Voilà! My Dior jacket is finished! I am really pleased with how my slip
stitch pattern recreates the look of a woven fabric. Ever since the
moment I saw Rowan frost yarn in the “Moorland” colorway, I knew I
could use it to create a couture-inspired fabric. Chanel textiles, for
example, often have metallic threads that range in subtle variations
of color. Framing subtle color changes against a dark background
enhances their water-color effect and reminds me of the dappled
light in an impressionist painting.
When Rowan came out with black kidsilk haze eclipse last year, I
had the perfect black foil for the variegated golds, pinks and
greens that shimmer through the black finish of the Frost yarn.
My choice of the rectangular shapes in the slip stitch pattern I
invented was inspired by this ornate doorway I saw in Paris:
The shape of the Peplum jacket is inspired by Debby Bliss’s
pattern #8, which you can find here:
http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/sources/debbie-bliss-knitting-magazine-fall-winter-2013
Debbie Bliss’s pattern creates a peplum shape by starting with
a large number of stitches and decreasing them in batches of
six stitches per row every inch or so to the waist. As you can
imagine, it was challenging to decrease so many stitches per
row without disturbing the overall pattern, but the slip stitch
combination I invented is amenable to hiding a series of
reductions without them being terribly visible, as you can see
from the back view here:
The fuzziness of the mohair yarn and the black background both
contribute to helping conceal the 6 stitches I dropped evenly
across each reduction row. All told, I was able to subtract at
least 30 stitches from hips to waist on the back piece without
significantly distorting the slip stitch pattern, which is why
I am so enchanted with it! I will definitely be using the slip
stitch pattern again for other projects, perhaps in a new
pattern using a garment shape that is entirely my own!
I did add some extra hand-sewn couture touches to my
jacket, such as the box pleats I hand-sewed on each side
of the front:
The rest of the hand-sewing I used to make my piece a "couture knit"
came in to the jacket assembly. Because the slip stitches create a
series of horizontal stripes of color, I ensured they matched across
pieces by pinning every single stripe (and there were three per
inch):
Then I hand-basted the pieces to each other with blue sewing
thread to ensure the stripes would line up.
Next, as I mattress stitched my pieces together, I took out the
hand-basting threads as I went along.
Here you can see the line of stripes extends across the
seam line. Can you tell where the seam starts and ends in the
middle of this image?
Can you find where the sleeve is joined to the back piece?
As you can see, basting, then pinning each stripe allowed me
to create a continuous-looking fabric which meant that the stripes
on the sleeves lined up with the stripes on the back and so on.
After I finished each seam, I enhanced the continuous effect of the
stripes as follows: I turned the garment inside out and steamed
the seams by holding an iron over them without touching them.
Then I flattened the seams by pressing an iron over two layers of
press cloth on the wrong side of the fabric.
The collar involved quite a bit of frustrating fiddling and I do
not think I will really get any better with my collar construction
until I take some sewing classes to enhance my understanding
of the shapes I should be striving to construct. I found the
neckline to be the nemesis of my Emerald Chanel-style jacket:
http://www.ravelry.com/projects/yarnstylist/emerald-blocks
Unfortunately, I had blindly followed the knitting pattern, only to
discover after I hand-quilted all the pieces and assembled them
that the neckline was far too low:
This meant that I had to add a stand-up collar as an after-
thought, but the jacket only really looks right if I wear it with
the collar standing up, as in this photo:
This time, I was determined to avoid that pitfall! So when I was
halfway through my project, I basted my front and back
pieces together as soon as they were finished to assess the
neckline height. The result?
Way too low!
I would like to say in my own defense that I followed the pattern
just as written--the neck is supposed to be on a level with the
start of the armhole shaping. But in real life, on my frame, a neckline
this low just looks bizarre. No wonder so many knitters on Ravelry
complained about the collar. The problem isn't actually the collar,
I think, it is the height of the neckline. How glad I am that I took
this precaution after being burned by a collar problem before!
I found it particularly helpful to study a photograph and use
it to determine how far I should raise the neckline to fit my
physique. After raising the neckline several inches, I was much
happier with the fit.
However, as another precaution, I knitted half the collar
separately and pinned it onto my basted pieces to test the fit.
The great benefit of making the collar as a separate piece is that
it allowed me to experiment with the right side and wrong side
of the fabric to see which suited the garment better—I chose the
wrong side of the fabric for my collar which creates a subtle
contrast to the textile used in the rest of the jacket. Still,
something was not quite right. I realized that the shape of the
neckline created a deep U, which underneath my square
shaped jaw, seemed to create an unflattering frame for my face.
To read more about how to manipulate neckines to flatter your
faceshape, read my blog post here:
http://yarnstylist.com/2009/09/knitting-and-your-face-shape.html
I reconfigured the collar and raised it to form a different shape
which frames my face better. Do you see the reverse oval I
created? The oval softens the square line of my jaw:
These heirloom projects on average take 3 months to complete,
but I don’t mind taking the extra time. Ever since I saw Chanel’s
2012 Fall Winter Couture fashion show, I have been obsessed with
the beautiful subtle variations in color and texture in the jackets
I saw, and I have wanted one of my own.
Considering that the overage couture jacket by Chanel would cost
somewhere between $8,000 and $12,000, I feel that three months
and $120 worth of materials is reasonable to spend to make
my own couture-inspired clothes.
Readers, tell me what you think. Should I make a belt out of the
wrong side of the fabric to match the collar of the jacket and
bring the waist in more? Even though I reduced 30 stitches on
the front and back to create waist shaping I wonder if the jacket
is still loose around the waist. Or will a belt detract from the shape
of the jacket? What do you think?