New Alabama Chanin Collection! Nude is not a color.

**************Update October 18, 2014***************

The use of "Nude" as a color descriptor at Alabama Chanin has changed. The new color is "Ballet". I am not sure when the change occurred, but I am glad to see that it has happened.

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When I originally  saw the new Alabama Chanin Collection I loved it. This post originally raved about it with photos and praise. I later spent more time looking at the collection and reading the descriptions.
 

                             

                            
                     

The Magdalena Gustav coat is one of the many garments "available and shown here in 'nude'". It is rather disappointing to see such a narrow color description. After a week of supportive Civil Rights Movement and MLK posts in their journal, this racially exclusive description saddens me. It put a pin in my  earlier enthusiasm about the collection. This is not a universally nude color and seeing it described there as such makes me feel like these garments are not meant for me, a person of color.  When that is added to the price, it further draws a line under who these designs are for. Perhaps simply calling it beige, sand, taupe, light toast, might be less insensitive? I wonder how a Caucasian person would feel to see a chocolate brown dress coded as "nude".

I am not one to throw stones and hide. So, I optimistically wrote the company, and hoped that they will make a change to this descriptor. After an insufficient response from a staffer, I sent a follow-up message and finally received a detailed follow-up message from Natalie Chanin herself who acknowledged the inappropriate name, but has no plans to correct it based on the way business works. The specifics of her response were surprisingly dismissive and hurtful. It broke my heart.

Based on her response I wrote a detailed explanation of why I am pulling my support for the company (something she invited me to do). It included references from my graduate education in Conflict Analysis and Resolution and my years as an Equal Employment Opportunity, Sexual Harassment Investigator. It touched on white privilege, institutionalized racism and personal responsibility to change things.  In the end, I decided not to post it. It is unnecessary to intellectualize concepts that should be so basic. My response to it all is to simply say: I will no longer support this company. We have vastly different views on the appropriate response to racial bias and exclusion.  

I am very proud of the work I have done to this point using their patterns and stencils; I have learned much.  I have a hard time however, "loving my thread" and investing extensive time and money in this company moving forward.  I will not direct my hard earned money to a company that devalues my essence. You may not see me, but I see you. Luckily for those of us who enjoy hand-sewing, there are many other patterns, stencils and sources of fabric from which to choose.

Happy (inclusive, sensitive, considerate) Sewing,

Bianca

Beading Woes and Wins in my Anna's Garden Poncho

Oh the troubles of beading an Alabama Chanin piece. The dilemma comes from finding a needle that is large enough to accommodate the thickness of the button and craft thread but narrow enough to fit through the bugle and seed beads. In the past I have found needles that work but I lost the package and didn't know what type they were  when I needed to replace them. 

I did some research and asked around on Craftsy for suggestions for good needles. I got suggestions for big eye needles. 

They have a collapsible eye and a narrow body to fit the beads. These work great in that they accommodated the button and craft thread easily, however because they were so flimsy they would bend and made the process very slow going. 

I then switched to the Sullivan's beading needles. They were thin enough to accommodate the seed beads but the eye was too small. I ended up using another needle to enlarge the eye and it worked for a time. The problem with this needle though was that going through the layers of jersey fabric, over time it would begin to arc and bend. This made for a slow process is well forcing me to stitch one running stitch and bead at a time.

I asked Dr. Fun what type of needles she was using and she pointed me in the direction of the Dritz Milliners needles. When I went to the fabric store though I forgot if she said embroidery or milliners. So, after debating for quite a while, I decided to go with the embroidery needles because the eye was  larger and the body of the needle is really narrow. I figured if I got it wrong I'd be back at the store if I needed to replace them.

Turns out the size 5 embroidery needle was perfect!  The steel is firm and the needle is short so it allows me to be easily work through the fabric without the needle arcing.  This needle allowed me to stitch a beaded back-stitch as opposed to a single running stitch every time.  It is hard to explain the difference, but in the time it took me to do one shape with the wobbly needles I was able to complete three shapes with the firmer needle.

My husband put some compression sewing gloves  in my Christmas stocking.

Compression Glove with double-sided tape as my beading glove.

