03 February, 2010

Brown-blue cashmere: the unstingiest cut of all

One of the fabrics I sprang for while in NY last month was a length of lightweight suiting in cashmere. Very soft, quite an open weave, and it comes from a menswear store in the famous Fashion District - wish I could remember the name of the store, it was up to the ceiling with all the fancy suiting wools and shirting cottons you could imagine. I had my heart set on finding a pinstripe wool in red and grey, but when I touched this stuff, my wallet was history, along with my preconceived idea.



The image is pretty close to real life - a fine tweed, very dark overall, with highlight threads in golden brown and blue. Thinking "jacket", I asked for 2 yds. When I got home, I discovered I got 2.2 meters. Hmmm. After pre-washing it's still 2.2 meters. It started to look like a jacket and skirt could be doable.

Here's my layout:



What you see is a long pencil skirt - the spaces below the hems allow for extra length - with a back vent - that's the space beside lower CB; and Vogue 7975 jacket, with its two-piece full length sleeve, back facing, and pocket. Even I, the stingy cutter, was amazed at how neatly all these pieces jigsawed themselves together.

I could only get away with this because: 1. I already made these two up, so know they'll fit; 2. the jacket's only a size 10, even a 12 wouldn't have fit this way - hah, sometimes being average is not such a bad thing; 3. this fabric is wider than normal by nearly 10 cm, 158 cm instead of the usual 150; 4. it has no nap; 5. it didn't shrink. Oh my lucky stars!

The 66 cm near the bottom staring blankly at me is obviously enough for the front facing and a cropped sleeveless top. Sort of like this two piece dress: V2218



Specifically, the centre reddish pair, with long skirt and sleeveless top.

I seriously considered repeating my Go dress in this fabric, but a skirt makes the whole thing so much more versatile - and a passel of tops is easily washable, while a cashmere frock is not.


A slightly lighter image, showing the highlights. This outfit, although I confess I got brown trim at M&J, will probably remain completely unadorned. Beautiful good quality cashmere = timeless. How much more timeless can one get than, well, timeless? or more infinite than infinity? Infinitely timeless? Asymptotically timeless? I have some bronze-coloured leather and I'm toying with the idea of trimming the sleeve hems and pockets - maybe. But plain and timeless really appeals to me here.

4 comments:

  1. Beautiful!!! I totally agree that plain and timeless would suit that fabric to a tee. I love it when a layout works out like that - it's like getting an extra garment for free!

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  2. Lovely and very top quality looking fabric. I have this pattern in my stash as well.

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  3. Got your comment on my blog about the patterns. Attempted to use the Friends Connect with the Follower Gadget but could never get the message thing to work. So if you are still interested in the patterns, send me an email with your address to lwl1951@gmail.com

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