Alabama Stitch Book

This is the sewing book I have literally carried around with me all week.  I am crazy about this book.  I first read about Natalie Chanin in Domino last year and I immediately went to her website and fell in love with her work and craft philosophy.  I actually wrote in my calendar what month in 2008 this book would be coming out.  And now I can't put it down.

Her company, Alabama Chanin, located in Florence, Alabama, in the small community called Lovelace Crossroads, is where she works, lives, creates, and employs local artisans.  (Yay, a fellow Southerner!) Alabama Chanin designs clothing from recycled materials, primarily 100% cotton knit jersey (the production of this fabric was once a booming business in this area of the country).  The signature look of Natalie Chanin's work is referred to as "Reverse Applique" in the book, and this skirt is probably one of my favorite examples-

This skirt can be made entirely from XL cotton knit T-shirts.  Imagine what a comfy skirt this is!  Not to mention absolutely gorgeous.  The outer knit is stenciled in the vine leaf pattern you see, with textile paint, then the contrast knit (the darker red) is sewn to the wrong side of the skirt.  The stenciled pattern is outlined with hand embroidered stitches, then the outer knit is cut away inside the stenciled area to reveal the fabric underneath.  Just gorgeous.  (Keep in mind she has done wedding dresses using this technique.)  I should note that everything in this book is handstitched, there is no machine stitching.  For some reason, I was very happy about that.  It celebrates the history of using what one had, or reusing what one had, to create something beautiful (she teaches us to "love our thread" in the book, which is actually a method she uses to keep it from tangling).

I was looking for a project I could do before I wrote this post, and for whatever reason I was immediately drawn to the rag boa above.  I just imagined how fun it would be to combine colors I love into this, and how soft it would be around my neck.  I trip to Goodwill produced 2 $2.99 T-shirts, but I quickly realized I should have bought more T's when I started in on the project, so I switched gears and started making the gorgeous flower bouquet project.

These mums are big, floppy, so fun, I'm keeping a bouquet of them in my studio, but feel sure I will be making some to go around the house.  What a great excuse to recycle more T-shirts.  The ones in the book combine more than one color for the flower, by my flower and leaves combine the gray and green I love so much right now, to keep out as inspiration in the studio.

Okay, as you can see I'm seriously all crushed out on Natalie and her work.  If you'd like to learn more, read a couple of great interviews with Natalie done by Mary Jo/Trust Your Style here and here.