Stitch Exchange: Boro Inspired Stowe Bag

Posted by Kristine Vejar on November 17, 2016 0 Comments

In 2001, I worked for the Textile Museum in Washington D.C. and was exposed to some of the most beautiful textiles in the world. It was a never-ending journey of discovering new textiles, the techniques used to make them, and about the people who made the textiles and the places around the world where they were made. My world grew exponentially.

One day, I came to work and a new exhibition had opened: Japanese Fisherman's Coats of the Awaji Island. Along the gallery walls, twenty-two indigo-dyed coats hung. Along the surface of the coats were intricate patterns of geometric designs hand-stitched with white cotton thread. They were absolutely gorgeous. As with most textiles, there are three concepts working as one: form, function, and beauty. The coats were made of multiple layers of fabric, to keep the fisherman warm and dry. They were held together with the stitching. And the patterns stitched upon the cloth added beauty and elegance to the jacket. These intricately stitched patterns are known as sashiko. I immediately wanted to know more about sashiko and as I began my research I ran into another amazing Japanese textile tradition called boro.

Before getting into Boro, we have to go backwards before we can forwards, and we must look at indigo. At the root of both the sashiko and boro traditions lies indigo dyed cloth. Indigo is a blue dye derived from an indigo-bearing plant. There are hundreds of varieties of plants which create indigo pigment, though there are only a handful of plants which create enough indigo pigment to warrant the labor and time intensive process of extracting the pigment from the plant. Indigo is planted in March, harvested multiple times throughout the Summer, amassing, to begin the composting process through the Fall and Winter, and can finally be used the following Spring to dye through a fermentation process. 

Indigo is believed to have come to Japan sometime in the 5th century from China. At first, indigo was only used by royalty. As advancements in agricultural production occurred and the indigo dyeing process became more streamlined, indigo dyed fabric became available to the masses and was revered. Before farming and manufacturing was mechanized, as it currently is, cloth and clothing was highly revered. It was common to own only a few pieces of clothing and for this clothing to be patched as needed. For those who were very poor, it was common to take indigo-dyed fabric scraps and rags and to use them to patch their clothing. Sometimes the clothing had so many patches, the clothing began to look like patchwork. This raw style became its own genre of textiles called boro which means ragged in Japanese. Today, these textiles in their immediacy are thought of as poetic and are highly sought after.

From the moment we, at Verb, laid eyes upon the Stowe Bag sewing pattern (by Grainline Studio and Fringe Association) - we've been smitten. We always love a good project bag - and this is certainly one of the best around. Hint: It has internal pockets.

The pattern has two sizes, and here we've sewn the small version.

Taking inspiration from the Japanese traditions of sashiko and boro, we created our rendition of the Stowe Bag - and have made a kit for you to create your very own interpretation.

Before you start your kit, you may want to peruse two Pinterest pages I created to get your creative juices flowing: sashiko and boro.  

The Boro Inspired Stowe Bag Kit includes one of our very favorite lines of fabric we carry at Verb: cloth created with organic US cotton - from cotton breeder Sally Fox (from who we also source the wool used in our Pioneer yarn line). We adore this fabric because of the cotton it is made from, because it is organic, and because it has a beautiful hand. For the main fabric we chose cloth which the weft is natural brown cotton (yes, it grows in that color on the plant) and the warp is white in the case of the sand kit, and dyed blue in the cases of the blue kits. Then, in order to create the patchwork style for the Boro-esque design, I indigo dyed fabric in our Oakland studio. Each kit includes two pieces of indigo dyed cloth. The kit also includes white sashiko thread and sashiko needles so you can create your own sashiko-inspired patterns.

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Tasa, our sewing teacher at Verb, sewed the blue sample shown in these photos. I asked Tasa a few questions about her process, here are her responses:

1. Do you have tips or tricks you would like to share with readers who are interested in making this project?

Tasa: Read through the pattern before starting. Be precise when cutting.

2. I noticed the Stowe Bag is unfinished inside, though yours is finished. How did you finish the inside of your bag?

Tasa: For the side of the bag that is 2 fabrics, I sewed them together using a flat fell seam before I cut out that panel. If you cut out each side of the panel and then sew it together remember to add seam allowance.

I sewed the side seams with a flat fell seam and I applied a leftover scrap of bias to the bottom seam when I sewed it.

For the bias, I cut strips @1.5", sewed them at 3/8", folded them to the inside of the bag, and slip-stitched by hand to finish.

3. How did you decide on the placement of your fabrics?

Tasa: I looked at the pieces I had and thought about how I wanted the finished bag to look. I also wanted some of the lighter color on the inside of the bag because it is MUCH easier to see what is inside your bag if the inside isn't all black!

