BACK TO THE BANYAN WE WILL GO... 28th March 2021

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So good people, it's back to the banyan we will go...

The banyan project got rather side-tracked last year, partly by the desire to make a mannequin of myself first:

Then, I don't know... 'life'... intervened, not to say the making of the 'Good Yule' cards!

So, a quick re-cap is in order I think.  If you have followed my blog for a while you may remember I toned-down my lovely, hand-printed Indian cotton with some strong tea, just to knock it back a bit:

Then I decided to interline said cotton with some well-washed curtain lining, to give it a bit of substance. This was a rather long and tedious process, familiar to quilters, no doubt, but involved essentially tacking the one to the other with a fine blue cotton thread that hardly shows on the cotton chintz:

Next up was a sort of short inner jacket of the chintz padded with cotton domette, as an extra layer in winter. A very, VERY tedious process, of which I don't seem to have any photos. I kept putting it by to do other things!

Finally - finally - we get to making the lining proper. The seams have all been sewn with a blue-grey silk thread from De Vere Yarns (much-magnified in this photo):

As the photo also shows, I have made trouble for myself with the interlining, in that some of the edges were not as accurate as they should have been, meaning sometimes the lining was a little too far back from the seam line.  Not a significant problem really, as no-one is going to see - it will all be covered by the outer silk layer.  However...  I decided I wanted all those bits to look  nice too and, as sometimes the interlining was too far back for the seam allowance to cover it, I made up long strips 3cm wide, folded down the centre and attached these as I sewed the seams.  Although it was tedious to tack all into place, it was a bonus to discover that this strip kept my sewing line nice and straight!  The seam hasn't been pressed in the photo below, but you get the idea.

I still have a few seams to go (there's a LOT of long seams in a banyan!), but an end is in sight for that bit at least.  After that, it's 'just' sewing the outer layer of silk brocade.  This will be fun as it's a rather slippy fabric with easily-frayed seams.  I will have to sew some sort of binding in place as I go.  We shall see...

This is what the lining looks like at present - do bear in mind that it's essentially inside-out in this view!  Looks nice though, even if I do say so myself :-)

 

 

I will need to make the mannequin a bit higher when I come to marry the lining to the outer, but that's a battle for another day......