Saori freeform woven shrug shaped by pulling warp strands

About a year or so ago, I wove up quite a few yards of very playful fabric.

I love the gentle Saori philosophy of creative freeform weaving that is an expression of creativity and an exploration of imagination.

My plan was to use this fuzzy Saori inspired fabric to make a soft, cozy wrappie jacketie sort of a thing to keep me warm in the studio when winter wails away outside.

BUT- I just couldn’t settle on how to use the fabric.

After much teeth gnashing, I thought: ‘Aha! I am going to make it into one of my most favorite things: A shrug!’

So,  I laid out the fabric on my cutting table, cut it in half (it was about 3 yards long and only about 14 inches wide).

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

I sewed the 2 halves together lengthwise to make a wider, shorter piece of fabric.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Then, I cut a slight curve at the top for the neck, and curves under the arms.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

And then, I folded the shrug in half, and pinned the living daylights out of it.

Looked at it and groaned…. I had pinned it together the wrong way.

Sigh….this is why I pin pin pin pin pin…. pins have saved my bacon more times than I care to remember!

Okay, unpinned, flipped, re-folded, and pin pin pin pin pin pin pin pin….. and stitched the under arm seams.

Then, I pulled up the selvedge strands of a long narrow piece (about 6  inches wide by about 3 yards long) to gather it into a gentle ruffle. This length of fabric was one that I had woven on my Cricket rigid heddle loom – originally for another vest (but I saw how perfect it would be for the ruffle, so I ‘re-purposed’ it for the shrug 😀 )

I stitched the ruffle around the outside edges of the shrug, forming a collar, front facing and lower back edging.

I sewed the short edges together at the lower back edge.

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

Here’s the back view:

copyright Noreen Crone-Findlay

The cuffs are 6 inch by approximately 18 inch lengths that I gathered by pulling up a couple of warp strands at the selvedge.

I stitched the short ends together, and stitched them onto the sleeves. Voila! Bell shape cuffs.

By pulling the warp strands up to gather the trim piece and the cuffs, I was able to avoid cutting the hand woven fabric any more than was necessary.

I stitched the shrug together on my machine, with a stretch straight stitch and zig zagged the edges of the  seams to add a little more security.

And, there you have it- a VERY playful and cozy one of a kind, hand woven freeform shrug!