Posts by curiousweaver

More Designs for the Body

This is my newest woven garment – which I’m very happy with. Basically a ‘vest’ style it only required 3.3 metres @ 33 cms wide. Wool, mohair, cotton and silk/stainless steel were used. The silk/stainless steel didn’t do its usual job of  ‘elasticizing’ the woven width  as the wool shrunk to meet its width and now only performs as an element of sheer peeping through the garment. But that’s ok because that’s a valid design option – isn’t it?

The neckline can be worn in several ways, ranging from a dramatic dropped shoulder with a collar or a draped cowl style neckline. There was no waste at all, as the two armhole pieces were made into a flower brooch which will be worn at the front when it is draped at the neckline. It looks far better on a human   than the static non moving dress form photographed.

I did a bit of Brooks bouquet on the weave which I really enjoyed. You can just see a piece on the front panel of the vest.

As I added this project to my list on Ravelry I had to name the work, which I did as ‘Divergent Thinking in Red’. This has come about because I’ve been reading about creativity and its value or lack of in our educational systems generally. Reading Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative and seeing Ken Robinson’s Youtube of his hypothesis here, I started to think more about how creative and ‘divergent’ weaving is. For me, it has sustained me in low and busy times in my life and also allowed me to become more educated about our world and history in nearly all areas of human interest. It has allowed me to peek modestly into what might be divergent thinking and imagine many ‘what-ifs’.

Almost zero waste design

This constitutes the total waste from the garment I just designed. Almost zero waste! Some other shapes that I could have cut off to seam became a re-enforcement for the garment. This type of weave is very forgiving with the machine stitching and either straight or zig zag could be used. This is the weave that got me thinking about what I could stitch up.

I basically cut out shapes and pinned them to myself. I made sure the squares which formed the front were on the bias to give a better drape. The pattern, surprisingly, became one that you can wear two ways.
Here is an image of the front and back of Designway One. Notice the knot like formations at the shoulder. I was trying to create a summer weight sleeveless design and this works well. Linen yarn may also work well as it is crisper for the summer look.
This is designway two which is equally as nice but more conventional in feel.

The warp was only 45 cms wide and the finished cloth 1.8 metres long.