The pattern for my shirt was inspired by Zero Waste Patterns by Birgitta Helmersson. I adapted the ideas in the block shirt design to fit the 24-inch width of my fabric. The design I ended up with was a solid body piece with cutouts for the armholes and rounded sleeve shapes. If I were to do it again, I think I would do gusset sleeves instead of the rounded sleeve.
After my fabric was off the loom, I washed it to allow for any shrinking to happen. Before cutting out my pattern pieces, I reinforced all the seams with a hemstitch. This prevented any fraying or unraveling of the loosely woven fabric and allowed me to cut with a very minimal seam allowance.
Once the pieces were all cut, I sewed everything together. The top shoulder seam and all the edges were sewn up by hand using drop-spun silk thread. The sleeve attachment was done using a machine zigzag to create a French seam. While a little bulky, this made the attachment very secure, protected it from fraying, and hid any polyester machine thread inside the garment.
Now that the construction was all finished, it was time for the most fun part: dyeing it!
I dyed it using madder root from Deb McClintock — check out her blog at https://debmcclintock.me for great resources on natural dyeing and weaving. Myself and some fellow guild members went out to her property to help dig up the bed in exchange for taking some of the madder home with us.
I started by scouring the shirt with Dawn dish soap and mordanting it with alum. At the same time, I started extracting the color from the roots by bringing them to just below a simmer for an hour, then putting a lid on the pot and letting them soak for a day. I repeated this process three times before straining out the roots. Then the shirt went in at just below a simmer for 90 minutes, and I left it to soak in the dye bath for a day before washing it. The results turned out a beautiful pink coral color I am very happy with!
Overall, this was an incredible learning experience, and I am incredibly proud of my first entirely handmade garment. If you want to see the shirt and other beautiful woven artworks, check out The Wild Wild Weft: Celebrating the Art of Texas Weavers, where it will be on display from October 3 to November 7, 2026.
