Slate Frame Prep
(Cross posted from A Gentlewoman's Blog: http://kimiko1.com/blog/2014/03/slate-frame-prep/)
Today, in order to jump start my creative spirit, which has been slowly returning (I did sketch a banner idea last weekend), I decided to just go into my sewing room and do something, anything, and after standing there with music playing, and staring at my mostly cleared table top (that had some before-mentioned banner sketches on it), I realized that banners was just not on my mind today, but I had been staring at something every day for the past few months and really it was time to do something with it.
I’m speaking about the goldwork embroidery project from the Laurel gown project, that has been mostly finished for a long time. It is the section that goes around the neck. It just needed the proper pearls - but sadly, those are MIA right now. So, instead of letting that grind me to a halt, I decided it could get pearls later, then removed it from the frame, ripping the stitches with an X-acto knife, since my seam rippers are also MIA.
I had more fabric still on the frame, so I cut off the neck section, and tried to cut it off on the straight of grain. Then I sewed the edge to the frame piece trim, put on the side frame bars, and realized that it really was off grain, as you can see here.
This frame is set up crooked!
The two white arrows show the straight of grain (well, as well as it could be photographed), and the red arrow shows how the one side was angling off grain. This is not good, as it will have problems when fully laced up and tension applied. I could feel it torquing in my hands. So, that new seam had to be ripped out.
So, this reminded me, as I’m ripping the seam out again, that in January, I was privileged to go to Mathew Gnagy’s tailoring class in L.A.. During the class, Mathew talked about sewing in the period way, as a tailor would sew - which simply put was ‘quickly, but efficiently’. I thought about the same as I was putting in the stitches, again, that while before I would put in my whip stitches rather close together, I realized that really, it wasn’t necessary. After all the lacing stitches on the side are about an inch apart, and they still worked out fine for tension. So, I relaxed a little and only focused on keeping the stitches relatively close to the edge, trying to keep the straight grain relatively straight. It does make it easier to rip out when needed, fyi. Oh, and I have a pic of this, too.
Showing new looser (left) and old, tighter stitch spacing.
I do think maybe I could space out the stiches even farther apart, but it will take awhile to let loose with any of my stitches.
So, with all of this going on in my head, I sewed it all back together, put in the side bars, and woohoo! tension was good! Then it was lacing the sides frames into place, which had some snags with broken or knotted strings, but I made it work, and it all came together very nicely.
I just realized that I was so busy with all the Laurel prep-work, I’ve not really discussed how I went about doing it all. Well, hopefully this helps in understanding the embroidery part, at least.
After a short break, I got down to marking out my guidelines in white chalk. The guidelines were mostly for the center line of the pattern, since the embroidery on this panel will be done on the bias in order to make the embroidery fit the hem curves easier.
I made sure to mark my pattern copy with a line down the center, trying to hit all the crossed lines in the middle - as the pattern comes from a painting that’s been blown up (as seen in here), that is a bit more difficult, so I just made sure the line was straight and hoped it would line up. Using my acid-free white gel pen, I marked the pattern down on the silk. The final panel looks like this.
Slate frame ready to go.
I enhanced the photo to better show the pattern. But here’s the slate frame, all ready to start on the next set of interlacing for the Laurel gown. Which I do have a photo of that dress, somewhere. Oh, and the pattern repeats, so the empty spot could have been fit with another of the repeat, but I’d rather keep the four motifs together on the panel, and have even marked the end of one, and the beginning of the next, so I don’t forget how they go together.
Oh, and that banner I mentioned, I’ll have more on it next month after the local workshop on making them.
Embroidery, Goldwork, Prep & Other, embroidery, laurel_gown, photos
(Cross posted from A Gentlewoman's Blog: http://kimiko1.com/blog/2014/03/slate-frame-prep/. Comments can be posted here or there.)
Today, in order to jump start my creative spirit, which has been slowly returning (I did sketch a banner idea last weekend), I decided to just go into my sewing room and do something, anything, and after standing there with music playing, and staring at my mostly cleared table top (that had some before-mentioned banner sketches on it), I realized that banners was just not on my mind today, but I had been staring at something every day for the past few months and really it was time to do something with it.
I’m speaking about the goldwork embroidery project from the Laurel gown project, that has been mostly finished for a long time. It is the section that goes around the neck. It just needed the proper pearls - but sadly, those are MIA right now. So, instead of letting that grind me to a halt, I decided it could get pearls later, then removed it from the frame, ripping the stitches with an X-acto knife, since my seam rippers are also MIA.
I had more fabric still on the frame, so I cut off the neck section, and tried to cut it off on the straight of grain. Then I sewed the edge to the frame piece trim, put on the side frame bars, and realized that it really was off grain, as you can see here.
This frame is set up crooked!
The two white arrows show the straight of grain (well, as well as it could be photographed), and the red arrow shows how the one side was angling off grain. This is not good, as it will have problems when fully laced up and tension applied. I could feel it torquing in my hands. So, that new seam had to be ripped out.
So, this reminded me, as I’m ripping the seam out again, that in January, I was privileged to go to Mathew Gnagy’s tailoring class in L.A.. During the class, Mathew talked about sewing in the period way, as a tailor would sew - which simply put was ‘quickly, but efficiently’. I thought about the same as I was putting in the stitches, again, that while before I would put in my whip stitches rather close together, I realized that really, it wasn’t necessary. After all the lacing stitches on the side are about an inch apart, and they still worked out fine for tension. So, I relaxed a little and only focused on keeping the stitches relatively close to the edge, trying to keep the straight grain relatively straight. It does make it easier to rip out when needed, fyi. Oh, and I have a pic of this, too.
Showing new looser (left) and old, tighter stitch spacing.
I do think maybe I could space out the stiches even farther apart, but it will take awhile to let loose with any of my stitches.
So, with all of this going on in my head, I sewed it all back together, put in the side bars, and woohoo! tension was good! Then it was lacing the sides frames into place, which had some snags with broken or knotted strings, but I made it work, and it all came together very nicely.
I just realized that I was so busy with all the Laurel prep-work, I’ve not really discussed how I went about doing it all. Well, hopefully this helps in understanding the embroidery part, at least.
After a short break, I got down to marking out my guidelines in white chalk. The guidelines were mostly for the center line of the pattern, since the embroidery on this panel will be done on the bias in order to make the embroidery fit the hem curves easier.
I made sure to mark my pattern copy with a line down the center, trying to hit all the crossed lines in the middle - as the pattern comes from a painting that’s been blown up (as seen in here), that is a bit more difficult, so I just made sure the line was straight and hoped it would line up. Using my acid-free white gel pen, I marked the pattern down on the silk. The final panel looks like this.
Slate frame ready to go.
I enhanced the photo to better show the pattern. But here’s the slate frame, all ready to start on the next set of interlacing for the Laurel gown. Which I do have a photo of that dress, somewhere. Oh, and the pattern repeats, so the empty spot could have been fit with another of the repeat, but I’d rather keep the four motifs together on the panel, and have even marked the end of one, and the beginning of the next, so I don’t forget how they go together.
Oh, and that banner I mentioned, I’ll have more on it next month after the local workshop on making them.
Embroidery, Goldwork, Prep & Other, embroidery, laurel_gown, photos
(Cross posted from A Gentlewoman's Blog: http://kimiko1.com/blog/2014/03/slate-frame-prep/. Comments can be posted here or there.)