clothing and Saori weaving

February was gloomy and I wove this fabric I named "beach" dreaming of the warm sunny sand . I though to design maybe a summer tunic.

Over the last several weeks I have been draping and drawing and considering designs for my 11+ yards of cotton , rayon, linen fabric. ALTHOUGH I liked many styles , I may use them for other pieces, I was convinced that they  would  just hang around and never be worn or rarely if that.

Even the skirt and top I draped, when I tried them on they still felt fussy, heavy.
So now I was at the" less is more" stage. I asked my self what do i love and want? I love jumpers, you can wear knit shirts, or shells under them, and leggings , or to cover up a bathing suit .So I went  to sketch  something I would actually wear to in teach in and enjoy wearing to the summer farmers market.

I had two frayed, faded summer dresses I had made several year ago . I took things from each of them that I liked. I like front and back seams, more options to add a little fit. keeping the lines simple but a nice style for the saori  woven design patterns to emerge with out screaming look at this. type of thing.

So  I cut out from old cotton fabric scrapes my  new design. added some center front pleats for bodice definition   basted and fit it then used that as muslin for my pattern.

I felt that release of okay that's it, "go for it"

My hand woven saori fabric ended up about 18" wide. I needed to piece the lower dress skirt for the flair so I cut the fabric into smaller sections and sewed the width in those areas that need them . Arranging the  weaving  patterns  in a way i though would be attractive with the cut of the jumper .

more construction details  here

my old faded and stained favorite summer dresses

I wanted a combination of these two styles I made several years ago

i want to mention although i have two very good sergers I do not use them for saori hand woven. The textured yarns and uneven weave tends to throw off the cutting blade deflecting the the stitching  and then the edges do not get  caught and are cut off. I use the zig zag stitch which stabilizes  the fraying nicely. I do not get two hung up on covering seams or linings unless I am entering a show.

I used commercial seam binding as facings . Sewed them down by hand to give the neck line and and arm openings strength and integrity.

The bit of fabric with the fringe in tact I saved then  I appliqued over another scrap and left the edges raw with a straight stitch to keep them from further raveling. This became a set of double pockets placed asymmetrically on the dress.

I was about to sew the hem when i realized I wanted a unstructured hem and to pick up on the frayed pocket theme I decided to leave the  hem RAW and sew a single line just to keep the fabric from future fraying.

It was late afternoon..... no time to drive to the beach today but hear are photos I took last evening till I get to the beach with my saori beach warp dress and camera in tow.

peaceful weaving

jill nickolene

www.saorisantacruz.com

my Etsy shop