4. If you were to do it over again, what changes might you make? (I am thinking primarily of alterations in stitch pattern or placement of fabric).

Tasa: I really like how the fabric placement turned out. I like the stitching, it might be the kind of thing where I would add more as time goes by. 

5. When did you add your sashiko stitches?

Tasa: The very last thing I did was the stitching.

Tasa is teaching a Stowe Bag class in December, sign-up here. 

To purchase a kit, click here. 

This kit is a limited edition due to the fact that we are almost out of this beautiful fabric and we are unsure if we will be able to create more.

We want to see your version! Please tag your Instagram photos #stowebag and #stowemeetsboro, and mention @avfkw @fringesupplyco @grainlinestudio so we'll all be sure to see!

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Stitch Exchange: Dye-It-Yourself Eco-Printed Table Linens

Posted by Kristine Vejar on November 10, 2016 0 Comments

Announcing our newest natural dyeing kit: Dye-It-Yourself Eco-Printed Table Linens. 

Dye your very own set of table linens using California botanicals - like eucalyptus leaves and marigolds. These table linens will add a special handmade touch to your holiday table. And are also very easy and fun to make!

In this kit, you receive:
+ 4 Fog Linen placemats (100% linen)
+ 4 Fog Linen napkins (100% linen)
+ 1 spool of button and craft thread
+ Mordant
+ Eucalyptus leaves and marigolds

To complete this kit, you will need:
+ Scissors
+ Bucket
+ 1 stainless steel pot (approximately 5 quart)
+ Spoon

INSTRUCTIONS  

Before we begin to eco-print and dye, it is important to take the first two steps to take to ensure good results: Step 1 washing and Step 2 mordanting.

1. Wash the table linens using laundry soap (without bleach) and hot water in your washing machine. You do not need to dry them.

2. Fill a bucket with water. Add pre-measured mordant to the bucket. And stir. Add the table linens. Stir. Let rest for 6 hours. Rinse.

3. Place one of the washed and mordanted napkins (or placemats) on a clean, flat surface. Place leaves and flowers on the napkin in a design of your choice. Fold to envelope the leaves and flowers.

4. Roll as tightly as possible into a bundle.

5. Wrap the bundle tightly with button and craft thread.

6. Fill a pot with water. Place the bundles into the water. Heat to 180-200 degrees for at least one hour. Marigolds impart color upon the cloth faster than eucalyptus leaves. If your design includes the leaves, for the best color, heat for at least 2-3 hours. There are times I have left my dyepot for 8 hours in order to draw out as much color as possible. If I do this, I make sure to check on the pot every so often and add more water.

7. Allow the bundles to cool. Once cool, remove the thread, unwrap the bundle, remove the plant materials, and admire your results!

8. Rinse with cool water and dry.

Now these are ready for your next Fall dinner party! Need ideas for what to cook? Here is one of my favorite cooking blogs. 

If you would like to learn about more plants which have great dyeing potential, and have access to a plethora of natural dyeing recipes, pick up a copy of my book, The Modern Natural Dyer.

-- Kristine

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Stitch Exchange: Draft a Boxy Tee with Cal Patch!

Posted by AVFKW Staff on October 24, 2016 4 Comments

We love Cal Patch! Cal comes out to visit us in California from her home in the Hudson Valley, and has taught many drafting and sewing classes at Verb and other venues. We’ve made dresses, shirts, leggings, you name it! Drafting patterns is her area of expertise - so for Slow Fashion October, we thought we’d collaborate with her to create a tutorial on how to draft and sew your own boxy tee.

Here at Verb, we also love indigo. For this project, we dyed several types of fabric in a variety of shades for Cal to work with. The final shirt includes Nani Iro polka dots in a medium indigo shade, Antwerp linen in a light indigo shade, a herringbone / stripe linen in a medium indigo shade, and Antwerp linen that we dyed a light shade, then clamped with round blocks, and dyed a dark shade of indigo.

You can create your own garment with any type of light to medium weight woven fabric, but if you’d like to try indigo dyeing your own, we have an indigo dyeing kit available on our website, as well as a la carte indigo supplies. You can select from a wide range of our dyeable fabric (including the Nani Iro & Antwerp linen from above) to go into your indigo vat. Part of the joy of this project is using smaller scraps - so aim to have at least 1.5 yards of fabric in a variety of textures. By combining different fabrics, dyeing techniques, and shades, you can greatly personalize your own experience. Using multiple shades of indigo results in beautiful layers with lots of depth.

CAL’S TUTORIAL
Cal says:

I’ve been drawn to boxy, pieced-together woven shirts for a while, and they are super easy to make! This is a perfect intro to pattern-drafting if you’ve been wanting to dip your toe in the water, and the sewing couldn’t be simpler. And this basic t-shirt shape makes a lovely “blank canvas” pattern to use as a foundation for all sorts of techniques: piecing, quilting, embroidering, dyeing, eco-printing… and of course you can combine and layer the treatments to create the most special garments.

