Sunday, September 23, 2012

The Sewing Lawyer in her natural habitat

Working on V8804.

In other news, I cleaned up my sewing room.  In part this consisted of bowing to the inevitable (I have too much fabric) and buying new plastic storage bins.  But I also moved many large cumbersome items out of the sewing room (small, crowded) and into the newly vacated room next door.  I'm hoping to get a handle on it all before it too becomes hopelessly crowded with stuff.

I'm liking being able to see the floor again.

But the most exciting thing is, I've fixed on how to trim my jacket.  I found the perfect yarn to fabricate my own trim.

This stuff is just amazing - it's made from shredded silk sari fabric, which is then spun somewhat haphazardly into this wild, hairy twist of glorious, vibrant colour.

Before finding it, I was toying with the idea of a single strip of fuchsia velvet ribbon.  Which, despite the colour, would have been rather restrained.  I was considering trying to ruche it or something, but I wasn't very enthusiastic.


When I saw the recycled sari yarn, I figured the fuchsia velvet ribbon could be incorporated into a rustic crocheted trim.  I tried weaving it through a chain.                                                  

Ummm no.

Then I tried adding a strip of single crochet down one side.

No again.


Then I tried a firmer chain (had to go out and buy a new fat crochet hook for the purpose).

Ah, yes, I think this may be it.

Hoping you agree!

9 comments:

  1. Great pic---looks like you're in the zone.Good deal on the sewing room clean up! I just did the same today & felt a surge of creativity, now that I'm not tripping over fabric piles! LOL! Your jacket is looking great and I love the yarn you picked. Can't wait to see the finished garment:)

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  2. Gorgeous yarn and perfect for your jacket. It's definitely better than any of your other pics. I am thinking closer to the edge? and maybe double the strands. I think it needs to be a little wider.

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  3. This look fabulous. One of the techniques I noticed when visiting a Chanel boutique lately (albeit RTW), was that they used one strand of yard like this to zig zag attach it onto the jacket.....sort of like this - where the dashes are the trim and the slashes is the threaded (I used a darning or needlepoint needle) to zig-zag across the trim. The thing that made it work was that the zig-zagging was excruciatingly correct - very exact and perfect with each stitch being the same width and length. It came off beautifully. One of my students did this for her jacket and it looked really great!


    \ /\ /\
    \ / \ / \
    - - - \ - - - - - / - - - -\ - - - - -/- - - - \- -
    - - - - \- - - -/ - - - - -\- - - -/ - - - - - -\- -
    \ / \ / \
    \/ \/ \


    Well, dang I can't make this work - if you have Notepad or something copy this into notepad and it will come out looking right - considering it's ASCII code!!!!

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  4. Love the yarn.
    I know what you mean about cleaning up the sewing room. I miss my floor. sniff

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  5. Gorgeous! I actually liked the first option, but the crochet chain on its own is definitely the winner.

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  6. Love your work. I, too, have tried the velvet through a chain thing and stopped after two feet when the velvet kept twisting. Meanwhile I had a lot of good reaction when I trimmed a Vogue Chanel jacket with varieties of trebled yard combined with gold embroidery thread to mimic the weave of the jacket. I just tied all the yarn to the bedpost and plaited for yards and yards. Worked out quite well and I used this method for custom trim on two jackets. You can find a photo of the jacket under "Inkstain" on sewingpatternreview.
    http://sewing.patternreview.com/review/pattern/46745
    Bestest,
    Chanel No.6

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  7. Oh, Kay, I think the sari-yarn is perfect! And congrats on getting the sewing room cleaned--I do think most of us are more creative when our surroundings are devoid of clutter, which I think distracts even if one isn't necessarily 'bothered' by clutter.

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  8. I DO agree. I always prefer the handmade trims on Chaenel jackets . Those glossy rayon braids leave me cold . Well done .

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  9. Hola! Acabo de descubrir tu blog y quiero felicitarte por tu trabajo. Me gustan especialmente las chaquetas que haces. Son sencillamente perfectas!
    Un saludo desde España.

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