Sweet Home Away From Home Alabama

I’ve been home about a week but my head (and heart) is still in Alabama.  Here’s a recap of my time there along with some additional pictures.

First, I have to retell the story of how I met my traveling companion, Linda.  We both attended a lecture at the Textile Museum back in June to hear Natalie Chanin talk about her business Alabama Chanin.  Fate determined that I would sit next to Linda and her mother, and we struck up a conversation, continuing it all the way home on the train.  I had already signed up for the November workshop at the Alabama Chanin Factory and encouraged Linda to join me.  So she did, and last Friday we found ourselves boarding a plane and heading to Alabama.

Leaving Huntsville we drove past the cotton fields that once helped make Florence, Alabama the t-shirt capital of the U.S.  That industry has long disappeared but Natalie Chanin has put Florence on the map for another use of her native state’s cotton:  hand crafted couture clothing and housewares.  The unassuming building that houses Alabama Chanin belies the wonderland waiting within.

The space is welcoming, warm and full of texture from the sign that greets visitors just inside the door to the white architectural elements, racks of glorious garments, and a banquet table that makes you wonder if you are, perhaps, in a very funky old farmhouse.

There are quilts

and even a bit of that famous Alabama cotton.

We were greeted by the warm and welcoming staff and taken deeper into the building where we found our own personalized baskets filled with items we would need during the weekend.

As other workshop participants arrived, we all greeted each other; one common theme seemed to be how excited everyone was to be a part of this weekend.  The rest of the afternoon was spent deciding on what we would be making in our time there.  We had the opportunity to try on garments, color coded by size, to determine what suited us.

I chose a dress similar to the gray one that is facing the camera in the shot above.  Once I had selected my garment it was time to choose from the dozens of colors of 100% organic cotton jersey that all of Alabama Chanin’s garments are made from.  My dress is a dark peacock blue with a grey underlayer, a color called “Deep”.

The next step was to select the design that would be applied to the garment.  There were binders filled with samples of designs to choose from, an almost overwhelming task.

I chose “Angie’s Fall” in a reverse backstitched appliqué (similar to the bottom two photos above).

Once these decisions were made it was time for the Alabama Chanin staff to spring into action.  I watched while my dress was cut out and then handed over to the experts in the spraying room who stenciled my dress with the design I would sew.

After our work was done, we all gathered around and introduced ourselves, heard some wise words by our hostess, Natalie, and then adjourned for the day.

When we arrived the next morning our baskets contained our stenciled fabric and all of the supplies we would need to complete the project.  We began the day by listening to Natalie tell us about the physics of sewing along with some preliminary instructions.  We all practiced our handwork on a bandana project until we felt ready to dive in and start on our garments.  We sat and stitched all morning, sharing stories and beginning to learn about each other.  We stopped for lunch and gathered at that long farmhouse-style table for a lovely meal of local products served on beautiful Heath Ceramics dishes.

In the afternoon we continued stitching and learning:  Diane instructed us on how to construct our garments along with other techniques that we would be using.  At the end of a long and enjoyable day many of us met at a local restaurant to continue our socializing over dinner.

Sunday morning I was sad to pack my bag and leave the hotel for the last day at the Factory.  In addition to more stitching with women who had now become friends, we also had the opportunity to shop, try on and photograph sample garments and learn more tricks of the trade.

Here I am trying on a short jacket that I LOVED.

There was also a lot of visiting with neighbors and admiring progress made. 

And here's a shot of my dress in progress:

We were served another luscious meal, a Southern style brunch with more local goods (and the best local honey I’ve ever eaten).  The day wrapped up about 1 pm as Linda and I reluctantly bade farewell to our new friends and headed for the airport.

This was truly one of the best workshops I have ever been a part of.  The staff at Alabama Chanin could not have been nicer or more nurturing.  It felt like such a privilege to be allowed into their world and to be handed everything I needed to create a garment of my own.  Natalie’s business model of sharing her secrets, along with providing all of the materials, is one that I don’t think you’ll find elsewhere in the fashion world.  But it is really working for this company, and their workshops are filling up faster and faster these days.  The weekend was all about southern hospitality, and all of the little touches really made it feel like a homecoming.  Even though I expect my dress to take me months (maybe years?) to complete, I hope that one day I’ll be able to return to soak up more inspiration from the lovely folks at Alabama Chanin.