I put them, and my needles too good use on my new poncho. With this poncho, I used a tan top layer stenciled with brown airbrush paint using the Anna's garden stencil and a white under layer. I used three types of beads in color combinations of white, silver,  and clear iridescence.

 

My label on scrap jersey.

I chose to use reverse applique in random shapes while leaving some shapes unstitched and unbeaded. 

Front on my custom dress form

Back

I am sure to return to this piece over time, adding more beads and stitches. For now, I am happy with it. 

Happy Sewing,

Bianca

Alabama Chanin Long Paisley Dress WIP

Now that I have completed my Anna's Garden Short Dress I am ready to move onto another Alabama Chanin project. Next up on my list is this long paisley dress from Alabama Studio Sewing and Design. I fell in love with it the first time I saw it, but at $2800 it is out of my reach. I knew I had to make it when I had an occasion to wear it. I have two weddings this year, one in March and one in July. I hope to have this one done for March.

This will be a daunting task as this is a fully embellished dress. I am hopeful that  because it is a large format stencil it will go quickly. I made my paisley stencil in a process I explain here. For this project, I made it with three sheets of pennant felt because I wanted the airbrush process to go faster.

Stencil ready for airbrushing

Dress laid out

My trigger airbrush.

I recently upgraded my airbrush to this trigger model.  I love this mechanism with the lower pull trigger. My former top pull model made my finger cramp when I sprayed for too long. I find I spray faster and smoother with this new one.

 

Covering the already stenciled parts.

In the photo above, you can see that I used the mail box and felt sheet to cover the already airbrushed portion of the dress. By covering the previously stenciled area I can get really close to the painted areas without large gaps. The top layer is a tan jersey and the lower layer is also a similar tan with a bit more white in it.

One of four panels 

The stitching has begun.

So, I am chugging along and will keep you posted on how it goes.

Happy Sewing!

My Alabama Chanin Short Fitted Tank Dress is Complete!

I HAVE FINISHED MY ANNA'S GARDEN DRESS!

Since Competing this dress, I have pulled my support of the Alabama Chanin company. The contents of this post were true at the time. I am very proud of the work I did on this dress. I guess it is like the way you love your children after a divorce. I have entered it in the Sew Stylish Spring Fashion Challenge. Here is a photo of me in the dress for my entry:

I can hardly believe I hand-embellished and-stitched this entire dress! I feel like I did after delivering my kids, glad I embarked on the journey, thrilled with the result, physically and emotionally exhausted and fairly certain I will not consider taking on the task again for a least a year! This has been quite a journey which I have written about here. I have also written a detailed pattern review here.

Front

Back

Cretan Stitch on neckline and arms.

My custom dress label

My label says,"This hand-sewn garment was made with love and care just for you. It took FOREVER to make so please cherish it as long. Hand wash, dry flat, medium iron." :)

I would love to know what you think!

Happy New Year and Happy Sewing!

Pressing Forward on my Alabama Chanin Anna's Garden Dress!

I am so excited to be making significant progress on my Alabama Chanin Anna's Garden negative reverse applique dress. Inspired by this dress:

                  

I started hand-stitching this four panel dress in February when I got my new airbrush and Anna's Garden stencil.

 

I enthusiastically began stitching the panels every chance I got. I took it with me to appointments, on drives, to the gym, wherever  I went; I could not stop working on it. That was the way it was for a good part of the year. I was making great progress until one day someone said something to me that made me change my perspective on this one. It was a benign observation that eluded me until they mentioned it. It was not a bad comment in itself, but it just took the wind out of my sails. 

It was not a conscious decision to stop working on this, but it fell by the wayside while I worked on many other things. It was bought back into my focus by Dr. Fun who is making a full length dress in the Anna's Garden stencil for Mardi Gras. Her dress is going to be beautiful and I cannot wait to see it completed. She lit the fire under me again to get stitching. 

Back in August I had half of the dress stitched and wrote about it here.

B.I.R.A Wearing half of the dress

Now, after renewed inspiration, I am making tremendous progress. Here is where I am today:
 

Front Completely Hand-stitched

Back still a work in progress

Stitch Details. I decided to keep some of the white paint in my version.

