Sometimes I need a little blog break for mental sanity. The last couple of weeks I’ve tried hard to spend less time on the internet, more time using my hands, for things like… picking flowers! May signals the end of the early spring wildflowers in Austin, so I’ve been rummaging around the garden dead matter in search of the last bluebonnets, poppies and sweet peas. And then of course taking bunches of photos of the pickings (my other favorite pastime).

Who doesn’t love poppies…

The explosion of spring color inspired me to keep up my dyeing adventures. Pale peaches, mink browns, lemons… And mint is next. Except I can’t decide if I want a seafoam mint or a kind of pale cucumber-y mint.

I won’t lie, dyeing takes time, especially if you’re as exacting about color as I am. And all that stirring can get laborious, but it’s so worth the results. Washer-dyeing is a way out of all the stirring, but unfortunately, my washer is front-loading and doesn’t pause on a soak or agitate cycle. For these fabrics, I used fiber reactive dyes from Dharma Trading. They’re carrying some lovely colors inspired by the Pantone palettes for spring and fall. One of my Pantone favorites at the moment is “Linen”, a sort of peached-up ivory. It reminds me my fading roses…

The funny thing with dyes is that they mix really differently than I am used to with paint. And if I’m using a mixed rather than primary color, some parts of the dye can “stick” faster than other parts. Dyeing fans always say it’s part science, part art, and now I can see why. So my “linen” came out more pink than I had hoped but I found a way to use it. These are cotton and modal knits I’d stashed for possible t-shirt projects, but they’re very soft for some simple summer lingerie. I’ve got my eye on some Tencel knits, too. I love soft knitted underwear especially in the hot months.

All of this dyeing led up to samples of several lingerie projects. And that’s another place my hands have been–sewing, sewing, testing, more sewing. I love making things for myself but over the last year I got an itch to do something more with my sewing and designing. It was an itch that wouldn’t go away. My business ideas are still in the nascent stages but the more I plunge into them, the more I realize that designing clothes and patterns is something I’ve dreamed about for many years. I would never have guessed it’d be lingerie!

Anyway, promise I’ll be back with some of the finished projects. Some of them aren’t too exciting; I’m working on developing my distinct style and then there’s just a lot of me trying to improve at handling elastic and stretch. And then some of them are downright secrets until they’re ready. And that’s what lingerie is about, right?

I’m dreaming about yellows at the moment, specifically lemon-y or acid yellows so I’ve been experimenting with a few dyes. My friend Stephanie came over and took some photos of me in the “lab”.

Ingredients: Dharma acid dye in “Fluorescent Lemon”, vinegar, hot water. For the small amounts I am dyeing, I use a Pyrex jar. Don’t forget the gloves and “not-for-cooking” spoon.

What I’m dyeing: bra rings & sliders, hook & eye, and a few samples of elastic and stretch mesh. I wash these in a mild soap to remove any residue. (You never know; some fabrics have surface treatments.)

Before I commit to larger amounts, I’m dyeing just these little bits to see how it turns out. A teensy bit of powder dye goes a long way for so little… even a sprinkle is almost too much. I add the hot water to the dye…

The nylon-coated rings take the longest to accept dye. They usually sit and take on barely a pale stain until I add the vinegar. The water has to be hot. They tend not to dye well if the water doesn’t stay hot. If I’ve already added vinegar and they’re still being stubborn, I take the rings out and microwave the dye water to heat it up a bit.

Oops, here’s what happened when I didn’t take the rings out before re-heating the water in the microwave. Melted nylon!

The rest of my samples seemed to take mere seconds. I used to pull fabrics out and rinse them as soon as they got to the intensity I wanted. But I’ve since learned that the time in the acidic hot “bath” is also important to how colorfast the dye will be. I’m still experimenting, but if there is still some dye left and I don’t want the notions to take up any more, I transfer them to another pot/jar with just hot water and vinegar for about 20-30 minutes.

Since I had a bit of dye left, I threw in another set of rings and sliders to make up for my melted ones. This lemon is super neon! (It really does glow in the dark.)

Note that I’m dyeing nylon (and my elastic is nylon), so I’m using an acid dye. You can also use RIT, as it contains a form of acid dye along with another type of dye for cottons and such. With either an acid dye or RIT, the heat and acidic pH (via vinegar) are the key to encouraging the dye to bond and this works for nylon as well as silk. I love the “professional” acid dyes. They’re much less expensive than all-purpose dyes and the colors are more brilliant and predictable. I still happen to have a bottle of RIT not-fluorescent “Lemon” waiting for my next experiment…

Happy colorific lemon-y weekend everyone!
x

When I got back into sewing a few years ago, I was like a kid in a candy shop. Bras! Tailoring! Jeans! Handbags! I never imagined I’d end up sewing with leather but like so many finer aspects of sewing, it’s not as arcane or specialized as it used to seem.

And it’s so fun! My first leather project was this handbag from Hotpatterns:

It’s a bit lonely. There are other parts, including a strap and a tassel, but I can’t find them at the moment. It’s been a UFO for two years, mostly because I screwed up the binding inside the handles, ripped it out and never started over. Ahh, you know how it goes. But it was a good first experiment. I learned the hard way what kind of interfacing doesn’t work on leather. And I went crazy with the studs.

Anyway, I know there can be a bit of intimidation when approaching materials like leather or faux fur. Perhaps I can take some of the edge off for my fellow stitchers by sharing the process of my faux fur coat? Not out of expertise but jumping in, mistakes and all!

