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I have sewn garments for years but only made garments with eco-printed fabrics for about a year. Eco printed fabric gives me a new challenge: the width of the fabric.

I printed eco-fabric that was 42cm wide. Garments normally use 115cm wide fabric. 42cm was limited by my longest pole and the length of my fish kettle. With my new larger fish kettle this has gone up to about 54cm.

I looked for interesting garment patterns that could be accommodated by this restriction. I choose a Marcy Tilton jacket pattern

My fabric was an old linen table cloth. I cut out the pattern pieces before printing to get round the width limitations. Then I printed the pieces individually using walnut, rose, silverweed and Cornus leaves, and a tannin blanket.

Work in progress.

Finished jacket

The trouser pattern was made up of narrow pieces. I simply sewed my fabric pieces together to get the required width and length. I was aiming for a bohemian style. The fabric is heavily iron marked and some is dyed.

A dramatic effect. Too dramatic. I don’t think I will ever wear these trousers.

In January, I took an online eco-printing course with Caroline Nixon. It is a superb course, I really recommend it. I now have many new ideas for garment making and on how to produce wider pieces of fabric. Great!

The key is thinking carefully about the garment pattern and the printing process.

Before buying a pattern or fabric!

Returning to my Marcy Tilton jacket pattern. The pattern pieces can all be printed with a fabric width of 46 cm. So I did the right thing cutting then printing. Alternatively today I could print approx 4 m of 54 cm wide fabric to make the jacket.

I have recently bought another jacket pattern from Wardrobe by me. This is a pdf pattern called KOMI. All pieces can also be printed out of about 46cm fabrics pieces. Alternatively, I could print approx 5m of 54 cm wide fabric and then cut the pieces out. More fabric is needed as the jacket is longer.

Now I know I have an insufficient quantity of fabric in stock to sew any jackets. My challenge is to print reasonably large quantities of fabric. I honestly think I need to practice some more before I can complete this challenge.

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