I Dyed it My Way

and the challenge of creating garments with it.

One important difference between commercially-made and handwoven fabric is the former is usually woven on mechanized looms at a width of 45 inches or more, and handwoven fabric is frequently made on a smaller scale loom and often woven at a much narrower width.

Using a formula to calculate how much yarn will be needed for a project, the weaver must figure out the sett, or how many ends (individual warp threads) there will be in each inch, multiply that by the number of inches of fabric width, then multiply by the warp length, usually in yards. That number is the total yardage of warp yarn required for a project. The required amount of weft yarn must be estimated similarly.

Many of us impulse-buy a given quantity of yarn and add it to our stash, uncertain of the exact project for which it will later be used. At some time in the future, the light bulb of a creative idea lights up overhead and we have to determine if we have enough yarn available to create our desired project. For example, perhaps we have just enough of THIS yarn available to warp a 25-inch wide fabric set at 12 ends per inch with a total warp length of 3.85 yards. And perhaps we have enough of THAT yarn to weave as weft, assuming 10-11 picks (woven rows) per inch, weaving a total of 112 inches, or 3.1 yards of woven fabric.

Figuring that we will lose about 27 inches of warp to the parts tied to the back and front beams of the loom, as well as draw-in, take-up and shrinkage, we will be lucky to produce a finished fabric that is 20-some inches wide and barely 3 yards long. After wet-finishing and ironing the fabric, if it becomes evident that it would be beautiful made up into a jacket or some other wearable item, we now must find a garment pattern with pieces small enough to lay out on the narrow and short fabric and still have enough to cover a body.

Such was the challenge I faced late last year with two narrow pieces of handwoven cloth. One fabric was woven with a slate-blue silk noil warp and a black wool weft. The finished fabric was about 24 inches wide, but just 3 yards long. I thought it would make a great jacket fabric, but it was going to be difficult to find a pattern that could be made up with such a small amount of cloth. Likewise, another handwoven I had made with an alpaca warp and a wool crepe weft (plied with a silver lurex strand, for a sparkling winter white effect). The crepe yarn wants to collapse; it is stretchy and it pulled in at the edges of the fabric as I wove. This finished fabric ended up only 20 inches wide, but about 4 yards long.

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I needed a jacket pattern that called for minimal hems and no overlapping facings. Fortunately I found a pattern for a zipper-closed puffy coat: McCall’s 7695. Rather than make the outer fabric puffy with batting, I purchased a quilted lining for the blue/gray fabric and a plain white lining for the alpaca/wool fabric, as well as separating zippers for the non-overlapping front closure. On the blue/gray fabric the pattern pieces extended selvedge to selvedge and I had to crowd them end to end. No extra fabric to spare! The jacket back pattern piece extended past the selvedge of the alpaca/wool fabric, so I had to cut just a portion of it, splicing in a piece down center back. Again, no fabric to spare!

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This story does not fully convey my lengthy and nerve-wracking search for a jacket pattern solution, nor the late-night layout problem-solving that disturbed my sleep. But the story has a happy ending: I have two new lined jackets made from my own handwoven, albeit too-narrow, too-short cloth.

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