Posting Elsewhere

My life has changed in a dramatic way.  Last summer, an opportunity arose to buy a fabric store on Bainbridge Island.  After much thought, and some trepidation, I did it.  Now that I am working hard to make the store a success, and to get my feet under me as I get to know the store and its customers, I have less time to blog about my personal creative designs.  I will now be blogging under the store website.  So, if you have interest, please follow me to Esther's Fabrics.

Stitching a Life

In going through blogs that I read, one had a link to this lovely video about the women of Sardinia.  If you are interested in embroidery and slow cloth you should watch this short video.  I found it inspiring as I stitch embellishments on my skirts made from men's clothing.  I stitched beads on last night, today I will applique.

Enjoy this video.



Desula from Andrea Pecora on Vimeo.

Why I Sew My Own Clothes and Clothing for Others

Three years ago, a building in Bangladesh that housed a garment factory collapsed killing more that 1,100 people.  With all of the publicity many people vowed to change the way they shopped.  Although, it is hard to say whether or not much in the industry has changed.  You can read about three years after the disaster in the article "Three Years After Rana Plaza, Has Anything Changed?"

One quote in the article really hit home was about the environmental impact of our clothing choices.

"...the clothing industry has been cited as the world’s second biggest polluter after oil. Its businesses churn out clothes at an alarming rate — Americans now buy five-times as much clothing as they did in 1980. According to the WWF, it takes up to 2,700 litres of water to produce the cotton needed to make a single t-shirt. And many simply go to waste: in the US alone, 10.5 million tonnes of clothing is sent to landfills each year..."

-The Business of Fashion

 Yikes!!!  I will repeat, "It takes 700 gallons of water to produce the cotton needed to make 1 t-shirt!" It takes a front load machine between 15 and 30 gallons to wash one load depending on how full the washer is.  Plus, now we have to think about the pesticides in the cotton.  For conventionally grown cotton, it takes about 3 ounces of pesticides for a 9 ounce t-shirt.

So in addition to the working conditions that the workers have to endure for our cheap clothes, we also need to think about the raw materials that are used to make the clothing.

I have been thinking about these ideas for a while, but I have not really acted upon them in my sewing.  Yes, I rarely if ever use polyester which we know takes a really long time to degrade, but I have not spent a lot of time figuring out where the fabrics come from, or what their impact on the environment is.  It is not an easy task to undertake.  There is not a huge amount of information on impact.  However, I did find one report that was helpful.  According to the Stockholm Environmental Institute, it takes almost 10,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of cotton, whereas hemp requires only about 2,400 liters of water per kilogram.  Plus, it has half the CO2 emisions that cotton does.  The harder question is hemp or linen better.  The only thing I have been able to learn is that you can get twice as much fabric per plot of hemp than of linen, but not good numbers.

As a result of this research, I have decided to try hemp.  I have ordered several yard to try.  I have also ordered organic cotton because it is hard to get reasonably priced lining fabrics unless you use organic cotton muslin.  I will be hand dyeing these fabrics at home using as little water as I can, and will eventually move to using natural dyes.  However, right now I will be using low impact procion dyes.

In the meantime, I am using up the stash of fabrics that I have as I move to a more environmentally sourced fabrics.  As I have done with my vests and coats, most of the fabric I use is found in second hand shops.  However, it is getting harder to find good quality fabric in these shops.  More and more of the fabric I find contains polyester, or is low quality.  In the transition to moving to more environmentally sourced fabric I am now trying to use up my stash of fabrics that I have collected through the years of sewing.  Here are the new skirts that I have designed which will help me use up my stash.  I designed the pattern which is a cross between a straight skirt and an a-line.  I don't really like a-line skirts, but I know most people look better in an a-line, so I have taken a straight skirt moulange, then lowered the waist, added some flare in the skirt bottom, but half as much as normal for an a-line.

The waist band is my one nod to a fabric that is not environmentally friendly.  I have used fabric with lycra in it to give a little ease in the waist.  It sits just above the hips, but below the waist.  I have found a design that sits here gives the wearer more leeway in weight changes.  I have been able to wear skirts using this design through my ups and downs in weight changes as opposed to ones that sit very low on my hips which fall off when I am at a lower weight or ones that fit around my waist which get too tight when I put on a few pounds.  I decided that it would be better to use something not quite an environmental if it allows the skirt to be worn a much longer time.  I also added pockets because everyone loves pockets!  I hope this design will become a favorite that will get lots of wear.

Each skirt is lined and is zipped up the back.  They are really comfortable and are good fun to wear in the summer with sandals or a pair of tennis shoes, or you can wear tights or leggings and wear them into the fall.  I am in the midst of putting together several of these skirts from my stash of fabric.  

Here is another in oranges and browns.

This skirt is harder to show in a flattering way as it doesn't fit on my dressform so I pinned it to the hangar, but it looks lovely on and is shown in a size Large.  It is also lined and has great pockets.

I will continue to sew these skirts for the next few weeks.  Then I will turn to dyeing fabric and making shirts, and finally to vests.  I am getting ready for the next Bainbridge Island Studio Tour.  If you are in the Seattle area, come by and see all of the lovely pieces for sale around the island.

A Long Hiatus

It has been a long while since I have posted.  One excuse I have come up with is that my son has taken our camera.  He is taking photography in high school and has the camera most days.  Also, after the studio tour, I think I was a bit burned out from sewing so many clothes.  The holidays came up quickly and then next thing I know it was spring.

