Sunday Sewing

This week I treated myself to the book Alabama Studio Style. I've loved the work of Alabama Chanin ever since I saw their first book, the Alabama Stitch Book, which sadly, I don't own yet. As I was looking at all the beautiful projects in Alabama Studio Style, I realized something about myself. I am afraid of jersey. Specifically sewing jersey. Jersey for all intensive purposes is tee shirt material. It's a knit, and stretches and I find the idea of making a garment from it highly intimidating, since I'm just now getting comfortable with sewing straight lines through woven cotton with my machine.

But, these pieces are just so beautiful, I decided to face my fear. So I bought the book, and a set of cotton jersey sheets (sheets, yardage, same difference, right?). As I started reading the book, I realized that everything in it is sewn by hand! Ok, this I can maybe do.

What makes Alabama Chanin's pieces so appealing are their patterns, which are executed though a variety of elaborate stenciling and stitching, also all done by hand. I decided to get my feet wet a little bit at a time by just doing some sample pieces of their techniques. I'm glad I did, because I learned a lot and came up with some effects I really like. I got 100% cotton, cream colored sheets, so that I could dye them any color I wanted.

I've spent the past few days stenciling, stitching and beading and am getting ready to make an actual project. I'm in the process of dying the entire top sheet dark blue. I've yet to make a successful garment, so wish me luck!