autumn splendor

February 4, 2012 by Tien Chiu Leave a Comment

Unsightly veins

Here is the first round of testing on the leaves, using chiffon over peau de soie and chiffon over china silk, with hand-painted veins on the leaves:

I don’t like the veins. They are painted in gold on purple and gold on dark red; the rightmost leaf is also outlined in gold. (Click to see the larger version.) The high contrast between gold and purple/red breaks up the color and is visually distracting – it’s hard to see it’s a leaf! The lower leaves, which have much lower contrast, are visually interesting but not overwhelmingly so.

This suggests to me that I do not want a strong pattern or value contrast in the leaves, which narrows the options considerably. I think I will wind up using chiffon over a patterned background; the chiffon will tone down the pattern, making it subtle, but hopefully still visible. (I like to reward the close-up viewer as well as the one who sees it from 30 feet away.) I will use embroidery in a closely related color for the veins.

Since I am not going to my guild meeting after all (was out way too late at a party last night and am too tired this morning to drive 40 miles to San Francisco), I expect to do a lot of dyeing, construction, and surface design experiments today.

Stay tuned for further developments!

February 3, 2012 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Looking at leaves

I finished the garment hem yesterday, but am waiting to see Sharon before putting in the sleeve lining and the lining hems. The only thing that’s left is the leaves and the embroidery! so I am playing with leaves again.

There are so many options! I am playing around with fabric combinations, dyes, paints, and some fine gold wire (for stiffening the leaves). Questions that need to be settled include:

What fabric(s) to use in each leaf?
What colors of fabric?
What surface design techniques to add detail? (dyeing, painting, silkscreening, etc.)
What embellishments, if any, on the leaves?
How to finish the leaf edges? Wired edges for a sculpted leaf, or not?
What colors, fibers, etc. for the embroidery swirls?

At the moment I am leaning towards using iridescent chiffon over a solid colored background, but I have some lovely orange/red iridescent peau de soie that is too pretty not to use. Of course it’s a trifle too light, but if I zigzag machine-stitch a border around the leaf and scrunch-overdye it in spots with a dark red dye, then…

…well, you get the idea. I think I am going to try to settle the fabric first, then the colors, then the construction of the leaf. After that I will tackle surface design.

So far the combination I like best is a purple chiffon over dark purple china silk, painted with skeletal veins in metallic gold fabric paint. I have a gorgeous iridescent yellow/orange chiffon which I am trying to find a use for; unfortunately, it’s very close to the garment fabric in color, so it’s not really suitable as it stands. I also have some lovely iridescent chiffon in root beer shades (also probably not suitable, but I’m trying) and another piece of dark red chiffon. The last one is the most promising, but I need to dye some duppioni silk or peau de soie in a compatible color to check.

My plan for Saturday afternoon (I’m already booked Friday evening and Saturday morning, unfortunately) is to dye lots of small swatches of fabric in various autumn shades – peau de soie, shantung silk, china silk, organza, and chiffon. Since I only need a 3″x3″ swatch for a leaf, and since no two leaves will be alike, I can make lots of samples with only a little bit of fabric. I plan to test solid colors and scrunch-dyed colors, though I think solid colors are probably best, since the rest of the garment is quite “busy”.

Once I’ve decided what fabric and color combination to use, I’ll have to figure out construction. I think I basically have two choices: sew a leaf together in two or more layers and then turn it inside-out, or overcast the leaf edges, either zigzagging over them with a sewing machine or doing a similar edging by hand. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach – at the moment I’m leaning towards overcasting the edge, because I think it will allow more detailing on the edge and because it makes it easy to apply wire to the edges, shaping the leaf into three dimensions.

And then, after I work out construction, it will be time to figure out how to add details to the leaf. This is where it gets really wild. I have a HUGE collection of surface design toys, most of which I’m not really familiar with. Do I pull out the mix-your-own-textile-paints-from-scratch kit that I’ve been dying to play with? Or fire up the Thermofax machine for the first time? Do I experiment with stitched shibori? Or do I do something quick and simple with fabric paint and a brush? What about hand-carved stamps and stencils? Silkscreening?

Anyway, as you can see, I’m awash in options, but since I have only really got about 24 hours (Saturday afternoon to Sunday afternoon) to work on this, I better settle things quickly. Time to get cracking!

January 31, 2012 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

On the edge

The leaf dilemma is on hold until this weekend, when I’ll have time to play with surface design (painting, dyeing, etc. is messy, so best done outdoors on the weekend). Tentatively, I’m thinking I will add one very small drifting leaf so the two drifting leaves bracket the center rather than having a single central leaf.

I thought I’d share with you what I’m currently doing, which is binding the raw edge of the jacket hem. This is the same approach I took with the wedding-coat – it produces a nice neat edge, although a time-consuming one. (The fabric is thick enough that I won’t simply double over the hem and stitch; it would leave a bulky line that would show after pressing.)

Step 1: cut strips of your edge-binding fabric on the bias. I used a lightweight china silk and cut the strips 2″ wide, which was way overkill: 1″ would have done just as nicely. Join the strips into a single long strip, longer than the hem of your garment.

Step 2: sew your edge-binding fabric to the jacket, right sides together, with a 1/4″ seam allowance. Trim the seam allowance after sewing to 1/8″, or the minimum possible to avoid raveling (on thicker, coarser fabrics it will probably be more than 1/8″). The width of the seam allowance will be the width of your bound edge.

