Making of Alabama Chanin dress

First a bit more earthly things, some new mags, the Threads special issue is all about fitting, only skimmed it thru this far, Patrones issue 326, La Mia Boutique which has taken a dip downwards, which is a sad thing because Patrones is really boring these days as is Burda, especially this April issue.

Luckily there is the magnificent Hisako Sato book Drape Drape 3.

Now let's get down to business, these are the three books that have been the great inspiration for so many besides me and the fourth one is the stitching bible from Judith Montano called Elegant Stitches.

 The first Chanin book has two patterns( the corset and the skirt) and four stencils( rose,lace,rooster and bloomers), hope I didn't forget anything, also there are recipes and other craftsy stuff like those awesome flowers made with some metal wire and cotton jersey.

 The second book has a dress pattern that's slightly flared, made from six pieces and princess seams and like the dress in the third book you can chop it for a top pattern or skirt pattern and anything in between, i think that was the only pattern in this book, there are a few stencils here too, medallion, Angie's fall. Recipes in abundance plus how-to's for a bunch of decorative projects.

 The third book is all about the clothes collection, many patterns ( a t-shirt/ bolero, dress/ top/ skirt, hat, fingerless gloves, poncho and a tied wrap. 11 stencils, now is this is generous or what? and if you go to her webpage the's even more. These books are seriously addictive and FDA should put a warning on them.

This pattern comes from the second book and as you can see it's slightly more flared that the next one which is from the third book.

So are you ready? Choose your stencil, pattern, colors or fabrics first,  no matter in which order but these are the four things you must choose before you can start with the paints.

Stencil chosen: Anna's Garden from book #3

A copy of the stencil or the whole book taken to a printer shop and enlarged according to instructions. Bought some heavy paper cardboard and sprayed the printed stencil with glue and attached it to the cardboard, cut away the black print and use as is or buy some crafting felt, attach the cut cardboard stencil with spray adhesive on top of the felt and spray with a an airbrush gun if you happen to have one, there are also spray bottles you can buy if you don't want to invest in airbrush equipment.

Here you see the stencil sprayed on felt, still uncut.

Here you can see the felt partially cut.

Here are some Createx paint's  and some Deka paints, a word about the amounts, the Createx bottles I have are 2 oz or 60 ml, which is just enough to cover a knee length dress in allover stencil, the Deka bottles however are 25ml  but to my experience you can dilute them a little further that the Createx one. 

Createx also has a line called Wicked but I wouldn't use them on cotton jersey, it tends to make the fabric stiff. You have to set both of these paints by ironing. 

Then there are Fabric pens in many different colors, which are good for smaller projects and permanent markers are also a good choise depending on what kind of artwork you want to perform.

Here's my little air-compressor.

..and the airbrush gun, mine comes from Badger and it's really a very basic one. You absolutely must clean your airbrush gun after every use, don't be slack  about this one, I usually have a glass of water on the table where I can dip the brush if I need to refill the little bottle and when you are filled up just take the brush from the glass  shake it up a bit, dry it a little on paper or a piece of rag, start your compressor and spray the remaining water in a rag and paint away.

Here's a picture of the corset top fabric which was painted before cutting the pattern from it, you can see some smudge on the lower right pattern, I just got a little too much spray adhesive on it that's all, so be vary how much the stuff you spray on the back of you stencil.

 I think that next time I'll write about the stitches and stuff like that.

Have a great weekend,

Marita

Pictorial post..

Here are some pix that I promised about two weeks ago, it took me ages to photoshop these, haven't used it for many years, there was a learning curve just to realise what was the first step to take and I didn't do too well, but I hope they will be good enought to look at, LOL:) First comes the cover of Patrones 324. Following a few chosen favorites of my DD.

....and this is the book focusing on the vintage sleepwear etc. The book has patternsheets that you can copy the patterns from.

The Claire Shaeffer-book, which has the accompanying cd, which still is not working :(, so if you happen to have this book, what am I missing? how much goodies is there on the cd, should I try and do something about it?

The shapeshape-book, there's already so many pix from this book in the internet so I just chose a couple one to show.

And here are two pix of the Alabama Chanin corset I'm making for my DD, the bottom fabric is nude, the top fabric is black, the paint is "metallic black" 21-90 from DEKA perm, these paint's are really nice to use and unlike Createx's they don't get too hard when they dry. I've done the sewing with black thread with straight stitch and presently I'm applying the black seed and cut-off pearls on the face of the corset. In the meantime I finished sewing an other Alabama Chanin skirt that I started last fall, the cold weathers came and I kind of drifted away from the project, but it only needs the fold over elastic waist and it will be ready for use. Pix of it will be posted later this spring.

 ( A little note about the airbrushing thing, if you are planning on buying the equipment for that, please consider getting a pretty powerful Air Compressor, don't the cheapest available, I bought Sparmax AC-100, (it cost me 199 euro's) last summer and it just isn't enough, if I need to cover a whole dress with a stencil that's pretty intensively full of pattern, it get's too hot too soon to get the job done.)

Happy sewing week to you all:) Marita