alabama chanin

Alabama Chanin, Part 4

06.28.2015 by Tracey //

Skirt, DIY Alabama Chanin, made by Tracey

DIY Kit, Swing Skirt, Bloomers Stencil

Fabric, Alabama Chanin Organic Medium Weight Cotton Jersey in Earth

Top, Sleeveless Shell by A. Chanin

Skirt, DIY Alabama Chanin, made by Tracey

DIY Kit, Swing Skirt, Rose Stencil

Fabric, Alabama Chanin Organic Medium Weight Cotton Jersey in Camel and Taupe

Top, Long Sleeve Raglan by A. Chanin

Photography by Santiago Vanegas

Hi Everyone! Welcome back. As promised, two skirts to finish off our Alabama Chanin month at Featherstitch Avenue. I think it’s probably fitting that we end with the first two Alabama Chanin garments I ever made. The rose skirt (the second one pictured) was started at my first workshop with Natalie Chanin. Natalie and I discussed modifying their original design to incorporate more than one technique and that the skirt would act as a kind of sampler. (The original design was done in appliqué with beads.) In my case, I used appliqué on the roses and reverse appliqué on the stems and leaves. I sewed clear beads on select areas as a kind of highlight to the rose petals.

For the bloomers skirt, I used only reverse appliqué. I chose to make my knots on the outside of the garment to give the skirt a more fringy feel. Both skirts have an elastic waistband in a coordinating color (included with the kits). I simply folded the elastic strip over the top of the skirt and hand stitched it down using a herringbone stitch. I provided a link to the Alabama Chanin page of available kits above (or you can click here). These two skirts are older designs, but if you want these exact styles, go to the Custom DIY (here) section to build your own kit.

Both of the tops are from Natalie’s machine made line A. Chanin. These tops were purchased and not made by me, but they go perfectly with these skirts and I wear them constantly.

We can’t finish out this month without mentioning Natalie’s new book Alabama Chanin Sewing Patterns. I have been obsessively reading and re-reading it. And my mind is all abuzz with ideas on how to customize the new A-Line dress and the wrap skirt patterns. Now if I can just find the time to manifest some of these ideas!!

I also want to say a very big thank you to Sarah at Goodbye Valentino for her very gracious introduction of our blog to her readers. If you are new to Featherstitch Avenue, I am so glad you’re here!

Don’t forget to check out our Featherstitch Avenue Instagram. I post more detailed photos there. And our Facebook page has some extra content too. We occassionally post time lapse videos of our photo shoots in progress. So if you are curious about how we work, be sure to check those out.

Have a wonderful Fourth of July! I’ll have a new dress to show you soon. My injuries have healed and I’m back in the sewing business! Wahoo!

Alabama Chanin, Part 3

06.21.2015 by Tracey //

Dress, DIY Alabama Chanin, made by Tracey

DIY Kit, Long Fitted Dress, Paisley Stencil

Fabric, Alabama Chanin Organic Medium Weight Cotton Jersey in Leaf Green and White

Photography by Santiago Vanegas

What do you do when you want to bring lights into the forest and you don’t want to drag in your light stands? Well, you bring your minions, of course. Our son and daughter got put to work this week. (“Just because you’re not in school doesn’t mean you don’t have to work.”) But they did such a great job rising to the challenge that Santiago put them in the pictures! I did need to be reminded multiple times to “quit looking at the children, and concentrate on what you are doing”.

And isn’t this setting beautiful?! I’ve often wondered if I missed my calling as a location scout for movies and television. At least with this blog, I get to pretend I’m one. And who knows, I could still possibly fulfill that dream with the film industry booming here in Georgia. Once, our house was in the running for a scene in a Denzel Washington movie, but we didn’t get picked. So when we got yet another letter in our mailbox from a location scout asking if we would be open to allowing our home to be used as a set, we immediately said yes. “Is it a Michael Fassbender movie?”, I asked hopefully. “Is it a Cate Blanchett movie?”, my husband asked hopefully. No and no. Just a shoot for a commercial. Oh well.

So here we are in the forest, and I’m wearing my long fitted Alabama Chanin dress. One of the things that I absolutlely love about these garments is that yes, they are hand made and yes, they are heirlooms, but they are not precious. These dresses are durable. I had no concerns wearing this dress wading through the stream and stepping over fallen trees. By the time I was done the bottom of the dress was caked with mud. No worries. I tossed it in the washer when I got home and it’s as good as new. Maybe even better. Some of my Alabama Chanin garments I’ve had for quite a while and they age really well. I like them better when they have been lived in a bit.

This dress is made using negative reverse appliqué. In this case, I stitched within the stenciled shape about an 1/8 of an inch inside. After stitching all the motifs, the area outside the stenciled shapes are cut away revealing the bottom layer of leaf green fabric. Then I appliquéd the white circles within the flower motifs using a blanket stitch to give it more of a 3d appearance. For more information on these techniques, pick up Natalie Chanin’s book Alabama Chanin Studio Sewing and Design.

We finish up our month of Alabama Chanin next week with two skirts. See you then!

Alabama Chanin, Part 2

06.14.2015 by Tracey //

Skirt, DIY Alabama Chanin, made by Tracey

DIY Kit, Swing Skirt, Paisley Stencil

Fabric, Natural Dye Organic Medium Weight Cotton Jersey

Hot Water Music T-shirt, reworked by Tracey

Photography by Santiago Vanegas

Welcome back! Last week, I gave you loads of information (and lots of links) about Alabama Chanin. This week, I want to talk more about the Alabama Chanin techniques. The skirt pictured above was made using reverse appliqué. For each garment piece there are two layers of cotton jersey. The top layer has the sprayed-on stencil made with fabric paint. After pinning the two layers together, I sewed a running stitch around each stenciled motif, knotting off each time I finished a shape. After everything is stitched, I carefully (very carefully!) cut the top layer of the inside of the shape away, leaving about an 1/8 inch of the painted fabric. Using this natural dye fabric with color variations was such a treat because I was pleasantly surprised by the changing color as I cut away the top layer. It gives the skirt such a subtle dimension. The garment pieces were joined using a running stitch, then the seam allowances were folded to the same side and stitched down. (Check out Featherstitch Avenue’s Instagram for more detailed photos.)

As I explained in last week’s post, I order a kits with precut pieces already stenciled. But there are a number of ways to customize a kit depending on how you stitch it together. You can use beads, you can use a backstitch, you can use embroidery floss. There are many ways to make it your own. Natalie’s third book Alabama Studio Sewing and Design is a wonderful resource on all the different possibilities.

The t-shirt is a redesign by me. I used the cretan stitch (Instructions for this stitch are in all of the Alabama Studio books) to bind the neck and arm holes.

Hope you are having a great summer! See you next week.