Sunday, March 9, 2014

Electric Spaghetti




This is the London Jacket (869) from Indygo Junction. It's a fairly plain boxy style jacket & somewhat of a departure from my usual silhouette. I felt it needed a little added excitement. My muse became a mural that had been on a building here in Detroit back in the 80s when I was in art school. I couldn't recall the artist's name, he had been the head of the painting department at CCS when I went there, but I did remember that we called it 'Electric Spaghetti'.  I tried to find an image of it online but had no luck. But I had a hunch it might be in a book I've had forever, Art in Detroit Public Places, (I have an older edition) and it was!



The artist's name was Aris Koutroulis and he called it 'Poetic Electricity', although the book said people called it 'Psychedelic Spaghetti.' Here's Aris with a small version of it. I found some information about Aris, but no images of the mural itself.


photo by Gary Cooperman
Like I said, the pattern is the London Jacket from Indygo Junction. I seem to always have pretty good luck with all their Mary Ann Donze design patterns. I made a size medium for the jacket adding a 1.25"  FBA (2.5" total) rotating part of the dart take-up under the bust to keep the jacket from sticking out too much in front. I did a 3/8 inch slope shoulder adjustment as well-- that's all!



The fabric is a soft denim I inherited from Gwen. I didn't pre-wash it because it had a couple of big pieces cut from it and I figured Gwen, being the conscientious sewer that she was, had washed it. As I worked with it though, it made my hands and nails like an auto mechanic's. I gave it a quick bath in some synthrapol ( not to be confused with Simferopol,  the much in the news lately capitol of Crimea) and hopefully that should keep the dye from running any further. I then did the stitching in five colors of heavy Coats and Clark thread.



In the interest of stash-busting, I think I'll check my hoard for another candidate for this pattern before I put it away.

7 comments:

  1. The jacket looks great, and that top stitching really does take it to another level!

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    1. Thanks. The stitching makes it--it was very ho-hum without it.

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  2. Just discovered your blog (via your review on patternreview). It's great to see the detail of this and your other stuff is lovely too. I would never think of embellishing anything but now I've seen your jacket my mind is Changed. It looks so simple but so good.

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  3. Isn't it wonderful how something so simple can elevate a simple jacket to something stunning? Of course coming up with something simple isn't always that easy. Lovely jacket, you did a lovely job.

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  4. The details on your garments are wonderful!

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