My husband and I were invited on a special trip to Southeast Asia, so I spend most of February and March renovating my wardrobe.  I spend most of my time in jeans and equestrian gear, plus since moving to the Seattle area, I have not needed hot weather clothing.  So, I remade two pairs of linen pants, sewed a pair of light denim pants, made a sleeveless shirt, and several other pieces for dinners out.  In between remaking my wardrobe, I took a class on pattern drafting.  It was really fun, and I learned a lot.  My patterns have definitely improved since taking the class.

Now that we are home, I am looking toward the August Bainbridge Island studio tour.  I sent in my application late last night, and now I have to get sewing on some new pieces for the summer tour.  I have decided to put less handwork on them, so I can have a broader range of pricing on the clothes.  However, I will still have a few pieces with lots of handwork.

Here are the photos I submitted for this year's tour.

This is the back of a jacket made from a men's cashmere jacket.  I mixed it with some Italian wool that I had stashed for a few years for a coat.  The back is appliqued with pieces from the leftover fabric that I had when I cut the coat into a more feminine form.  This coat is a L/XL in sizing.

This tunic is made from men's linen/cotton trousers.  I lined it with the purple fabric which shows on the collar.  The front and the back panels are handstitched with color circles to echo the fabric used at the waist.  This tunic is in a size XS.  It looks great over leggings.

This shirt is a new piece that I made for my trip.  It is a longer shirt/tunic with high cut slits on the side seams that can be worn over pants or leggings.  This shirt is reversible with a beautiful cotton lawn on the reverse side.  The blue raindrop side is hand-dyed with a subtle ombre, and the raindrops are machine appliqued and then handstitiched.  The raindrops go all the way around the bottom of the shirt.  This is my own personal shirt that I made just to test the pattern and see how people liked it.  I have gotten positive response from this design.  I am now pursuing some ecofriendly fiber that can be hand-dyed.  As always for all of my designs, the applique pieces will be different on every shirt.  Because of the labor involved in making the design reversible, I think most will be made as regular shirts, not reversible, but if anyone is interested of course I can always make a reversible shirt.

This is a short tulip jacket that I made last year.   It is a mix of several different fabrics and embellished with a Laura Foster Nicholson ribbon in the front.  The main jacket is made from a khaki twill, and is quite heavy, the same weight as a heavy denim.  This one-of-a-kind jacket is sized XS, but can be made larger.  Due to the labor in this jacket, unless there is interest, I will not make many more of these.

Here is the back of the jacket.  It has a faux corset look in the back.   I love this fun jacket.  I think I might try making one out of denim.  It would be a fun look.

On my to do list: Cleaning

I have been weaving this week.  I wanted to get a couple of tapestries off my loom in hopes of submitting them for a show, but I am unhappy with the way they look right now.  I am not sure if I will submit them at this point.  In the meantime, I guess I need to clean my studio.

Who can be creative in this mess?  This is mess left from sewing my coats and vests for the studio tour in August.  

After the brilliant, blue summer we have had, it is back to the northwest weather.  Although, it has been so dry this summer, I am sure the plants are very happy to have some rain.  Good day for cleaning!  Here is today's "view" of Seattle.

A break from sewing

I have been taking a break from sewing.  I worked really hard to finish several pieces for the studio tour on Bainbridge Island, but then the end of the summer came.  I had been ignoring my children a bit, so we did some things together and then got them ready to go back to school.

School has been in session a bit over a month now, and I still haven't cleaned out my studio, but soon...maybe.  In the meantime, I have been weaving a bit to give myself a break from sewing.  If you are interested, you can see what I have been weaving.

I finished another vest a couple of weeks ago.  The floral material for this vest came through a gift.  The fabric is a wool cotton blend, and was part of a Laura Ashley dress from the 80's.  The original color was beige, so I dyed it a cobalt blue.  I thought the color came out beautiful, and really updated the fabric.  I then selected a denim colored cotton to complement it.

You can see in the photo above, I embroidered the plain fabric on the sides with a flower to mimic the flower in the print.  

Because several people at the studio tour asked about reversibility of my vests, I decided to make this one reversible.  The fabric inside is a textured fabric.  I thought the vest came out beautifully.  Hope you enjoy the pictures.

Also, just wanted to say thank you to Heather for including my comments on CraftLit and putting a link on her blog to this one.  If you have not listened to Craftlit, you should head on over and check out her podcasts.  I love listening to the books she selects, always classics, many I somehow never got around to reading.  I especially enjoyed Dickens' Bleak House, not so bleak, and with wonderful characters.  I really miss listening to that one.

Best Summer Cake EVER!

I love to bake, but my pies and scones are my specialty.  My cookies used to be good until we moved to Seattle.  Not sure why, but every cookie I have made here has been sawdust.

However, I just made the best cake EVER, in my life.  We had a bunch of plums from my CSA at the farmer's market.  They were a bit overripe for eating, but I couldn't throw them out and wasn't up for making jam.  I searched and found:

Plum Tatin!

This bit of heaven has a tender vanilla cake covered by sweet/tart plums.  I used Ina Garten's recipe with a couple of minor changes.  I used my 9 inch cast iron skillet.  Made the sugar and water syrup in that, then placed the plums in the skillet, covered it with the cake batter and baked.

It came easily out of the pan onto the plate.  Can't eat it all right away?  No worries, just wrap it up and put it in the refrigerator.   Cut a slice, microwave for 13-15 seconds and eat.  Still amazingly delicious after two days, especially with french roast coffee.  Now that I am all sugared up, I have to get sewing!