah ha, gotcha." Well no, actually, around a campfire, you wind them around your hands and use them as built-in potholders! And if you need to get these longer ones out of the way, fold them open back over your shoulders and tie the ends behind your back, or tuck them in your belt. True documented medieval practice."

I found the wrist-length wide sleeves useful too when practicing foil fencing. If I made the novice's typical wide gestures, instead of the proper narrow turns of the wrist, the sleeve would tell me so by winding around my wrist. (As an aside, for anyone who wishes to fence in a dress, the flare of the skirt needs to be at least 120 inches. Do a full lunge, measure the distance apart of your feet, double that and add more. And, a narrow-at-the-waist but flared-at-the-hem skirt is much easier to move in than one which is just gathered at the waist and straight-cut.)

One summer in Oregon, the coolest thing I owned was a light-weight cotton dress with flared skirts and long pointed sleeves. The day I found myself snapping one of those sleeves for a flyswatter, the way some know how to do with a dishtowel (I don't), I decided I had been living in the dress too long!

Oh yeah, I forgot, that's me in the photo, a long time ago.