We all have fat quarters or other smallish cuts of precious fabrics, too small to use for garments - until now! I’m excited to play around with different seam placements and piecing together many of the smaller scraps of fabric I have lying around, and place some of those treasured morsels front and center. I sketched up a few ideas to try out, but I’m sure you can come up with lots more!

In drafting the pattern, we’ll need to remember that woven fabrics generally have little or no stretch, so we’ll allow plenty of ease, both for slipping the tee on over your head, and ease of motion while wearing it. We’ll also have to use a neckline with a gentle scoop so that it’s big enough to go over the head; if you really want a higher “jewel” neck, you’ll need to add a keyhole opening to put it on (we just posted a tutorial here!).

TOOLS
+ Paper for drafting
+ Pencil, eraser and sharpener
+ Ruler (18” x 2” clear sewing ruler is best)
+ Tape measure
+ Paper scissors
+ Clear tape
+ Basic sewing kit: Fabric shears, pins, marking tool, seam ripper

MATERIALS
+ About 1 1/2 yards total of woven fabric, though this can made up of smaller pieces of a few different fabrics, and is also dependent upon the actual measurements of your pattern
+ Thread to match

TAKE YOUR MEASUREMENTS
First we’ll need to take a few measurements. Jot these down in a notebook, and then I’ll explain each one as we measure it: Length, Bust, Hip / Hem Circumference, Neck Width, Neck Drop, Shoulder / Sleeve Length, and Sleeve Opening. It’s best to do this in front of a mirror so that you can see your tape measure while standing up straight.

LENGTH: Hold the tape measure at High Shoulder Point (the point at which your neck meets your shoulder, abbreviated HSP) and let it drop straight down. Decide where you want the hemline of the shirt to sit on your body.

BUST, HIP / HEM: Next, measure your bust, and your hip at the spot you chose for the Length of your tee. For a truly boxy shirt, the bust and hip must be the same, so choose whichever is bigger. I would add about 15-20% ease to this number (remember, you need to be able to slip this on).

NECK WIDTH: Look in the mirror and hold the tape measure taut in front of your neck. Gauge how wide you’d like the neckline. You should be measuring straight; the curve will come later.

NECK DROP: Then measure from HSP straight down to how low you want the neckline to scoop at Center Front, without angling the tape.

SHOULDER / SLEEVE LENGTH: We are going to keep this tee short-sleeved, with sleeves that are cut in one piece with the body. So for the Shoulder/Sleeve Length, determine where you’d like your sleeves to end, hold your arm straight out, and measure from there to CF.

SLEEVE OPENING: Finally, you’ll need to measure around your bicep, and add at least 20-25% ease, for the sleeve opening.

That’s all of your measurements; we just need to divide some of the horizontal ones by 2 or 4 to draft the pattern. Divide your Bust and Hip/Hem Circumferences by 4. Divide your Neck Width and Sleeve Opening by 2. These are the final numbers that you’ll use for each measurement as you make the pattern, so when I refer to them henceforth, I mean the resulting numbers after dividing by 4 or 2. I like to circle those in my notebook for easy reference! [Note: your Shoulder/Sleeve Length must be at least 1” longer than your Bust/Hip/Hem after it’s divided by 4. If it’s not, just add an inch to the Hip/Hem and use that.]

DRAFT YOUR PATTERN
Ok, we’re ready to draft: You’ll need a piece of paper that’s at least 3” longer than your Length measurement, and at least 2” wider than your Shoulder/Sleeve Length. Be sure the left-side edge of the paper is perfectly straight, or make it so. Designate this edge as Center Front (CF). All of your marks will be drafted from CF. Near the top edge of the paper, make a mark on CF about an inch down. From that mark, measure down your Length measurement, and make another mark. The top mark will become your Shoulder/Sleeve Line. From the shoulder mark, draw a line, perpendicular to CF, that measures your Shoulder/Sleeve length. The bottom mark will become your Hip/Hem line. From that mark, draw a perpendicular line that measures your Hip/Hem Circumference.

For a better fit, let’s add some slope to the Shoulder/Sleeve Line. Mark your neck width (over from CF) on the shoulder line. From the outer tip of the shoulder line, measure down 2” for the slope. Connect this point to the neck width point, resulting in a newly sloped Shoulder/Sleeve Line.

Now you’ll draft the sleeve. From the end point of your new (sloped) Shoulder/Sleeve Line, draw a line straight down (parallel to CF) that measures your Sleeve Opening. Draw a short line an inch or two long, back toward CF, which is the Underarm Line. From the end of the Hip/Hem Line, draw a side seam line straight up (parallel to CF) to intersect with the Underarm Line. Then blend the corner where the underarm seam meets the side seam into a nice gentle curve.