Postscript:  If you would like to learn more about Alabama Chanin, their workshops and the area where they live, I recommend this excellent report by Mitra Rajabi and Sumi Lee.

Alabama Goodness

My head is still reeling from all of the awesome goodness I experienced this past weekend at my Alabama Chanin workshop.  I learned, stitched, laughed, ate, created, fellowshipped, swooned, donned and grew.  I'll be writing up a full post with details but in the meantime here are a few photos.

My Silhouette Bag

I'm leaving this morning for three days away by myself.  I'm heading off to a workshop with the folks at Alabama Chanin where I'll have the chance to make my own AC-inspired garment under their tutelage.  I'll be traveling with a new friend who I met through our shared admiration for Natalie Chanin and her creations.  To say I am excited would be an understatment.

But I'm also a little sad about leaving my sweet boys behind so I'm taking them with me, figuratively speaking.  I've made a little tote bag with their silhouettes on it to use as my carry-on bag (out of old t-shirts, no less). 

This was a fun and easy project (the hardest part was getting the kids to hold still long enough to get a good picture).  I'll share the details of how I did this when I get back.

I'm hoping to have a chance to post pictures from the workshop while I'm there.  Stay tuned!

Halloween at our house

Halloween at our house this year included a jack-in-the-box

and a lion

I never even got a shot of entire lion costume (there was a sweatshirt top, too) but you parents out there know how hard it can be to get a three-year-old into a costume at times.

It seems that every sewing project is an opportunity to learn something.  A too-large neckline on the lion's top (a recurring theme for me, it seems) led to the realization that sometimes it is just easier to sew something by hand.  I took a large pleat in the center back of the neck to snug things up a bit, and my attempts to sew through multiple layers of fleece by machine failed.  I picked up a needle and thread and was finished with the task in about a minute.  I really need to remember this lesson.

Reworking a t-shirt, and learning something along the way

This t-shirt originated at Kohls.  But after taking Pamela’s Patterns' t-shirt workshop, I decided to buy an XL size and remake it to better fit my body.  I had hoped to use my Perfect T-Shirt pattern and recut all of the pieces from the existing shirt.  After deconstructing the t-shirt a bit, I discovered that I really couldn’t fit the pattern pieces on the fabric I had to work with.  I then turned to two other patterns in hopes that one of those would work.  One of them is Burda 3197 (available here) that I made years ago and perfected the fit with Sarah Veblen.  The long-sleeved tee I made from this pattern is one I wear often, and each time I think “I should make another shirt from this pattern”.  The original pattern does not have a bust dart but Sarah helped me add one (coming from the armhole as that is where the extra fabric was), and the shirt fits much better because of it.  However, when that pattern also did not fit onto my cut-up store-bought tee, I decided I should look at another of Pamela’s patterns, T-Shirt Makeover.  This pattern is designed to re-shape commercial t-shirts to a size and shape that is more flattering for a woman’s body.  After I made the necessary alterations to the pattern, I placed it on the deconstructed t-shirt.  Luckily I had not cut apart the t-shirt at the shoulders so I was able to forego any changes in that area or to the neckline.  Pamela’s instructions say not to worry if there isn’t quite enough fabric at the underarm and, in my case there wasn’t.  I hoped she was right as I had to fudge this part quite a bit.  In turn, I was left with an armhole that was larger than the pattern, requiring I “reverse ease” the sleeve into the armhole.  When I looked in the mirror I had what I expected, a large fold of material in the front armhole area (the dart that wants to be sewn). 

It was only then that I remembered that Burda t-shirt pattern I had just looked at with the armhole dart.  I took apart the front part of the sleeve seam, sewed a dart into the armhole and re-inserted the sleeve.  What a difference! 

The fold of fabric was gone and the shirt looked much neater.  I will definitely keep this in mind when I sew dartless shirts in the future.

One other note – one reason I had so much trouble fitting a small sized pattern onto an XL t-shirt is that the shoulders of the store-bought t-shirt were very narrow, leaving me barely enough fabric to cut out my new pattern.  For you ladies out there who wear a larger size but are always discouraged by the large and droopy shoulder area of commercial clothing (the designers of which must think that as you go up in size your shoulders also grow longer?), you might check out Croft & Barrow brand shirts from Kohls to see if my experience is standard across their clothing line.

One week from today I leave for my weekend workshop at Alabama Chanin.  I can hardly contain myself.