Lou Fielder
Pattern: Fielder Top by Merchant & Mills
Fabric: Cotton double gauze by Nani Iro (Grace Stripes in green/purple) from Cattywampus Crafts
Sewn up: January 2020
This top is the last thing in recent memory that I emergency-sewed. I imagine I will eventually find myself back to same-day, just-in-time power-sewing of imminent-event-specific garments, but for now, during quarantine, I have been doing a whole lot of slow sewing: French seams, Hong Kong finishes, multiple muslins, fancy pajamas. It’s fun to think back to this top, which I made on a Saturday afternoon in January to wear to an art opening that night.
My friend Lou is a printmaker who has been making the most beautiful art in DC for over fifty years. I had the good fortune to meet him through my friend Anne, who worked as his studio assistant – Anne is basically an honorary daughter to Lou, and as Anne’s pal, I got the lucky break of being part of a package friendship deal.
Lou wears all black, but loves color – and his use of it is so gorgeous, it almost hurts to look at. Earlier prints of his, from before I knew him, are of flowers and trees. Later prints are abstract fields of layered brush strokes that read as meadows or sky. And most recently, he has been making 3-D collages where he sequences vertical strips of monoprints into beautiful, mysterious landscapes.
In January, a show of Lou's new work opened at his gallery in Georgetown. While I’ve attended quite a few his talks and retrospectives, this was his first show of all new work that I’ve been able to attend since I’ve known him. I hadn’t seen him in awhile, and I loved the idea of wearing something Lou-inspired to the event. I had been waiting for the right time to use these Nani Iro stripes I had fallen for last summer visiting the lovely Cattywampus Crafts in Ojai, where my own honorary family member, sister-friend/cool-college-kid Greta, worked and hooked me up with this fabric when it was on super-sale for $5 a yard. I realized that if I cut the fabric on the cross-grain, the brush strokes could evoke (to me anyway) the vertical strips of Lou’s latest work.
It’s hard for me to let go of an opportunity to wear something that feels specifically festive to an event at hand, so when it was past time to leave my house, and I had a top with all raw hems, I decided to baste-hem everything as a temporary measure. I worried someone might notice the big loose stitches on my sleeves, but that definitely did not happen! Most people, it turns out, are not doing close readings of the stitch lines in your clothes.
What did happen was that within five minutes of arriving at the gallery, someone said I “looked like the show” – mission accomplished! It was a beautiful opening, a packed house, and a happy night. And while I did wear this top out another time or two in its unfinished state (the pull to wear something I’ve just made is so very strong!) eventually I did unpick the basting stitches and hem everything up properly.
Images from the gallery opening - screenprints by Lou Stovall
Some construction notes: This is sewn from the Fielder Top pattern, which is designed with a rib-knit neckband, cuffs, and waistband (see my first one here). For this version I omitted those in favor of improvisationally widening the neck a bit and finishing it with bias binding. I would not necessarily recommend this approach, as the neck does not sit very flat and I had to add some post-bias-binding darts into the shoulders to tighten it up! So the fit is not the best. But I love it anyway! It makes me think of Lou, and Greta, and good times out in the world.
And another funny (to me) note: I sewed this up the weekend before I was scheduled to “get my colors done.” This is a phrase I initially learned from reading the Bridget Jones books in high school, and then became preoccupied with earlier this year when Jasika Nicole started posting about her journey towards realizing she is a “deep Autumn” and modifying her sewing accordingly. For the uninitiated, this process involves analyzing the underlying tones in your skin and other features to determine what seasonal palette your natural coloring aligns most closely to – the idea being that you can then wear clothes in harmony with the rest of you. I self-diagnosed as a “clear spring” – partially on the basis of having warmer (rather than cooler) notes in my hair and eyes, but mostly on the basis of loving all of the bright, happy colors in that palette – and had the thought, while sewing with this fabric, “well, glad I am squeezing this in before my color analysis tells me I’m not allowed to wear any of these colors anymore!”
What ended up happening was that a) I was declared to be a “brown summer” (the LEAST bright and colorful option out there!) and b) that every single color in this top is in fact in that palette. So, initially crushing news that I have ultimately embraced as good news (there are still plenty of colors to choose from in the summer palette!). I am excited to share more about my experience with color analysis in a future post!
~ Photos by Lizzie Epstein - thanks sis!
Drawing process reel: Kitchen table photo, pencil sketch, digital drawing.