Next, draw the front neckline. Plot the Neck Drop on CF, measuring down from the shoulder. Draw a line, connecting the Neck Drop to the Shoulder Point with a smooth curve, which begins perpendicular to CF at the Neck Drop point, and meets the shoulder seam at a 90-degree angle as well. Draw in a back neckline as well, with a higher neck drop of about 2” or so.

At this point the basic shape of the pattern is finished; you could add your seam allowance and call it a day. But this is also the time to get playful and draw in some piecing seam lines. I drew a vertical seam line, parallel to CF and about 2” over from the neckline (toward the armhole). I’m also a huge fan of pockets, so I added a horizontal line in the side panel, halfway between the armhole and hem, which I used to draft a pocket pattern, but could also be simply a seam.

DRAFT THE POCKET
Measure the rectangle of your pocket section. Double both the length and the width measurements, and add 1” to each for seam allowance. Draft a rectangle with those measurements and that’s your pocket pattern piece.

ADD SEAM ALLOWANCE + LABEL
Add ½” seam allowance to the shoulder, side seams, and armholes, ¼” to the front and back necklines, and a full 1” of hem allowance to the hem. You can either cut the pattern apart on the piecing seam line, and add seam allowance by taping paper onto each side, or do what I did and draw 2 more lines, ½” to either side of the line. By folding on these lines, you’ll be able to use each part of the pattern separately and it will have the seam allowance built in.

Feel free to add other piecing seam lines with the same method. Or pre-piece some fabric together first and then cut out the pattern from that. Use up all of those smaller pieces you have lurking in your stash!

Label the pattern pieces with names and cutting instructions:
+ Front + Back center panels: Cut one of each on fold
+ Side panels: Cut four
+ Pockets: Cut two

Note: As with any newly-drafted pattern, it’s advisable to cut and sew a muslin to test your fit and fine-tune the pattern before cutting into your final fabric. Especially important is to make sure you added enough ease to pull the shirt on over your head! Assuming you’ve done that, and made any corrections to the pattern, we’re now ready to make the final version.

SEW YOUR SHIRT
Cut out your pieces. Make ½” single-fold bias tape, or get some pre-made. You’ll need enough to go around the neckline, though you could use it to finish the armholes also.

1. Trim ½” of hem allowance off the side panels, because they’ll be sewn to the pockets, not hemmed.

2. French seam the shoulder seams of each set of side panels:

+ With wrong sides together, sew a scant ¼” seam.

+ Trim, press and flip so right sides are now together, then sew a true ¼” seam.

3. Hem the armholes with a ¼” double-turned hem.

4. French seam the side seams, as in step 1.

5. Pockets:

+ Fold one pocket piece in half, top to bottom, with wrong sides together, and pin. Baste the 3 open sides together at ¼” from the raw edges.

+ French seam the bottom edge of the pocket to the bottom edge of side panel.

+ Fold up pocket to right side of side panel and baste along both sides.

6. French seam front center panel to back center panel at shoulder seams, as in step 1.

7. Hem front + back center panels along bottom edges, with ½” double-turned hems.

8. French seam side panels to center panels, matching shoulder seams, as in step 1.

9. Finish the neckline with a bias-tape facing:

+ Starting at one shoulder seam, leave an extra 1/2” of tape unpinned, then pin tape, right-side down, to right side of neckline, with one folded edge opened up so raw edges are aligned. Continue pinning tape around neckline, being careful not to pull it snug.

+ Leave an extra ½” unpinned at the end as well, and cut tape (the two ends will meet and touch at the shoulder seam, and then the two extra ½” tabs stick up in the air).

+ Sew around the neckline in the crease of the unfolded tape, starting and stopping at the shoulder seam but not overlapping the tabs. Then sew across the tabs to join them with a short seam. Trim seam allowance of tabs to ¼” and angle the corners. Finger-press the tiny seam open.

+ Fold the tape over and down to wrong side of neckline. Pin in place and sew along the lower folded edge of tape.

We hope you’ve enjoyed Cal’s tutorial! If you need some help, the following are great resources:

+ Kristine's Indigo Dyeing Tutorial on Creativebug
+ Kristine's book, The Modern Natural Dyer, (including indigo dyeing instructions)
+ Our Waves Bandana indigo dye kit
+ Our a la carte indigo vat supplies
+ Cal Patch's Seam Finishes & Pattern Drafting on Creativebug
+ Cal's book, Design-It Yourself Clothes: Patternmaking Simplified

Happy dyeing, drafting, & sewing!

-- Sarah + Cal

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