Photography by Tracey Hogan
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Julien Dress
Dress made by Tracey
Pattern, Draped on a Dress Form during a Workshop with Julien Cristofoli
Fabric, Striped Shirting from Mood Fabrics
Photography by Santiago Vanegas
After about 500 years on my dress form and sewing table, this dress is finally on ME! What a long time coming! Let me start at the beginning. When I began sewing, I knew that the skill that I wanted to learn most of all was draping a garment on a dress form. In fact, the entire reason that I stumbled on to Susan Khalje’s website was because I was searching for a draping class. At the time that I first found Susan, her website stated that there were no draping classes scheduled but to check back later. I went ahead and signed up for one of Susan’s jacket workshops instead which turned out to be WONDERFUL. (You can see the results of two jacket workshops here and here.) But I was still obsessed with draping, so I went looking for someone local who could come to my house and teach me to drape, and I found Lindsey. But she taught pattern making, so we scheduled those classes instead. I learned so much from her and you can see the results here and here. But guess what, I STILL wanted to drape a garment! So, on to Plan C. I figured I’d go to the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD). Well, that was an exercise in patience while dealing with a bureaucracy. It turns out that since I have a masters degree, I couldn’t enroll as an undergraduate and I wasn’t qualified enough to enroll as a graduate student since I’m relatively new to sewing. Finally we figured out that I could get around all of that by enrolling as a non-degree student, but I couldn’t just go straight into draping, I had to take Fashion Tech first. You can see the results of that class here.
Picture this, my second semester at SCAD, and I enroll FINALLY in my first draping class. Hallelujah!! First day of class, I’m early, and I’m a complete and total geek with all my school supplies all ready to go. I’m sitting there. And I’m sitting there some more. I check the time. Someone else should be here by now, right?! Fifteen minutes in to my class time and I’m still the only one there. Turns out that I’m not the brown nosing teacher’s pet. I’m just the dumb ass in my 40s that doesn’t know to check my SCAD email (who even knew I had a SCAD email?!) to find out class was cancelled.
Plan D. What IS Plan D? I was out of ideas. And that’s about the time that I was checking out Susan’s website again (I am probably her most frequent visitor because I just like to look at her workshop schedule and daydream about taking every single one) and what?!……there it is, Draping Workshops with Julien Cristofoli are now scheduled. He’s coming! From Paris! I think that I emailed Susan and called her too. I probably confirmed my place at least 5,000 times. I sent in my deposit immediately. Then I obsessed over what natural disaster would occur to keep me from getting to Baltimore to learn from the master. And yes, when the time came, my flight was cancelled, but I jumped in the car and drove through torrential rain. And incidentally, it rained so much in Baltimore that an entire sidewalk slid off into ditch. It made the national news.
But I made it there. And Julien made it. I really don’t have the words to truly describe the joy I felt watching and learning from him. Julien is a lovely person, and the elegance and grace he has while draping really has to be experienced. This dress I’m showing you today is something that I started in Julien’s workshop for Tops (not Dresses). I had been short on fabric for a few of the previous exercises so I overcompensated with a lot of extra fabric, and my top turned into a dress instead. (I draped the back on my own, once I got home. It took me forever to work up the courage to try it by myself.) I can’t take credit for the choice of fabric. While we were draping, Julien casually mentioned how a stripe might look nice because you could really see how the fabric was shifting, and I seized on that idea and I used that idea. And it was a really good idea.
As I write this, I now have two workshops with Julien under my belt. At some point very soon, you will get to see the product from my second workshop with him. And guess what happened during my second workshop. The Baltimore Riots. We haven’t been able to figure out if I am bad luck for Baltimore or if Julien is. But whenever he comes back, I will definitely be there. So brace yourself, we don’t know what’s coming!
To see time lapse videos of our photo shoot and to hear about Santiago’s photography process, be sure to check out Facebook page.
Take care, everyone. See you soon.
Summertime Blues
I needed to change things up a bit. Do something different. I’ve played around with fabric dyeing in the past and figured it was time to give it another try. I pulled out my copy of Mandy Southan’s book, Shibori Designs and Techniques and zeroed in on the spiderweb binding.
Using almost a whole spool of Button Craft thread, I bound 4 yards of slightly damp cotton batiste. I kept a squirt bottle nearby to keep the fabric damp as I worked. It took me a good long while to do the whole piece of fabric!
But as you can see, I had good company as I worked. This is Ringo. Helper #1.
Here’s helper #2. She did a great job of mixing the indigo without splashing it everywhere! She was prepared, with her swimsuit and apron on.
While the fabric is in the dye bath, it turns this sickly green color. This is always the point that I start to get nervous. After spending hours binding the fabric, I say a little prayer that I haven’t just ruined it in the dye.
As the fabric oxidizes, it begins to turn from green to blue. It takes about 20 minutes to complete the process.
Okay, so I’m less worried now, because at least it’s a pretty blue color. But now I get to sweat out whether or not I bound the fabric well enough to get the glorious spiderweb motifs.
Success!! It took almost as long to cut out the binding as it did to put it in, but it’s so much fun to see the big reveal.
And here you go, the final product. I cannot wait to make something out of it. I have a good idea about what I’m going to do, and hopefully I can whip it up sooner rather than later.
I didn’t want to leave you without showing you a finished garment, so I pulled out some old pictures of the first time I tried indigo dyeing. The technique I used is also explained in my Shibori book. It’s a simpler binding technique that uses garbanzo beans and rubber bands. Although I have to say that I prefer the spiderweb binding technique. Using thread is much easier on your fingers than twisting up about a million rubber bands.
I also did some accordion folding on smaller pieces.
Here it is, after I cut out the rubber bands and gave it a good rinse.
And the finished pencil skirt!! I made this in the summer of 2012 during a class that I took at SCAD. We had to make a standard size, so sadly it doesn’t fit me. A picture on the dress form is the best I can do.
And since I had some fabric left over, I used it to jazz up a blazer that I made for the same class. The blazer doesn’t fit me either. 🙁
(The photography for this post was done by me, unless I’m in the picture. In that case, the image was probably taken by my daughter.)
That’s it for now. Hope everyone is having a great summer.
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