Red, White & Blue Alabama Chanin Skirt

This skirt has been in the making for over 2 years. I originally dyed the red fabric in the summer of 2014. I was experimenting with Shibori tie dying. I bought some white cotton jersey from Dharma Trading for the dying process. I folded a yard of the fabric like an accordion then used several rubber bands to hold the fabric together. I like the red design but it had a little too much white for my wardrobe. I thought the fabric would be perfect as the bottom layer of an Alabama Chanin Bloomer Skirt, my favorite of all the Alabama Chanin skirts, I have 6 of the bloomer skirts. Some in the original leaf pattern and some in the paisley pattern. I wear these skirts almost every day, for everything from gardening to going out to dinner. 

The bookstore I worked at use to give us a t-shirt every year. After 25 years I had enough shirts, so I ordered a 6xl shirt, knowing that I would be able to use the fabric for something else. When I ordered the shirt I did not know what color it would be, when I got the shirt I though it was the perfect  blue color to go with the dyed red & white fabric.  

When I saw the New Leaves Stencil I knew that what pattern I would use on the top layer of the skirt. That took me another year to figure out who to get the pattern on the fabric. I was going to teach myself to use an airbrush but after a couple of attempts I realized that screen printing was way easier. I attempted to locate some rubylith, but it turns out that it's a lot more expensive then I remembered. I needed a very large piece and the only rubylith that would work came in a roll that was about $300. OK...I needed another way to get the new leaves design on my screen. I printed out the stencil from the latest Alabama Chanin book at Kinko's. It's large 25x40. I tried just burning the screen with the paper stencil but it did not work. So I decided to use a drawing fluid on the screen after drawing the images on the screen. Again it was problematic as the drawing fluid was old and a little too thick. I did end up making a screen and printing on the blue fabric but it was a lot more work than I had anticipated. The first color I used was a blue because I didn't want the ink to stand out too much. Well the blue ink I used matched the fabric perfectly and I was unable to see the stencil on the fabric. So I had to screen the skirt again...this time I used black. 

Now I had the skirt ready to sew. I spent a week stitching so I could do a reverse appliqué on the skirt. I started to cut out some of the design and my husband suggested that I not cut out all of the stencil but cut the stencil so it looked like vine wrapping around the shirt. I like that idea but I wanted he full impact of the red & white dyed fabric...so I cut out all the stencil. I may make another one with a vine type of design flowing around the skirt. That is another skirt for another post. 

The final result is a Red, White & Blue Skirt...it's my 4th of July out fit this year.

Another shirt

Have I talked about how much I love this pattern for a long sleeve t-shirt? Well I had another jersey sheet that I got at the Goodwill and wanted to make a winter shirt from the jersey, but I thought the lavendar color washed me out too much. So... I decided to try to do some Shobori Dying for a little more color in the material. I had some blue gray from Dharma Trading that I had yet to test on any fabric & I was hoping for a nice interesting pattern of the blue gray on the lavender. 

I did an accordion fold that I sandwiched between a couple of boards. The fold was about 5 inches wide and I folded it over on it's self before sandwiching it between a couple of boards. I only used a few rubber bands because I did't want a lot of lines across. This is my dying tub and I know it looks fifthly, but it gets a lot of use from dyes and screen printing ink. 

The design was very sparse, I think I should have used a smaller fold or maybe even use an eye dropper to add the dye to into the folds a little more. I really liked the blue on the lavender. 

I really liked the blue on the fabric but I thought I didn't get enough of a pattern on the material to make a difference. You can see the blue on the lavender material as well as on some white cotton jersey and some random white material that I found in my studio. 

So I dyed the material again. This time in a amethyst color.  I did an accordion fold again but wrapped it in rubber bands. You can see that the folds are about 2 inches this time and I wrapped rubber bands about every inch across the folded piece of material. I did not sandwich the material between boards this time.

The first thing my husband said when he looked at the piece of fabric was it looks like a hippy wedding. I did have to agree. But I also thought that once I cut out the pattern it would look a lot different. I liked how this came out even though I think it's still a little sparse. There are some really nice colors that came from the lavender sheet, the blue gray dye and the amethyst. I still have another half of the this sheet I think I will practice some more with the Shobori dying techniques. 

I wanted more of the color on the arms so made sure to get the blue and pink dyed pattern  on the top of the  sleeve.

I did a rolled hem on the neck line and the bottom of the shirt. I like the way the rolled hem finishes the shirt. I also like the really long sleeves. This is a very warm & comfortable shirt that if I get it dirty or rip it at work I know I can make another one really easy. I think next time I will make the shirt then do the Shobori wrapping and dye. My husband said he was amazed that it came out so nice, he didn't think the shirt had a hippy wedding look anymore.