sew with handwoven |

Finished cloth

Sal tells me I need to take more notes while I work. It’s because when she asks me for measurements and quantities I used for a project I usually don’t have a good answer.

Recently I finished weaving a length of fabric to make a dressy jacket and although I didn’t make any notes I’m going to put down some thoughts, tips and tricks here. This way Sal will have no excuse not to get started on her Chanel-style jacket. She’s going to weave and sew it for her next guild challenge which is all about tweed. It needs to be done by February. No pressure Sal!! 😉

Pick a commercial sewing pattern: If you are new to sewing or simply new to sewing with handwoven, don’t pick a pattern that’s overly complicated. Keep it simple. I picked NewLook 6351. The jacket is comprised of two sleeves, four front pieces, two back pieces and a facing piece. If you are using a thick piece of cloth, you need to think about how your seams are going to work and whether you will need a lining. That could be tricky to do with a thick piece of cloth.

Jacket Pattern by New Look

Make a muslin: A muslin is a trial run of your garment that can be adjusted for fit. I use muslin cloth–a creamy coloured cotton–when I’m making dresses or trousers, because when you spend a lot of time making your own garments, you want it to fit. Check out the Tilly & the Buttons site for everything you need to know about muslin (toile) making.

I’ve never had a garment that I haven’t had to adjust. There is some great information about adjusting patterns on the Colette blog and Sewalongs. You don’t want to spend time weaving cloth and then sewing it only to have something that doesn’t fit. If you need help making alterations on the muslin, I would ask an experienced sewist for help.

Once you have your muslin completed and fitted, hold onto it. This is now your pattern.

You might want to try a sample garment in fabric in a similar in weight to your handwoven. Make your mistakes on the sample, not on your handwoven.

Direct warp

Do the math: The New Look jacket pattern calls for about 1.3 meters of 150cm wide fabric. I have a 80 cm (32 inch) loom and therefore I decided to weave 3 meters of cloth. I put a 4 meter warp (I wanted about 60cm extra warp for wastage) on the loom using a 50/10cm dent reed (12.5 dents per inch). I used almost the entire width –400 dents. Four meters multiplied by 400 dents equals 1600 meters of warp yarn.

I was far less precise with the warp meterage. My idea was to use stash yarn and luckily I had plenty.

I’d estimate I used 700 meters of yarn in the warp (3 picks per cm x 300cm x 80 cm/100). I used different yarn weights and even some roving in there, plus a bunch of my handspun bouclé, so that’s very much a ballpark figure.

How does your planned warp look?

Sample and warp: Before I dressed the loom, I made some cardboard squares to test out colour combinations. This was a quick and easy way to see how the colours and yarns I picked out looked together. I wanted to see the warp colour sequence and get a feel for how the yarns worked together.

The next step was to dress the loom (i.e. warp it) which I did using the direct warping method.

Once thing I wish I hadn’t done was use boucle in the warp. BAD IDEA. It stuck and snapped and was a total nightmare. Avoid!

Weave: Weave, weave and weave. I didn’t follow a pattern and just went with by colour and texture. I used this project to do some stash busting. Very gratifying.

add some weft

Finish your cloth: Once you’ve woven your little heart out, remove the cloth from the loom. Give it a gentle wash in some hand hot water and a small amount of gentle soap. Rinse then carefully squeeze out the water. Do not wring your fabric. Remove excess water by rolling your cloth in a towel. Hang out on the line to dry.

Part two: Cutting your cloth. Coming soon. Once I do it.

Whenever I show my mom one of my weaving projects she asks the same question: “is it a table runner?” The question sets my teeth on edge. Long and relatively narrow woven fabric could be mistaken for a table runner, but as my friend Sarah Howard has demonstrated many times over with a little imagination it can be so much more.

Saori weaving books show many of quick and creative ways to use handwoven to make simple garments. If you are looking for a tailored garment these aren’t for you. Take a look at what Sarah does.

What I like about these saori projects is their simplicity. You don’t need to be a whizz with the sewing machine and you don’t even need a pattern. What you do need is a tape measure and a pair of scissors (or a rotary cutter) a ballpoint needle for your sewing machine and maybe some iron-on woven interfacing. Ballpoint needs are used for sewing jersey fabrics and work great on handwoven. Definitely use one.

I wanted to make the draping collar vest in the Beginners’ Saori Clothing Design book. The book is very clear that these garments are designed for the average Japanese woman—5′ 2″ (157 cm) and 120 lbs (54 kg). The draping collar vest “pattern” calls for fabric 40 cm (15 3/4 in) wide x 172 cm (1.88 yards) long. That piece is then cut into three–2 x 54 cm, 1 x 64 cm– two pieces of equal length and one longer piece which becomes the collar.

For my vest adjustments had to be made. I measured my back–from the neck to the top of my butt and from my shoulder to the top of my waist to get ballpark measurements for width and length. Keep in mind your woven fabric will shrink when you finish it. Whatever your measurements are, add on some more to account for shrinking.

I made my fabric about 50 cm (19 3/4 in) wide and ended up being 211 cm (2.3 yards). That was plenty. After washing the fabric by hand in hot water and a little soap I was ready to go.

First step was to figure out how long to make my pieces. I subtracted 172 (length of suggested fabric) from 211 (length of my fabric). That gave me 39 cm which I divided by three to get 13 cm. To increase the size of the original pattern, I added 13 cm to each piece, which gave me two pieces at 67 cm and one at 77 cm.

Now for the cutting. Saori weaving books suggests sewing two lines across the fabric and then cutting between the pieces. This is to minimise fraying. Remember the old saying measure twice, cut once? Definitely follow that rule when working with handwoven. In the photo below I’ve mapped out where I want to sew with a trail of pins.

pins in a line to follow for sewing.

I sewed to lines and then cut between them using a rotary cutter. Scissors are fine.

cutting between the lines

The next step is adding a hem on to the tops of all three pieces. I simply rolled the fabric over, pinned it and then sewed.

pinning and sewing the hems

Once the hems are sewn, lay out the three pieces of fabric right side up. The longer piece is in the middle, lining them up at the bottom and overlapping them slightly. Pin into place.

lay out fabric right side up, sew on the right side

On the right side, sew 5 cm from the shoulder to the arm hole, leave however much you want for an arm hole (about 25-30 cm) and then sew the rest of the seam. Repeat on the other side. Flip over and make a small hem on along the bottom (on the wrong side). I ironed on a small strip of interfacing and then did a zigzag over it.

Et voila!

Finished garment

Tag Archives: sew with handwoven

Weave to wear: Make a dressy jacket (part one)

Sewing a simple garment with handwoven fabric