Dreamland

Keyhole shell with applique.

I shared the beginning of this project here.  It started as a long-sleeve shirt, but when I looked at the photo I had taken earlier without the sleeves, that kind of grew on me.  It helped a lot to pin the pieces onto Purnah, so I could add darts in the right places.

My favorite bit is the hidden snap at the keyhole neckline:

Seams for this one are on the outside, felled to one side and stitched twice:

I wore this to the opening on Friday night (with a plain black maxi skirt), minus a half a dozen of the applique pieces on the front since I wasn't quite done yet.  I was frustrated at being in the same position again (almost done).  Will I never learn?  I think it's time to embrace that part of my nature....

Oliver skirt, part 2.

I decided to add a bird to my skirt:

And I thought she needed a friend:

Then the back looked a little lonely without any birds, so I added one more down at the hem:

The paint is a combination of several colors of Lumiere.  Honestly, Jacquard paints are not my favorites, but the flow of the Lumiere is nicer than the solids.  There's also a little Setacolor mixed in (which is my favorite).

Here is what the skirt says, from the poem The Summer Day by Mary Oliver:

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.

The next line of the poem is "Tell me, what else should I have done?" and when I started the skirt, I'd planned to screenprint that line on it, smaller, and in several places.  It seemed fitting for my, "I should be doing more to help my community!" attitude.  Then in the middle of working on the skirt, something came up around our house that I am stilll trying to get my head around (and which I'll write about more completely later) -- and which also explains my sporadic blog posts lately.  Now the poem has a different meaning for me, and I am focusing instead on the word blessed, which I have embroidered over to create a little subtle texture:

I like that it's easy to miss that embellishment on the word blessed, unless you're really paying attention.

Oliver Skirt.

I've been working on a new skirt, from fabric I printed at Spoonflower.  The background is printed from a sheet of scrapbook paper:  I scanned a small piece of an ordinary looking blue/green paper and enlarged it to fit the entire yard of fabric.  It's amazing to me how that ordinary paper became so pixelated when it was enlarged.  A happy accident!

I wasn't as thrilled with how my lettering also looked pixelated, so I used a finepoint Tee Juice marker to add a second layer to the writing.

I added another layer of color by stenciling these leaves asymmetrically on the skirt.  (That also helped bridge the gap where the side seam falls.)

And then it still wasn't quite right...so after letting it sit in a bag out of sight for a few weeks, I started stitching around the stencils and adding a few beads here and there:

This part is extremely labor-intensive, so it may be awhile before I share the finished skirt.  I'm hoping to have it done in time for my upcoming group show at the Textile Center:  either to wear or to exhibit!

Spring envelopes.

The forecast calls for up to a foot of snow (or possibly only a few inches of freezing rain), more winter than we've had all winter!  And with the addressing of wedding envelopes on my horizon, I thought it was a good time to put a little spring in my step....

Reverse applique sundress, part 2.

I've gotten a little farther on the sundress I first wrote about in this post.  (The top is two layers of jersey, with beading and reverse applique.)

Pinning it onto Purnah, I've realized I'll need to make a few adjustments before I sew the final seams.  I don't know if that's because I made the dress from knit, and the original pattern calls for woven, or if my body just requires more darts, but it definitely gaps a bit here and there when I pin it together.

The bodice is done except for the little tiny beads that I'm adding all around the neckline, a combination of Japanese Toho seed beads, bugle beads, and Czech glass beads:

It took most of an episode of Glee to get that little patch of beads stitched on.  Here's hoping I can get the rest of it stitched before summer!

Messenger Series No. 1.

Remember this project?  I had it printed at Spoonflower:

The color was a bit washed out, so I overdyed it in a mix of robin's egg and turquoise:

Then I stitched around each phrase, embellishing the empty blocks with free motion embroidery:

Ta da!

(photos 3 & 4 by Nell Ytsma)

The words on this piece are from a poem by Phillip Larkin; I studied Larkin's book The Whitsun Weddings in college, had written this poem out with a fountain pen, and found it tucked in a book in the attic (bleached, faded, and all) at the time I was considering what words I wanted to use on my project.  Read "Love Songs in Age" here.

P.S.  My winter newsletter will have to wait till next week!

Reverse applique.

You may remember seeing the start of this project on this post.   The embellishment is my own design made into a stencil, painted onto old black t-shirts from Goodwill (three, in the end), and hand-stitched.  The tank pattern is modified from Alabama Studio Style.  (And how excited am I for the third book in that series to be released later this month?  I preordered it months ago.)

Applique.

A new hand-stitched piece I'm working on.  This one is regular applique, with individual pieces stitched to the surface (rather than reverse applique, with parts cut away, which is what I often do).

The above photos are the back of a long sleeve shirt; the front has a keyhole opening at the neckline:

I learned early that when you're sewing with 100% cotton jersey, it's best to start out on the snug side.  Even washing & drying by machine doesn't do much for the recovery of the knit.  Wish I had figured that out before I made the skirt!

New work this week.

In the middle of this grey winter, I needed a little color.  I started with a paper collage in blues and greens:

I tidied it up and am having it printed at Spoonflower:

So far, my plan is to print one plain and one with the lines of a poem written in each block (although I may just change my mind!).

Yesterday, I made this little yellow-orange-red piece from old sheets of stamp artwork:

I started with four layers of paper painted with Dynaflow, sandwiched with randomly cut pieces of synthetic organza.

I stitched all the layers onto a piece of Peltex I had sprayed with color.  (The Peltex really absorbed the pigment; I didn't care much as this is the back side.)

I cut between the stitching, through all the layers except the Peltex, and then roughed it up with my hands and a wire brush.  I made this just as a practice for the technique, but I love the way it turned out!  I'm thinking of adding a few beads, nestled between the layers.  I'll keep you posted!

Holiday spirit, part 2.

Holiday cards from Dinah and Teresa, two more customers I have loved working with through the years!