Two Birds, One Stone

This skirt is my response to two challenges: 

• 2021 Threads Digital Ambassadors' Runway Sewn Your Way Challenge

• Fall 2021 Literary Sewing Circle Project, hosted by Melanie Kindrachuk at Following the Thread.ca

Slow sewist that I am, I did not finish it in time to enter it in the Threads Challenge. However,  I will use the Threads Challenge questions to organize this post.

Inspiration - Two Birds

Literary Sewing Circle

For the Fall 2021 Literary Sewing Circle, participants read The Sun Down Motel by Simone St. James and made something - anything - inspired by the book. The book follows two story lines separated by 35 years and involves mysterious disappearances, ghostly hauntings, and presumed murders. One of the protagonists, Viv, is running away from home and on her way to New York City to pursue an acting career in the fall of 1982 when she lands in the small town of Fell, NY, and takes a night job at The Sun Down Motel, a creepily haunted roadside motel that has long since missed its opportunity for financial success. As I read, the theme of disappearance struck me and I determined to make a skirt to echo that theme.

Threads Runway Sewn Your Way Runway Challenge

The challenge was to interpret a runway look, make it your own, and discuss the challenges and rewards of the project. I recalled seeing a Chanel suit with deconstructed tweed that seemed to disappear, and I found it at Vogue.com in its review of the 2003 Spring Couture season. 

This is the suit, Look 10, Chanel Spring 2003 Couture. The embroiderers at Lesage deconstructed the tweed and attached it to English net. It looks like the fabric disappears before your eyes. Image from Vogue Runway. . Accessed 11/11/2021 from https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2003-couture/chanel#review

This is Look 6 from the same show. Image from Vogue Runway.  Accessed 11/11/2021 from https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2003-couture/chanel#review

I made these looks my own by simplifying the garment to make it something I could wear every day.  I also used a fabric with a Chanel-like texture and a combination of surface manipulation and machine techniques.

Patterns and Fabric

My skirt pattern is based on the Fashion Sewing Group pencil skirt 1964 (now out of print), fitted to my tilted waist and high hip using Sarah Veblen's fitting techniques of horizontal balance lines and draping to fit. Sarah draped a yoke on me to accommodate my particular shape, resulting in a balanced, level hem every time. 

All fabrics are from my stash. The face fabric is a woolen check with a very course weave, purchased from Nancy Erickson of the Fashion Sewing Group. I liked the way the marled yarns seem to disappear: Now you see me, now you don't! It is backed with black power net and the trim is a sequined mesh from Joann Fabrics, left over from a previous project. It is lined with a Bemberg rayon.

Trim

First, I fringed the bottom 4 inches of a length of the wool. Next, I laid out the skirt patterns with the hem edge at the bottom of the fringe. Then, I cut the yoke pieces on the bias. 

I basted the wool to the power net and serge-finished the edges. The yoke pieces were interfaced with a weft-insertion fusible.

To reinforce the disappearing effect, I cut warp yarns and pulled them out, using a crochet hook to isolate the yarns I wanted to remove.

Then I wove the sequined net in place of the removed warp yarns, weaving the strips under the white yarns. I learned that the net strips needed to be just narrower than width of the opening; if  wider, they would fold over and hide the sequins. Chopsticks helped to stabilize the mesh.

I used a crochet hook to spread out the mesh where needed.

There are a few rows of with weft removed. These wrap around to the back of the skirt.

Machine stitching lines stabilize the weave where weft has been removed.

The power mesh has been cut away from the fringe. Weft has been removed  three checks above the line where the fringe begins. 

From inside.

Challenges and Rewards

Early in the process, I realized that I did not have the nerve, the time, or the skill to completely deconstruct the fabric as in the pink Chanel suit. I compromised by working slowly, testing ideas on a scrap, and stabilizing the fabric with machine stitching. Working with the sequined mesh was fiddly, but ultimately very satisfying to learn how to work with it.  The power mesh is more opaque than I expected, and I wonder how a lighter, softer mesh would have worked.

It was especially fun to think about how to style this outfit.  I want a skirt I can wear for everyday life, not a super-fancy designer garment. Several looks in Lagerfelds' 2017 Resort collection for Chanel include travel tee shirts. Viv was on her way to New York when she stopped at The Sun Down Motel; the I HEART NY tee shirt fit the bill. Several of the characters in the novel wear stretched-out hoodies, so I looked for one at my local thrift stores.

This was a big and ultimately very satisfying project. I took breaks from it to shop for vintage tee shirts and watch old movies (E.T. played at the second-run theatre in Fell during the fall of 1982). I'm really grateful for the community of innovative sewists who share so freely on the Web!