Indigo Kimono Jacket

Yes. Yet more indigo shibori. This lot is ultra fine ramie, dyed two years ago in a class run by the lovely Andrea Taylor  (Bittern by the Bug) through the excellent craft shop Opendrawer.

The floaty, transparent dyed lengths back when they were done. Foreground then background.

Most of these have been combined into a square boxy cut kimono jacket. I mean to wear it as an overshirt, either for slight warmth or as an anti-sun garment. Like a shawl that stays on more easily. The last and palest length might become a petticoat? perhaps?

The body, sleeves and neck band are simple rectangles except for the gentle neck cut out.

A detail shot of some of the patterns. Such fun. The neck band was a strip run (rather inexpertly and unevenly) through a smocking pleater and gathered up tightly before dyeing. Said neck band also has a strip of shirt weight plain white linen as interfacing.

A single button fastening. It needed some kind of reinforcing for the loop attachment and I hadn’t put a label on yet. The machine stitching looks rather coarse at this enlarged scale.

It’s not my most flattering garment but it feels lovely and floaty. Worn today with my comfiest but rather worn trousers.

Indigo Heffalumps

Another product of the indigo dyeing day a few months back. Not sashiko this time, just a plain overdye of what was cream coloured fine cotton voile, heavily embroidered with elephants, or as I have called them for years, “heffalumps”. Happily, the embroidery turned out to also be cotton.

The lumps of the heffalumps caused a few problems in the stitching. Lumpy fine voile, aieee. I persevered and got it done though.

The resulting shirt dress is intended as a lightweight anti sun garment. It could be worn as a tunic though. It’s a bit short for me to be comfy wearing it as a dress!

Here it is flung over what I happened to have on. I’m spending most of today brewing. I absolutely love the colour.

Blooper reel:
I’m quite pleased with the collar, or I was before I realised that the frill ended up different depths on each side.

I managed to cut all the pieces with the elephants the right way up, except the sleeves, sigh.

The dye coverage isn’t quite even, and to make that worse, I managed to sew the back skirt panel wrongside out. At least it’s the back!

Fastenings:
I kept the buttonholes away from the bulk of the waist seam, and put a little press stud in so it will still close neatly. It also has the loop and button trick for bringing in the fit if I want.

Fully closed and on me to show the fit.

Not quite by accident, it’s a lovely length to wear over the Tardis dress.

Indigo Spots / Accidental Tardis

The next piece made up from the last indigo dyeing day contained unexpected tardis qualities! I really didn’t intend the tardis look, and didn’t see it developing until the skirt was on the bodice.

It started as 2 metres of fine linen, folded in half widthways, then concertina folds one way, and the other. A resist disk was placed top and bottom. I don’t have a proper “before” photo because those ties were replaced by clamps before it went in the dyebath. Pity, a friend dubbed this the “madly flapping dove”, which name I love.

Anyway, this is how the dyed fabric came out:

It seemed to want to be a sundress. Who was I to argue? I did put quite some care into the cutting, including paying attention to the placement of the pattern elements.

The bodice is a slightly altered version of this. My bit of pattern sneaking has paid off. The skirt is in two layers. The fabric is so fine that it needed lining anyway, so I decided to make the hem more interesting. Both layers have hem facings and the bodice is lined, all from the linen scrap box.

Again it’s made as a drop over the head number. I’ve used another variation of my side front fastening to close the fit.

I’m ruddy delighted with it. The fit is lovely, as is the length. It feels wonderful on, and it accidentally looks rather Tardis like! I’ll take that as a feature rather than a bug.