Still unsure how to finish the edges of the mistcloak strips. Cutting on the bias doesn't actually help much; when it does fray, it looks really ugly. I wonder if edge-stitching + cutting on the bias would be helpful?

Anyway, I've been experimenting with different combinations of strip width and weights of fabric. For your perusal:

Front layers still 2", back layer 1"

Only front layers; those 1"


Definitely on the right track here. It's getting much more airflow through, so it's fluttering nicely.


Back layer only (1")


All layers; 1"

Front at .5" (more or less), back 1"

Not a fan of this one. The thinner strips just look tattered, it's impossible to cut strips that narrow straight, and they're so narrow that any edge finish would practically take up the entire strip.


So, I think I'm going with all layers, 1" all around. After seeing a cloak on the TWG forums made entirely of organza, I think I'll be set if I put a partial layer of organza on top to give it some liveliness (? I lack the fancy artsy fashion designer terminology. Something something "dynamic", maybe). Updates will be forthcoming.

It should also have a hood; I'm contemplating making it out of a solid piece of the heavy charmeuse. I don't think I want to sew strips into a hood. Ugh.


So anyway, I'm making another partial mockup with the rest of my fabric, all 1" strips. Unfortunately, quilting it down - even just hand-basting - is approximately impossible unless you've stabilized it into submission first. Lacking stabilizers, I've been just hand-tacking each layer together. (I really need to get some stabilizer.)

I forgot how much I hate working with satins. Even with a rotary cutter, this stuff was !$!@$ impossible to cut straight.


I ended up deciding to tear it, at least for the purposes of this experiment.


Unfortunately, tearing is a little rough on the lightest-weight silk.


Anyway, here's one of the piles of streamers. I think this is the lightest-weight fabric.

And here's the heavy charmeuse.


The edges got a little stretched when I tore the fabric, so I'm ironing all the pieces flat again.



My (probably futile) attempt to keep them from getting all wrinkled in my backpack.


The base layer - 2" strips of the heavy charmeuse sewn together at the top.


Pinning on another layer.


Two layers.


I lightly stitched the back layer together for about 6", because it was impossible to handle this piece otherwise.


And then I tacked the front two layers together down to about six inches as well.


Here's the whole thing laid out.


Not a great picture, but you get the idea.


If this were the finished product, it'd be at least six inches longer. I don't think that would affect the drape all that much, though.






My wonderful housemate Kevin waving it around so I could capture how it moved. My dog is looking on in the background with his trademarked "I do not understand why you humans do what you do" expression.

Sigh. In the end, the light outer layers were just not as tendril-like as I wanted. Now that I've got this documented, I'll slit all the strips up the middle and see what 1" strips look like. (The fabric will also be darker overall, and about six inches longer.) This was somewhat disappointing, but better now than later.

FINISH HIM!!!

*cough* Sorry, I always wanted to say that in an appropriately fruity voice. Although possibly it should be "Finish hem!"

I am not terribly pleased with the results of my experimental edge finishes. Even using #100 silk thread (i.e., super fine), all the sturdy ones ended up far too stiff.

Various satin stitches.

Rolled hem.




I'm contemplating just doing a double row of very small straight stitches down the edge. I'm not sure if this actually wins me anything, though.



The edge would look like this, probably.

Maybe that, in combination with fray-check or fabric medium, would do something useful. I don't know. Well, tomorrow hopefully I'll start cutting up the fabric, and I can see how badly the edges fray if I leave them alone (*twitch* *twitch* nothing goes out of my workshop with unfinished raw edges... unless I don't have a choice. Grumble.)

No I do NOT mean lancet.

Here begins round 1 of mistcloak fabric experimentation!

I used Lanaset (and man, did google's auto-correction irritate me here) acid dye on silk: a 19mm charmeuse, a 12mm satin, and an 8mm flat crepe. I normally use Procion reactive dyes, which can actually be used on protein fibers as well (prepare your fiber in an acid soak rather than a basic soak, and heat-set it), but the problem is that the Procion color card is calibrated for dyeing on cotton; it's reasonably accurate for most plant fibers, but the colors can be wildly off on protein fiber. So I ended up with Lanaset, which is an acid dye (this is much less scary than it sounds. It just means that you pre-soak with vinegar).
First off, preparing different strengths of dye solution:

Here's my bottle of 2% stock solution.


For hand-application of dye to fiber and fabric, usually you lay it all out on a sheet of plastic and wrap it up when you're done, in preparation for steaming or batching (if your dye doesn't need heat, you just give it time to react). Yes, this is my dining room. And yes, my housemates are wonderful.


I thought I'd try spraying on some dye to see what it looked like.

And also put some in cups for brush-painting.

Hrm. The sprayed-on look is... not really what I was going for.

Anyway, this is the 8mm crepe after I've done various things to it - spraying in the far corner, a few different shades of hand applied dye on the rest.

My first shot at hand-applying the dye.


This is the 12mm silk, painted with dye and ready to be rolled up.

At this point I ran out of time and had to go to work, so I rolled them all up and stuffed them in the dye pot until the next day.

Acid dyes generally require two things to fix them to the fiber: acid (unsurprisingly), and heat. Lanaset dye can just be steamed (although if you're immersion-dyeing, you can just heat the whole dyebath). Unfortunately, although I found this lovely pot at Goodwill, the metal colander thing I got to go inside it for the fabric to sit on wouldn't quite fit. Improvisation time!

All wrapped up and starting to get steamy.


You're supposed to wait for it to all cool down to room temperature before rinsing it out. Ahahahaha yeah right.


The really cool thing about Lanaset is that the dyebath exhausts. This means that all of the dye reacts with the fabric, so when you rinse it out, all that should be coming off is some slightly vinegar-y water. Unlike my Procion-dyed bamboo yarn, this did not need EIGHT RINSES. (grr...)


Here's the 19mm charmeuse rinsed off.


Trying to fit all of them onto this drying rack in a way that would allow all of them to dry took some ingenuity. And clothespins.

And now for the moment of truth! (Note: none of this fabric is as blindingly shiny as it seems; the flash on the camera just brings it out. Due to that, it's also a couple shades darker than it looks in photographs.)

8mm crepe:

You can see a little bit of experimentation with the squirt bottles in the middle. I had mostly given up on that technique by then, though.


This stuff is super super light and fine. I hope it does the "curling like the mists" thing; I'm planning on having it as the top layer.


A nice all-over mottled pattern. Not bad.

12mm satin:
This one I did only with foam brushes, and I actually managed to divide up the fabric and remember what I did where instead of just sort of slapping things on to see what happened.

You can see the dividing line right down the middle there...


Closeup of the darkest section.


This is the lightest section...



...and this is the medium-colored section.

19mm charmeuse:
Features of note:

Remember how I said I let it sit wrapped up in plastic overnight? I think some of the patterning here is from being crumpled in the plastic. I'm starting to see the point of the Maiwa Handprint instructions for dyeing with Lanaset - namely, to apply your dye and then let the fabric dry completely before steaming it. At least that way you know your dye isn't going to seep around before you set it. On the other hand, you don't come up with cool things like this by accident.


A heavier application of spray. The lighter areas are from being crumpled in plastic as well.


The entire spray corner, with patches in two different intensities.

The backside of the softer sprayed area - it's hard to see the pattern when the camera flash is making the fabric super shiny. The back side of this fabric is matte, though, so it's easier to see.

The front side of the softer sprayed area. I can't remember exactly, but I think this area involved painting over the spray with a layer of the most dilute dye, and shaving cream. (Yeah, apparently if you spray some shaving cream on top of the dye, you can smoosh it around and soften the edges a bit.) I rather like this effect.