In my previous post about the coat, Sallieoh asked where one could buy these kind of materials so I thought I’d start by sharing a few of my findings, particularly with leather. I wanted black lambskin for my coat trim and serendipitously, Gorgeous Fabrics was selling a few when I started gathering materials. They were at a great price and are absolutely luscious!

The first place I look for leathers is ebay. I don’t live in NYC, sigh. There are gads of leather sellers on ebay, but here are a few places to start:

• Leatherwise from Santa Cruz is my fave. Beautiful quality, colors and great prices.
• Fashion Leathers. They sell scraps or small pieces as well.
• Santos Leather at Etsy. (From Montreal.) Unusual and pretty surplus from a leather designer. She even sells grab bags of scraps that’d be great for little projects.
• Fabric Mart sells quality skins every so often. I don’t have much experience with this shop but have heard good things.

As you can see by the top picture you can find all sorts of finishes: suede, metallic, distressed, matte, shiny, patent, what have you. Some leathers have finishes on both sides. The leather for my handbag, for example, was pearlized on one side with a gorgeous suede finish on the other. I love those kinds since they’re really versatile. Here are few things I’ve learned about size, weight, and cost:

• Hides come in different weights, and are either described by weight (ounces) or thickness (mm). For example, my black skin is probably about 1 ounce. It’s very lightweight, almost paper thin, and drapey, and good for a more delicate garment or trim.
• Skins are usually described in square feet or inches. Lambskin is going to be smaller, of course, than other types of hides like cow or goatskin. The skin pictured above is about 5 1/2 square feet–you can see by the yardstick that at its longest is about 32 inches. Because skins are irregularly shaped and the outer edges a little thinner there’s some creative cutting involved.
• Prices tend to be higher for lambskins, anywhere from $15 to extremes like $80. You can get absolutely beautiful skins of a decent size for $20. Check to see if they are described as “second quality” or something like that. (Sometimes the lower quality will have dye imperfections or holes, which are still perfectly workable if cost is a concern.)
• Goatskin and calfskin can also be lightweight and supple as well as less expensive–and give you more square footage to work with! High quality calfskins can be cheaper than ultrasuede or pleather so it’s not always more economical to go for the fake.

Now as for sewing, it’s sooo easy to cut! It’s really a dream to sew! But there are a few good tools to have around and I’ll save the sewing hints for the next post or two. Till then!

Back in July I was already oogling over the mustards, ochres, turmerics, old gold colors that showed up in a lot of fall trends. I’m finally getting around to making up my list of fall inspirations, and put together a color palette as a start:

{Marc Jacobs Spring 2011, Gucci Fall 2011, myrakim at Etsy, Mucha sketch, my fall palette, Jaeger Fall 2011}

I’ve been really inspired by other bloggers who use Pantone or Colour Lovers to come up with schemes. I might form an addiction to Pinterest. Finally, I can collect all those visual ideas and save my hard drive.

I really enjoy planning my wardrobe seasonally as a creative exercise. It helps me define my mood and personal life goals for the next few months–visioning through fashion!

Once I get a mood, I start thinking about actual pieces I’d like to add to my wardrobe. I make a huge, unruly list of dream clothes, shoes, accessories and then pair it down to the manageable and affordable (I have a budget twice a year). A little over a year ago I started adding sewing projects into the list, as I finally started sewing enough to rely on it for fashion.

My sewing ideas are also unruly at the moment but I have a few things I’d really like to try, like a take on the saffron cropped jacket:

It’d require some drafting, and probably be my most ambitious sewing project yet, so we’ll see how far I get.

And something like this 60s-ish coat dress.

I love the military silhouette and found a similar style in a pattern, but am thinking it’s those colors that are really attracting me more than anything else (can you tell I liked that collection?).

Practically speaking, fall and winter planning is difficult for me–I love fall clothes the best but serious outer layers are only necessary for two months and the rest of the year just plain hot. So while I’m having fun plotting fall ideas, I’m trying to look ahead to February, when I usually ditch my must-have-wool-cape fantasies.

How do you keep track of sewing or fashion inspirations? Do you make plans with fashion or do you just go as you go?

And color always shifts in relation to its surrounding colors.

{Credit}

Not to mention some fabric stores take pictures under flourescents and using flash, making things much warmer than I know they really are.

I get certain color combinations in my head specifically with fabric. For the longest time it was orangey coral with a bright cobalt blue. Last winter I wanted a red wool crepe dress to wear with red tights and black boots. Have you ever tried to shop red fabrics? I wanted bright, clear red. Not an orange red, not a blue red, not a dark red. I wanted the kind of primary red that looks straight out of a cadmium red paint tube.

It was impossible to find. Lots of fabrics were/are described as “lipstick red” and anyone into red lipstick knows “true red” is in the eye of the beholder and the skin tone of the wearer. MAC has at least five good but wildly different reds. I took a risk on a doubleknit described online as “true red” but ended up with a very brick red.

Right now I have a fascination with tomato red, a risky color on me because I tend to look pallid in very warm orangey colors. And uh, what exactly is tomato red? I mean, some interpretations of “tomato” are almost purpley red, as tomatoes can be. But I’m thinking more like a flame red pigment. Argh, I blame this all on that four-month color theory class.

Speaking of fabric stores, one of my favorite textile shops of all, Britex in San Francisco, has just recently opened an online shop to include an edited selection of fabric. Britex in person is a bit of an experience. Be prepared to have opining salespeople bringing you fabrics left and right–it’s not a place to sneak–but I like talking fabrics with them. Be also prepared to drop your jaw and see prices up to $100 a yard both online and in person. They have Valentino silks and Dior leathers, after all–but once in awhile it’s fun to just see such gorgeousity!