★ BASKET WEAVE
So my first technique that I've attempted was the basket-weave. For the jacket I needed around 21x12 squares that would be cut into my exact pattern however I made two 30x30cm squares just for safety. The fabric I used to make this was poly/microfibre. The reason I chose this was because I wanted a nice weave fabric that would also be matte in colour and give a thick texture when finished. So I bought 1 metre of this good fabric, which sold at cabramatta for $2 a metre, how good is that!
I wanted the thickness of each strip to be 1.5cm, so I cut 5.5x30cm strips from the fabric, leaving for some seam allowance.
To be honest, cutting the strips did not need to be exact for I marked a 1.5cm line from the needle of my machine and lines the folded strips on that line, which meant that the strips I made would be 1.5cm in width nevertheless (you could see the masking tape on the pic below)
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| The strips |
Sewing the strips were tedious. but then turning them inside out and ironing them was harder (this was when my dad kept asking why the heck I do such weird, difficult things for textiles)
My gran's method for turning them out was quite simple:
close the end of a strip (double-stitch an end), using a chopstick (or a stick of that consistency) poke it through the closed end so that the chopstick would be inserted in the middle- and then pull through.
Ironing was harder because making the strips the same size without klinks or inconsistencies was hard. after trying my very best for a long time, I gave up. Luckily, they still look pretty similar
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| Unturned strips |
Then, I sewed the strips horizontally on a piece of 30x30cm black calico, placing them right underneath each other and binding each side. Then sewed the vertically line down one side, weaved it, and closed the other side. AND THESE WERE THE RESULTS
I'm loving the texture and, although my grandma does not like how it's so tightly weaved together, i think that it would be better if it was of a tight consistency, it would make the jacket less flimsy and more stiff ( which is what I aimed it to be)
Tomorrow I'm going back to cabra to get my main fabric and hopefully some brocade to start more techniques!
Labels: craft, fabric, fabric techniques, sew, textiles, weave
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