Getting There

Underside stitching

Though I love this, I am on the fence about keeping this dress for myself or selling it to help fund my Alabama Studio Week (if interested, email me). If I keep it, I hope to have it completed by my birthday in January. I am also hoping to have a place to wear it by then. :) 

Happy Sewing,
Bianca

Alabama Chanin Bloomers T-Shirt

Back in August I made an Alabama Chanin Bloomers stencil with the intention of making a t-shirt and a four panel skirt.  My design plan led me to airbrush navy blue cotton jersey using white paint and use black cotton jersey as the backing fabric.

Painting skirt panels.

Skirt and shirt panels.

T-shirt all painted.

Summer stitching by the pool.

 I decided to stitch using the reverse applique technique with the knots exposed  and thread tails visible. 

All stitched and painted areas cut away.

I hand-stitched the front and back panels together per the instructions in the book (from memory at this point).  I felled the seems to the inside and bound the neckline using a beaded parallel stitch. I added three seed beads to each stitch and stitched it using a single strand of button and craft thread.

Beaded Parallel Stitch 

Completed Top on B.I.R.A

I am happy to have completed this top and I am steadily working on the four panel skirt to go with it. I will update when it is all done. I am not sure how long that will be as I am stitching away on a dress, and a beaded paisley top.

Happy Sewing, 
Bianca

Beaded Neckline Maxi Dress in the Alabama Chanin Style

As I have said before, I love sewing retro patterns. I especially like imagining them in the Alabama Chanin style. I inherited my mother's pattern collection and she had many great patterns from the 1960's and 1970's. She made some of them and others she had not. I feel a responsibility create some of the garments she did not have an opportunity to create. 
There is a Vintage Contest over on Pattern Review that was a perfect chance to sew retro with an A.C. twist. I dove into my pattern cabinet and found this Vogue Americana/Carol Horn pattern. It is a high fitted and flared dress in mid-knee or evening length. It has a u-neckline, cut-away square armholes, pockets in side seams and princess seaming and top stitched details.

I love a good maxi dress and decided to make this one in  a double layer of blue cotton jersey. This meant I would not need the dress faced so I omitted those pieces. My pattern is a size 10. My size in this pattern and given that I am using jersey, should be a pattern size 8. I chose to omit the zipper and stitch the dress with a 1-inch seam allowance to account for the stretch in the cotton and adjust the size down.

I knew I would sew this in the A.C. style but given the extensive length of the seams I opted to machine sew the interior seams. I lengthened my stitch to the longest possible and used a knit needle. This adjustment solved any wavy fabric problems I might have encountered otherwise.  I felled the seams to the inside of the dress and I used white button and craft thread to hand-sew the top-stitching. I also used my leather thimble to help with getting through the layers of fabric in the top-stitching. I found it much easier to do the top-stitching on the seams when the dress was flat. I sewed all but one side seam together, did the top-stitching, then stitched the final seam to close the dress. 

Top-stitching seams while flat

In keeping with the A. C. style, I used bias strips of jersey to bind the neckline and armholes using a parallel stitch. I used seed and bugle beads to embellish the neckline in the parallel stitch as well.
My handy dandy beading glove was perfect for this. I alternated between a small seed bead, a bugle bead, then a seed bead.  I am struggling to find the correct needle size to fit the interior circumference of the bead and will accommodate the thickness of the button and craft thread. I found a needle thin enough to fit the beads, but I had to enlarge the eye of the needle. The needle was so thin it bent as it went through the four layers of fabric. This made the beading slow going.  If you have a combination that works, please share. 

The red thread seen in the photo above is my basting thread to secure my binding in place. I find it easier to remove the thread when it is different color

 I decided not to hem the dress as it is jersey and will curl over time. I am very happy with the end result. I am working on a shrug to wear over it as the weather changes. Here are photos of the finished dress.

Dress Front

Dress Back

Beaded Neckline

Bead details

Top-stitching Details

 I knew I needed a cover up as the Texas weather changes for our 90 seconds of Winter. I wanted  something with coverage on my back and arms, but would not distract from the front. 

I found Simplicity 3533 in my stash and thought view E was a suitable choice. It was super fast and easy to sew. I made it in a single layer and did not hem the opening.  Beyond that, I made it according to the instructions.
 

                 

Here is B.I.R.A wearing it. The good thing about having a body double, is that I can have a bad hair day and let her work for me.

Happy sewing!