Striped Linden
Pattern: Linden Sweatshirt by Grainline Studio
Fabric: Poly blend ponte de Roma x 3 from Mood Fabrics
Sewn up: Winter 2019
Soon after learning to sew, I tore through Project Runway – somehow I had never seen it before. Within a couple months I had watched all 11 seasons available on Hulu, which I believe amounts to about 115 hours of TV – yikes! Oh well, free sewing lessons 🙂While most reality/competition shows stress me out, I somehow find watching PR to be a sort of stress inoculation, because I am just so grateful I don’t have to do anything on such a crazy timetable as they’re up against. And that show always reminds me to be a nice person – those team challenges are just so rough! How, after so many seasons, does anyone still feel like being a poor team member is a good idea?? All this is to say, I knew I wanted to visit Mood in NYC as soon as I could.
I made it up there this past February, and it was everything I hoped it would be, and nowhere like anywhere I had ever been! It felt like wandering around a small indoor city, with walls devoted to the most specific items: Fancy lace. Black fabric in all possible substrates. Leather of every color and texture. And, the section that I was most excited to turn a corner and discover: jersey stripes.
Sort of like being in a bead shop, or the produce section of a market, the combination of all the colors together was what made the individual options come to life. I had been wanting to color-block something for awhile, but hadn’t yet found the right variety of colors available in the same fabric. But here, in the sea of jersey stripes, was a pyramid of the same ponte de roma in ten different colorways!
Sea of Stripes
Pyramid of Ponte
I ignored the fact that it was labeled as "poly blend” (my local fabric store carries only natural fibers and I had been warned away from poly by my sewing teachers) and after much deliberation selected three sets of stripes – a teal and cobalt, an orange and burgundy, a pink and purple. I had a vision of sewing up a tee shirt with two different (but not too different!) colored sleeves.
I love that this top turned out sort of clownish, and that no one else is ever wearing anything like it – it is a conversation starter for sure! I love less that it is a bit on the hot (i.e. sweaty) side to wear, as "poly blend" turned out to mean 80% polyester, 15% rayon, 5% spandex – whoops! But, as with watching 11 seasons of Project Runway in a very short timeframe, no regrets. 🙂
~ Photos by Lizzie Epstein - thanks sis! ~
Drawing process reel! Closet floor photo, coffee shop sketch, digital drawing.
