Sunday, February 24, 2013

Alabama Chanin, Anyone?

I saw the Alabama Chanin book in BAM when I was looking for my knitting book quite a while back,

then I saw Gwen's post about it sort of recently, then today I was looking at my AAA magazine (I cannot currently think of what that stands for - Auto Association of America? - but it's not to be confused with AA, which doesn't publish a magazine that I know of), and guess what I saw?

Alabama Chanin (do yourself a favor and look at that beautiful website - I bookmarked it so I can go back and gawk some more) has workshops where you come in and create something using their materials and designers. They range from a couple of hours to a whole weekend - neat! They also have something called DIY, where you order a kit apparently, and they mail you the fabric in your choice of color, plus whatever else you need to make it yourself. I'm not sure what to think about that. I mean, I love this dress...

but I think I'd feel funny claiming I made it. This particular one is $340 (yowza - that's up there with my Betzina jeans weekend!), and you choose your size, fabric color for the leaves, and thread color. It says the dress is stenciled, so I guess you hand embroider the leaves around the bottom? Very interesting concept, but it makes me think of color-by-number...which would be fabulous for people like me who have no vision, but maybe not so much for people like Gwen, who are artists.

So has anybody done one of these? I may have to have a second look at that book....but first I'll finish my Betzina pants class on Craftsy. I'm proud to say I've been watching the lessons and actually cut out and adjusted all my pattern pieces today - woohoo!

5 comments:

marysews said...

I pinned the colorblock tiered skirt! Thanks for sharing!

Liba said...

Beautiful stuff but Good Lord at the prices! If I had $350 to spend on a t-shirt I definitely would not be getting up at 3 AM to go to work!

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

So Mary, will you be making this? And Liba, this is just up in Florence! It's cool to read about - apparently they employ all kinds of ladies who sew in their homes. It reminds me of those Quilts of Gees Bend that go from museum to museum - high-fallutin' stuff from our humble state!

gwensews said...

Are you aware that Natalie Chanin has a Craftsy class? Yes, she does. I am definitely going to take it. I'd like to try her techniques on maybe a pillow before doing a garment, just to get the feel of it. Anyway, check out AlabamaChanin on Craftsy.

Dr. Fun (AKA Sister) said...

Ooh, I checked it out Gwen - very cool! I saw that the projects posted so far are smaller than the coat, like panties for example. Maybe if I could get past my pants and then my knit top class I bought a couple of years ago....