Fabric Distractions

I am proof that marketing works. Ashlee sent out an e-mail a few days ago about the new Anna Maria line of fabric that arrived at the store, so of course I had to go in and see it. Anna Maria Parry is a force of nature. She is an artist and fabric designer who has designed for Free Spirit and currently works as the Design Director for Anna Maria Textiles, a division of Northcott. Her daughter, Juliana Horner, has also designed fabric. I still have some of Juliana’s fabric line from Joanns, back when Joanns carried Tim Holtz, Susan Winget, and some other heavy hitters. If you’d like to learn more about Anna Maria, I recommend this interview on the Craft Industry Alliance podcast.

[Does anyone else remember where they were when listening to podcast episodes? Maybe it’s just me because I listen while driving. I was first introduced to Mimi G on a podcast while driving through Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve in Idaho. I listened to the Anna Maria interview on the last leg of a trip home from Seattle.]

Did I also mention that Anna Maria is the mother of seven children? I wonder if she ever sleeps.

Her new line is called Narrative and includes a selection of nine woven triple gauze fabrics. Some of you may be familiar with double gauze. It is exactly what it sounds like—two layers of cotton gauze—and is often used for lightweight garments and baby items. Triple gauze is three layers, woven in such a way that the layers are anchored together and form a positive/negative pattern on the front and back of the fabric.

I was seduced by the colorway called “Licorice,” which is a plaid comprised of black, red, and hot pink. (It was the hot pink that did it.) I brought it home, washed it on delicate and tumbled it dry on low because I wanted any shrinkage to happen before I started working with it. Triple gauze also frays like nobody’s business. It starts to disintegrate the second you cut into it, so the edges of the yardage had to be serged before washing.

[Triple gauze looks almost like a polyester double knit, although it is much less stable.]

Because of the need for careful handling, triple gauze wants simple patterns. I chose the Tremont Jacket from the Sewing Workshop.

I am not a flowy, unstructured jacket type of person, but this is about the fabric, not about adding more clothing to my closet. This design is perfect for handwoven-type fabrics, and triple gauze falls into that category.

I laid out the fabric on the floor of my bedroom to cut the pattern pieces and realized that I needed another yard for the second sleeve. (Extra fabric may be required to match stripes or plaids.) The store is holding it for me.

The fronts are asymmetrical and have 1-5/8" deep double-fold hems. The sides have a 5/8" seam allowance/hem. The front band is a self-fabric facing. On about page 3 of the pattern, I began to wonder if I had bitten off more than I could chew. The body pieces have mitered corners—mitered corners on acute angles where one side of the miter is a double-fold hem and one side is a single-fold hem. I understood what needed to happen but couldn’t figure out how to do it using the pattern instructions, so I puzzled it out a different way. I am pretty happy with my mitered corners:

You’ll note that I serged ALL the edges before I did anything else.

Once I got past those mitered corners, everything else went together smoothly. As of last night, I had sewn the body together at the shoulders and stitched down the neckline facing.

All that is left now is to sew in the sleeves, sew the side seams, and make the single buttonhole at the center front. This likely will be another shop sample. I like this design and could be convinced to try it again using a much-less-fussy-and-not-plaid handwoven-type fabric. This was a detour I hadn’t intended to take but I am glad I did. I feel very accomplished having sewn successfully with such a tricky fabric.

I would show you the Chloe Coat but I have decided to undo the sleeve caps and shave them down by half an inch. Poufy sleeve caps look funny on my broad shoulders and decidedly funny in corduroy fabric. I was counting on the shoulder pads to fill them out and that didn’t happen. Oh, well. After all that work, I want something I can wear, and I love the jacket otherwise.