The fabric should now look like this:

edge, machine stitched and trimmed to 1/8"

Step 3: flip the china silk to the wrong side, and prick stitch the china silk down. The prick stitch is essentially a backstitch that is only 1 thread wide on the “right” side of the fabric. So it is invisible from the front.

Here’s a pic of the back side of the prick-stitched china silk:

prick-stitched edge, on the private side

And here is what it looks like on the “right” side: a nice neat bound edge. Notice you don’t see any stitches, even though the thread doesn’ t quite match! That’s because on the top side, only one thread gets caught.

In this case the bound edge is 1/8″ wide, the width to which I trimmed my seam allowances. I love this edge because it looks so neat and perfect. It is time consuming, though, since you have to hand-stitch with tiny backstitches all along the edge. But, for a couture garment, who cares about time?

The next step, after I finish binding the edge, is to put a bias-cut piece of china silk into the hem and catchstitch it down three times: once above the hem, to attach the silk to the body of the cloth, once at the top of the hem, to attach the silk to the hem, and once at the midpoint of the hem, to strengthen the attachment to the hem and keep it flat. This will also be time-consuming, but will result in a perfect hem with no visible marks. If I attached the hem allowance to the body of the garment, it would pull at the body, making the hem more visible, especially in such a lightweight fabric. (In a heavier fabric, like what I used for Kodachrome, you could probably get away with it.) Adding the catchstitched silk gives it a bit more flexibility and give, making the hem less visible.

I expect the hems to take most of the rest of the week – after I finish the binding and catchstitching, I will need to do the lining hem. This one will be simpler, probably just double-folding the charmeuse and pressing. It’s a lighter-weight fabric, so that should be fine.

My goal is to get the hems done this week, the leaves done over the weekend, and the sleeve linings set in next week. That will finish off Autumn Splendor nicely before the photo shoot on Sunday the 12th – and if it isn’t quite done, that’s OK so long as all the visible sections are complete! I will be having hair and makeup done for the shoot as well – a nice little treat with which to celebrate the finish.

Sue asked for my marmalade recipe. It’s nothing special, an adaptation of the marmalade recipe on the back of the box of pectin. I scrubbed the lemons, then quartered them and chopped them into small slices. I packed the bits into a glass measuring cup, and when I had about 5.5 cups of chopped lemon (the amount specified on the box), I added just enough water to cover, and dumped it into the pan. Then I added 4 cups of sugar, as specified in the recipe, and a little more water and more sugar to taste. (The flavor will be quite bitter before adding sugar, but will become palatable as you add more sugar.) Simmered for about 10 minutes, then mixed the pectin with some sugar to prevent lumping, and dumped it in, stirring quickly. Then I put it into hot, sterile (=boiled in water) canning jars and sealed with a boiling-water bath for 10 minutes. Ta-daa!

January 29, 2012 by Tien Chiu 4 Comments

Final configuration

Having slept on it for two days, I’ve decided that I like the three-leaf cluster at the shoulder and the one leaf falling. I’m going to stick with it, and spend at least part of today playing around with surface design to make the leaves more interesting.

Here is what I have chosen for colors and sizes (the orange leaf is actually darker, about the orange of the light panel at the waistline – the camera flash washed it out):

Color-wise, the three leaves at top are drawn from the rest of the piece, specifically: light panel at waist, dark panel at shoulder, and dark panel at hip. This helps draw the piece together. The falling leaf is one of the only colors that hasn’t been used in the three-leaf cluster, the plum from the dark panel at waistline. Again, it echoes the dark panel and helps draw the piece together.

I like the shapes of the leaves in the cluster; the single falling leaf will be a different fabric and a different shape. Most likely either peau de soie, silk duppioni, or either of those covered with a scrunch-dyed silk chiffon. I’m deliberately choosing stiffer fabrics that will hold their shape; I want them to stand up from the fabric slightly, given a little bit of three-dimensionality without attracting so much attention as to dominate.

I am still debating the color of the embroidery swirls (not shown in photo). I need them to be visible from 20 feet (because it is a runway garment) but I also don’t want to make them heavy-looking; they need to look like wind blowing. I am thinking of adding a little gold paint and/or metallic gold embroidery to the leaves; perhaps I’ll use one strand of orange embroidery floss and either a transparent or a gold sparkle thread for the swirls. The sparkle thread will add interest close up, the embroidery floss will be visible from a distance. I need to test various threads, leaves, etc. before deciding.

January 28, 2012 by Tien Chiu 1 Comment

Six years today

Today is the sixth anniversary of our first date! and B. and I are celebrating by going to La Fondue, a lovely romantic restaurant in Saratoga. I’m so glad I met him; I love him stupendously, and a little more every day. It’s been a wonderful six years, and I’m looking forward to many more.

In Autumn Splendor news, last night I finished basting the seamlines, basted the lining together, and sewed the lining seams. This morning I removed all the basting and pressed the seams – no mean feat since the lining is silk charmeuse, which is temperamental, sensitive, and wriggly! – and clipped where needed. I’m now at the point of sewing lining to garment, but first I need to review the garment and make any necessary tweaks, since it will be much harder to adjust the garment once the lining is in.

I’m trying to get as much done as possible before I go see Sharon; I need her advice on the final bits, like the lining hems and setting the lining into the sleeves. To do that, I have to get most of the lining in. Fortunately I still have six hours before I drive up to her place, which should be plenty of time to press it and slipstitch the lining in.

T minus 18 days to the Convergence entry deadline! I really need to crank on this.