So, a while ago you may recall that I wrote about my foray into the world of DIY shibori, and my plans for the fabric I had dyed. Well, the truth is, I completed a project with that fabric over a month ago, but I had wanted to do a very cool “photo shoot” in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, because they have an amazing Japanese Tea Room fully recreated on the top floor of the museum, and I thought that would be the perfect setting to photograph the kimono style jacket I had made with my shibori flavored fabric and the BurdaStyle Naomi FREE PATTERN pattern. And it would have been, really, but I couldn’t get anyone to come with me and do the thing, and the one time I made it to the museum last month was for the Roberto Capucci show, and given that I was drugged up on cold medication and looking at something the cat wouldn’t even bother dragging in, I didn’t think that would be the optimal modeling opportunity. But I also didn’t want to wait and wait and drag it out and have you think that I couldn’t get it together to make this jacket when in fact I had already slaved over the beautifully silly completely useless thing for a full week! Can you see my quandry here?
So this morning I broke down and in the beautiful light of the rising sun I had my mother take some photos in our newly green and verdant garden, near our patch of irises. I thought, irises at least are fitting, right? Enough chit chat, you say, onto the photos! Well, without further ado, I present my Naomi jacket with my own hand dyed shibori style fabric. Look, ye mortals, and wonder:
Is what you are wondering, where the hell is she ever going to wear that? Well, so am I….but it sure is pretty….
When I told my friend Victoria that this style of shibori, arashi, is supposed to resemble storms, she said it looks more like a storm at sea. Hence the name.
I really do adore that it has pockets:
Honestly, this wasn’t that difficult of a project to sew, but it was a bit tricky to cut. There are so many pattern pieces and most of them you only cut one of, so I have no idea how you could cut this efficiently, but maybe that’s not the point, it is a rather decadent jacket, after all. Luckily I had dyed two full bedsheets, so I wasn’t worried about running out of material. I still have some left, come to think about it.
Of course, I made it extremely difficult for myself because the nature of this kind of dyeing is that the fabric doesn’t all dye evenly, there are different effects over the fabric and so I tried to cut so there was an omberized look, the bottom being darker then the top. That…KIND of worked…
Don’t you think?
I’ll be honest, I could have gone down a size, or 2. This isn’t exactly a fitted garment, and it’s a bit large on me, but that’s all part of it’s pseudo-kimono charm, I suppose. I do really like this design, it has some lovely details, like the aforementioned pockets:
And side ties:
And a lovely asymmetrical neckline:
I can’t help but adore this jacket. It’s just extremely gratifying to have envisioned the jacket, researched the dye process, dyed the cloth, cut the cloth, stitched up the pattern and then put it on. It just makes me feel like I have complete ownership of this garment, even though I have no idea where/when I could possibly wear it…
That being said, not a day goes by when I don’t get invited to a tea party in Feudal Japan, so maybe I can wear it there. Samurai sword is optional.
