With the arrival of the new Japanese Saori clothing book – Fuku no Katachi ni Suru – I quickly turned my first Saori influenced cloth, which had been hanging around waiting for its big moment,  into a lovely wearable.

I’ve hung this cloth up at workshops, not expecting anyone to see the twill pattern lines I wove here and there, thus on a 4 shaft loom rather than the 2 shaft. But EVERYONE notices. Although most of the cloth is plain weave the narrow little decorative reverse twill stripes add to the richness of the cloth. The piece was woven from 2/20 mercerised cotton and silk thrums that were knotted together to make a ball of yarn, which was then added as inlay. The original finished cloth measured 32cms x 1.65 metres before cutting.

The pattern cutting was exciting too.  It is from the new book  which is available for $46.00 with a few in stock and more on the way. It is in Japanese, unfortunately for me, as I want to read what it says. But the patterns are marked clearly and self explanatory. Many of the garments don’t use the fabric on the straight grain or true bias but will be a slight bias angle to provide the drape and shape like this one.