This is my most recent experiment with shaping a lightweight jacket and adding sleeves. I wove almost 5 metres of fabric emphasising teals. The reason for this is I wanted the jacket to match my shoes! I know it’s pretty lame but was a good incentive.

The scarf type piece around the neck can come off or on as I like and I’m very happy with it all. There was virtually no waste and any shaping was added with darting which keeps the ‘waste’ on the garment and possibly adds to its durability.

I was reading a post  by Weaving today on sewing with handwoven fabrics and I quote the advice in the article – “NEVER cut handwoven cloth doubled; ALWAYS cut a single layer; and IGNORE pattern instructions to cut a piece on the fold. Either flip the pattern over to cut the  other half or, better yet, transfer pattern halves to new pattern paper so you can lay out the entire piece. DOUBLE- and TRIPLE-CHECK the straight-of-grain. As for seam finishes, they are ESSENTIAL.” Pretty scary instructions especially with the yelling directives!

Saori style garments, however, don’t adhere strictly to these rules in the same way. They are unstructured  and if woven in wool tend to hold together on cutting, even forgiving wobbly sewing. When cutting the fabric stitch two parallel lines about .5 cm apart, then cut the fabric between the lines of sewing. This will give some stability to the cut piece before attaching it to the garment. All seams are secured with cut edges hidden by using a variety of techniques including flat felled seams. Of course, this type of approach won’t work on all handwovens, and with all types of patterns but it’s very accessible and fun to sew.