Monday, April 25, 2011

Latest Creation


This is the jacket pattern packet

And here is the jacket on the dummy..........click photo to biggify

The fabric was woven in 2001/2 and entered into the Convergence 2002 Carnegie Yardage Exhibit in Vancouver, BC.  It was one of those occassions when I had a warp on the loom and decided to use some of it to make fabric for a garment, fabric that could be entered into the exhibit.  Mostly I wanted to get some feedback from the juror, and there was talk that the organisers would attempt to provide translations of the comments, but that never happened.

OTOH, receiving second place in the exhibit was a pretty eloquent degree of feedback.  :D

When I got the fabric back I realized that 3 yards wasn't really enough cloth to create a jacket for someone of my size and I wound up having to dress the loom again anyway for additional samples for Magic, so it was a simple matter to make the warp a little longer and incorporate enough for sufficient fabric that I could actually get a jacket out of the cloth.

Since life never runs smoothly, however, I wound up weaving about a yard before I realized I was using the wrong file and had to quickly find the correct treadling and weaving some more.

This was one of the warps that I needed to do more than once in order to get enough samples for the print run of Magic in the Water, partly because I wove the jacket fabric for myself, too.  Unfortunately, it wasn't the only warp that needed to be woven more than once.  There were several that needed 3 warps before enough samples were produced to fill the sample pages of the book.

Even so, the print run was capped at 900 instead of the originally planned 1000.  I just could not face dressing the loom again with 6 more warps to weave up 100 more samples to fill the last few copies!

I still have about 60 copies of Magic that have 14 or so samples instead of the original 20.  Once the last 23 full sized copies of Magic are gone, I'll once again offer the abridged copies for sale at a reduced price.  But when these books are sold, Magic will officially be Out Of Print.

Currently reading The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

9 comments:

barbara said...

Laura - your jacket is beautiful - you should get great pleasure wearing it. Having a handwoven jacket would be soooooo nice. Must think about that. Weaverly yours ... Barbara

Janet said...

Just beautiful, Laura! And what a labour of love Magic must have been. The mind reels.

Evelyn said...

Gorgeous! It will be so enjoyable to wear.

Sandra Rude said...

Oh, my! It's wonderfully elegant, and you will look beautiful (and proud) wearing it.

Sue Bye said...

The jacket is beautiful--worth weaving the extra fabric. I've read all Louise Penny's books. I love her way with words.

Rhonda from Baddeck said...

Both the fabric and the jacket are gorgeous. It looks like it has fabulous drape - is it silk?

Laura Fry said...

The warp is 2/20 silk, the weft a 3000 ypp rayon chenille. It has a wonderful drape. :)
cheers,
Laura

Sharon said...

Thanks for the sewing update. That's one of my targets for this year, and though I know my fabric won't be as lovely, I know it will be satisfying. Love Louise Penny - found her through a New Yorker ad. And I'm not a mystery reader!

Anonymous said...

Laura, you indeed are an inspiration! No matter how many warps you had to weave to have enough to sew the jacket, each and everyone was worth it! The jacket is absolutely grand!

You will look elegant and chic wearing your newest creation.