April 4, 2013
Newsletter #3 highlights our textile design collaboration with Anna Maria Horner, nine new shades of Natural Dye Organic Cotton Jersey, and upcoming workshops and events all over the country.
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xoNatalie and all of us @ Alabama Chanin
April 1, 2013
This month’s Desktop of the Month celebrates the arrival of spring. Variations of reds and pinks highlight our Daisy stencil, creating a strong contrast against the Natural colored background.
Taken from our new Collection, the Daisy appliqué features red variegated embroidery floss sewn with a whipstitch. We use this technique on our A-line Dress and a variety of jackets and coats to add a colorful depth to our collection.
This hi-resolution photograph, for use as your computer desktop background, is now available to download from our Resource Downloads.
March 25, 2013
Husband and wife team Lance and April Ledbetter are protecting the sounds of our past with their highly acclaimed label, Dust-to-Digital. Founded by Lance a little over a decade ago, Dust-to-Digital is home to a growing catalogue of important cultural works from the United States and around the globe. I’ve been viewing their line-up for a few years and am constantly impressed by the amount of material and depth each release includes. The types of recordings they release are unlike most on the market. It’s really audio conservation in its finest form. I was lucky enough to meet them both last fall during our trip to Atlanta, when we both attended the Lonnie Holly show at the High Museum. Afterward, they attended our event with the Gee’s Bend Quilters at Grocery on Home.
Within the first few minutes of their arrival at the event, I barraged them with questions: “Can we carry your work? Can we do a blog post? Would you want to trade?”
The answer came back, “Yes.”
All of us at Alabama Chanin are so proud and honored to be able to introduce and begin to explore the work of Dust-to-Digital and to sell these treasured collectors’ items on our website.
March 18, 2013
As most of our readers know, we have a deep love and admiration for our friend – and collaborator – Anna Maria Horner. She is an artist, fluent in more than one creative medium. She not only creates bold and unique fabrics, some of which we have adapted into Alabama Chanin garments, but she also designs kitchen and paper goods, writes, works as the spokesperson for Janome, and keeps up with her beautiful family, all while pregnant with baby #7.
As I read through my new copy of Anna Maria’s Needleworks Notebook, I was moved by her descriptions of family and creativity and how being surrounded by the beautiful handmade things they made influenced her life path. While my parents weren’t as prolifically artistic as Anna Maria’s, the stories of her grandmothers and their sewing resonate with me strongly.
March 15, 2013
Our latest Alabama Chanin Collection features two original pieces – The Swing Coat and Layered Dolman Coat – and several classic patterns like the Alabama A-line dress and Long Skirt developed in new colorways and patterns.
Last summer we collaborated with friend and talent Anna Maria Horner on the Little Flowers stencil, which you’ll find on our Little Flowers Swing Coat and Little Flowers Dolman Coat. The Swing Coat, essentially a shorter version of our Long Coat, is fitted through the bodice with a gentle flare at the waist. Made in 100% organic lightweight cotton jersey, the Swing Coat measures 32” from the shoulder and shows off the simple beauty of backstitch reverse appliqué.
March 11, 2013
I first saw Tilleke Schwarz’s work in an exhibition called Pricked: Extreme Embroidery at the Museum of Arts & Design in New York. The needlework was displayed proudly as contemporary art by extraordinary female artists. Boundaries were pushed as textile art was made. Friend, Maira Kalman, also had work on view.
Tilleke’s work resonated with me with its elaborate technique and profound artistic statement. At the time, her first book Mark Making (2007) had quickly sold out, so when her self-published second book, New Potatoes, came out a few years later I readily ordered 10 copies.
March 8, 2013
Leslie Williamson’s beautiful first book, Handcrafted Modern, captures several homes and interiors of some of the mid-twentieth century’s most loved architects and designers. The photos and essays blew us away and left us wanting for more. With a little more support for her Kickstarter campaign, we just might get to see her second book, Handcrafted Modern Europe, come to be.
March 4, 2013
This month’s Desktop of the Month features our Spiral embroidery technique from Alabama Studio Sewing + Design. Due to its textural quality, I think the Spiral is one of the most beautiful techniques that we use here at Alabama Chanin. Those that wear garments embellished with this simple (but time consuming) embroidery treatment often remark that perfect strangers ask to touch their garments. While you can’t touch this image, it gives you a perfect illustration of what it might be like to touch and be touched.
A high-resolution photograph for use as your computer desktop background is now available as a download in our Resource Downloads section.
Come back this Thursday for our DIY Spiral Embroidered Coffee Cozies (although I wish it was for my DIY Spirals Couch).
February 26, 2013
We recently started a conversation on Real Women and fashion with Sara’s post “Too Fat For Fashion”, and your response has been lively, evocative and challenging. As we prepared to launch an extended ready-to-wear Basics section on our Alabama Chanin website, we found ourselves thinking more carefully about how our pieces fit different shapes, how they can be adjusted and streamlined for individual figures, and how many of our pieces flatter many body types.
Start with the material. By using 100% organic cotton jersey, we have given our collection a head start on both comfort and individualized fit. Jersey, by nature, has a generous stretch, but also memory. One member on our Alabama Chanin team loves the Alabama Corset because when she hangs it up after wearing she can still see the silhouette of her body in the fabric. It makes her feel as though the top was made especially for her.
February 18, 2013
I don’t want to overstate the obvious, but most of you would know that I am neither a New Yorker nor a fashion expert. While I enjoy style and design and I’m somewhat awed by the city, it’s clear to any observer that I’m native to neither. But, there’s something about Bill Cunningham that makes me feel comfortable with both. He lives and roams in the intimidating worlds of fashion and Manhattan, but manages to do so in an unpretentious way.
This weekend I re-watched the feature-length documentary Bill Cunningham New York, which profiles this prolific photographer and wise fashion observer and, once again, this eighty-something gentleman captured all my heart. Sometimes, as a fashion outsider, I imagine that NY style begins and ends on the runway. Bill Cunningham is a firm believer that this notion is not true. “The best fashion show is definitely on the street – always has been, always will be,” he assures us. His “On the Street,” column in the New York Times is a collage of on-trend people, items, movements, and real-time style progressions. In the film, Harold Koda, Curator of the Costume Institute/Metropolitan Museum of Art, explains that Bill attempts to “tease out trends in terms of the reality of how people dress.” Cunningham himself demurs, “I don’t decide anything. I let the street speak to ME.”
