Fiber Musings

Random thoughts of a fiber enthusiast - mostly fiber related, sometimes coherent

Category: Sew Page 6 of 9

Vest

By

On 3 Mar, 2013

In FO, Sew

JSVest

Minor variations from the standard Jumpstart Vest:

  • piping along the front band
  • bias shoulder band (instead of band a la front band).

I would like to add that the entire vest was made from stash. The fabric was woven in January for this project from yarn in stash. The lining is silk charmeuse, also from scratch. Once I got to this point, I got stubborn and used thread from stash as well. I had to resort to a brown for tacking down the lining because I didn’t have anything in the right eggplant-y purple.

Finished several weeks ago but just got around to photographing and posting.

I finally got around to photographing some of the finished items sitting around. They will be posted over the course of the next few days as a way of extending blog fodder.

It’s a wrap!

By

On 6 Jul, 2012

In FO, Sew, Weave

First trim attempt (aka sample)

Here’s the tubular to flat trim from the inkle on the previous post. I wove exactly to the length I measured, plus 1/2″ on both the tubular and the flat portion. Unfortunately, even though my measurements accounted for take-up on the loom, it didn’t account for the take up while tacking it onto the sketchbook cover. I ended up about 1″ short.

Back to the loom. Since I had only spun a small amount of the dark red in the stripe of the trim. I had used up all I had on hand.

Yes, I could have carded/blended more of that silk and spun it up. I just didn’t want to wait the extra day that it would take from start to setting the twist and waiting for the new threads to dry. So, I warped on again with just plain blue purple.

This time, I started with the flat ribbon portion of the trim and wove it to the length of the sketchbook plus 1.5″, then I wove the tubular piping until I ran out of warp. This ensured that I had enough to go all the way around the sketchbook.

I also made the flat ribbon portion a bit wider by not pulling the weft taut. This is harder to keep a clean edge but it had a better drape. The first ribbon was very firmly woven.

Specs: 20 ends woven on the Palmer Inkle Loom with spindle spun tussah silk of unknown origin. Finished length is approx. 61″, which maxed out the mini loom.

Here is the finished sketchbook, in all her glory. The third time is definitely the charm. (Version 1: submitted to CNCH Gallery. Version 2: added stabilizer to the back of the handwoven fabric.)

Revision #1

By

On 2 Jul, 2012

In Sew, Weave

As I said at the bottom of this post, I wasn’t happy with the sketchbook cover I submitted for the CNCH Return of the Return to Sender. Then it won a ribbon. Darn. Now what do I do? Do I mess about with a ribboned item?

After a month of looking at it and thinking about it, I realized that ribbon or not, I wasn’t going to be happy with it in its current state. Therefore, the likelihood of me using it was close to nil.

What was wrong with it? The fabric moved around too much which meant the sketchbook would move around while I sketch in it.

Yesterday, I picked out the hem stitches and fused a medium weight interfacing to the back of the woven fabric as well as the inside flap fabric.

I really like the stiffness of the cover now. I don’t feel like the sketchbook is slip sliding around inside the cover now. Unfortunately, the extra bulk makes it very very snug. So snug that I really had to work to put it back on the sketchbook.

I gave the cover a few extra jets of steam with the sketchbook in place and let it rest overnight. The ease feels better this morning. I’ll leave it as it for a few days before I decide whether to swap out the stabilizer to a lighter weight one or not.

My current thinking is, if I like the weight and the stability of the fabric, then it should stay. After all, how often would I be switching out the sketchbook? Once a year? How often will I be holding the sketchbook in my hands? Hopefully, daily.

In the meantime, I have some spindle spun tussah silk threads drying. It will go on the little inkle loom this week and woven into an trim for the sketchbook cover. Does the cover need it? With the new stabilizer, probably not. I’ll decide after the trim is woven and attached if it stays or not.

Stay tuned.

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