Playing Darts

Yet when I say 'darts,' the term is used rather liberally. Frankly, I don't know what to call this. I've sewn horizontal darts into my jeans for years, and they are what you'd expect if you're familiar with darts on men's shirts. The goal is to reduce and shape the garment to fit better, but I use them on jeans because I don't like losing the ankle hems by folding them under. I also don't like the excess material that ends up there.



Contrary to having plotted the entire dart as seen in the pictures, I've decided to employ them differently this time around. Instead of sewing the entire section shut into a 'closed eye,' I've sewn just the center points together. By doing so, the fabric can drape more freely around the knee. At the same time, the reduction in the leg length is maintained where it's supposed to be (the back).





Due to the height of the 'pinch dart,' (good a name as any), there is a jodhpur silhouette that forms at the thigh where the excess denim drops forward. The folds gather at the knee, and push down in opposition to the darts. The resulting drape gathers rather nicely at the shins and ankles.

I typically wear a 28x30 in jeans, but for this particular alteration, I bought a 28x32 in order to guarantee enough length to work with. The cut is a boot fit made by Guess Jeans called "Jayce Slim Bootcut." I'm curious to see how these jeans age with this particular modification. Since the denim is so raw, there will definitely be some interesting whiskering.

Shear Echo Two

I've mentioned before that each hat series has a distinct design structure. But what you may not have noticed is that each series also follows a particular gauge structure. From highest to lowest it goes Reflect (diamond shapes in high gauge), Shear (parallelograms in medium gauge), and Divide (crosses in low gauge).



Shear Echo Two follows the same design structure of the Shear Series, but mixes things up by utilizing the lower gauge of Divide. It's a mash-up. In terms of design structure, it's nearly identical to Echo One, but with a thicker yarn, and a slightly simplified sequence of angular transitions.



The yarn is a 100% wool tweed. It's the lighter, sandy colored one in the image, and comprised the yoke section of the original sweater from which it was recycled. I honestly didn't know for certain whether I'd have enough of it for a hat which is why I simplified--and consequently reduced the number of rows of--the design. So I guess it all worked out in the end.

Oh, and I have a mustache now, in case you haven't noticed.

In The Hood

Prototyping usually means spending production time on things that I will never wear, or even want to wear, for that matter. I don't usually share these types of projects. There really isn't an end product. It's merely an opportunity to develop an understanding of various techniques. I don't even know what to call this. Is it a hood? Is it a helmet or a balaclava?

So the goal here was to examine the construction of a hood. In this particular instance, I've used a saddle shoulder technique. It seems appropriate enough for maintaining structure along the top, but in the process I noticed a discrepancy between the saddling strip and the side stitches.

The merging of vertical and horizontal stitches seems to personify the length and width difference inherent in the stockinette stitch. This is to say that a stockinette stitch is short and wide, and when you graft sections perpendicularly such as with a saddling technique, the side stitches flare out along the saddling. I wonder if a preparatory row of sequential decreases would even things out? The benefit of this type of hood is already quite visible. I like how rounded and bulbous it looks.

The brim edge is a series of picked-up stitches and held stitches re-joined in the round. As you can see, there are some decreases in there to combat the flaring, and tighten the opening slightly. This seems to work well in this particular situation, but I think something more variable is in order. Maybe a drawstring tunnel? I guess that's something to consider for the next prototype hood.

Nudge Bravo

It's liberating to finish something as big as Nudge Bravo. Never mind that it took me a year to produce. Never mind that it got back-burnered and pushed aside over and over again.

Technically I finished this in November, and guess what? When it was done, I washed it and put it away. Holiday Season was in full swing, I needed to focus on making hats for the shop. I was too busy to book camera time for my personal projects. It got some coverage over the past year on my Facebook Page, but that's about it.



Come to think of it, I never shared much of Nudge Alpha either. It was a piece I did for a private buyer. It was exhausting, and I under-charged for it. I never offered scarves again after that, and declined all custom orders. People don't seem to realize what they're asking me for when they request custom orders, at least not until I state my astronomical pricing. Yes, Nudge Alpha was definitely a learning experience.



But anyway, Nudge Bravo. It's done. Nudge is about structural randomness. It consists of a sequence of randomly selected numbers from one to seven worked in a ribbing alternation. As the sequence is nudged to the right, a new number is chosen and worked into the left side of the work. I chose to leave the edges borderless, anticipating an interesting edge. The subtle curling seems to flow consistently with the overall improvisational nature of the work.

The yarn is a quadruple thread multi-strand consisting of 70% cotton and 30% nylon, recycled from a Gap men's cardigan. The added weight of the nylon contributes quite well to the drape of the fabric. I think the nylon also adds a shimmer to the yarn that is difficult for me to demonstrate in my photographs. Do you see it?

Regardless of the influences that de-prioritized this project in the past year, I'm glad this one's done. I wear it all the time.

That's a Wrap

This year's Christmas wrap ended up being a no-brainer. This J Crew catalogue was fished out of my sister's recycling bin a few years ago, and filed away in one of my "re-use" stacks. I'm not sure what the paper size is, maybe an A3? I'm not sure. Anyway, with the help of a glue stick, I managed to double the area for the larger gift, and the smaller ones fit just fine with a single spread each. The ribbons (if you can call them that) are some of the leftover pages from that Gap Annual Report I used last year.

Happy Holidays!