My First Seamless Felt Garments.

I have been wanting to make a seamless felt garment for sometime now, but with holiday orders and all my obligations, the project had to be put on hold. Now that the holidays are over, I am so excited to start! It was so much fun to create a full seamless garment and such a puzzle. I made the jacket/shawl/shrug first . I only had a vague idea on how it was going to come together.

The first problem I encountered, was that, although I wanted a seamless garment, there was no way I could lay it out in one piece on my table. SO , my assistant, Oa and I pondered the problem and came up with a work-around. 

First, we cut the pattern, a back, two sleeves and what looked like the wings on a pre-historic butterfly. The back is a nuno with green silk chiffon, and various shades of green wool and inclusions  of other green silk materials ( I'll take close ups tomorrow), The sleeves were done in in a lattice weave going from light green to dark forest green. The "wings" are nuno on iridescent green silk chiffon with various shades of green merino wool roving on both sides.

We pre-felted everything separately . Then I pulled out my babylock needle felter, (for the first time I might add) , and needled the seams together. We than made a plastic foam resist, placed it  

between the back, the wings and inside the sleeves and continued to felt. When everything was holding together, we then fulled the jacket without the resists.  This is a detail of the jacket's sleeves. 

Below, you see what the wings do when crossed over the chest. Tomorrow, I will write about making the dress. AND. I will have a model trying it on, so I will have new pictures.

This is the most complicated garment I have made to date and I am tickled with how it came out.

This has inspired me to start a little "collection" with this being the first based on the four elements.This jacket and dress represent earth, I think I will tackle air next: A WEDDING GOWN!!!