glam.spoon

snow day!

we got 6 inches of snow on sunday night so monday morning, i was stranded.  it's a special treat to have a snow day as an adult.  first i walked to the mini-mart for coffee.  i trudged past two cars and an 18-wheeler abandoned at the bottom of our road - needless to say i left the jeep in the garage the rest of the day.  along with checking work email, I did a little sewing on my alt retail line:

I also watched some bad tv and hung out with the puppy, who thoroughly enjoyed the white stuff (she's the blur with the footprints). 

PR: skeins

my husband has been out of town all week, so we planned to spend the whole day watching movies beside a roaring fire.  never one to sit still for long, i thought it was a good opportunity to wind the enormous gray skein of carpet yarn into manageable sized balls of yarn in preparation for the skirt embroidery that i'm envisioning in my head.  3 and a half hours later, i had this much:
I think my first mistake was cutting the threads that were holding the enormous skein together.  as soon as it was cut, the whole thing became tangled and untangling took forever.  in case you can't tell from the photo, the large ball is only 5" in diameter.

i also tried a few different embroidery and crochet techniques with the yarn and the open weave secondary backing.  i think the crochet looks the best, but it also takes the most effort.  what did i expect??

PR: sketch

at our 3rd meeting last night we solidified the design concept.  we refined our first sketch by adjusting the hemline of the skirt, adding sleeves to the coat and reworking the corset, to come up with something we think is fashion forward, edgey and most importantly - doable.  it was great to get my hands on some of the materials.  the secondary carpet backing is going to work well for creating the full layered skirt and the of yarn can be woven into the open lattice to create detail.  after seeing and handling the raw materials, it looks like the needle felting is out but embroidery and knitting are definitely in. 

Be Mine

last year I made a few scarves with hearts on them out of really fluffy soft angora sweaters in hot pinks, magentas and reds.  It's that time of year again, so I set out to make more.  Instead of repeating what I did last year (since I never do that), I used cashmere and incorporated this chunky, wooly chocolate yarn outline.  I think it gives them a Charlie Brown retro quality.  I'm dropping them off at BW this week.

PR: design concept

we've had two meetings to come up with our concept for the Product Runway design that we'll be making out of carpet.  the strongest theme that emerged was "steampunk" which is a new word for me.  it eludes to fashion of the 1940's and aviator style, but also futuristic, historic.  type steampunk into google and click on images - you'll see what I mean.  what came out of our brainstorming session is a corsetted bodice, sheer fiber skirt and lambswool-look trimmed edwardian-collared sleeveless coat.  I'm also hoping to be able to work some needle felting techniques into the overall look, but we'll know more after we get our hands on the actual materials.

jewels

My other Christmas gift craft this year was jewelry... lately I've been seeing lots of designs I like, which is unusual because I've never been drawn to jewelry.  On an impulse I bought the most beautiful K D'Angelo necklace for myself last summer at Bouncing Wall because it was just so exquisite.  Since I'm a DIY girl I had to try it myself, so I made a necklace for my sister-in-law, but then I wanted to keep it, so I had to make one (or two) for myself.

...and I thought it was difficult photographing fabric.

felted hats

I decided to make hats for Christmas presents this year, and although I only needed to make three, I ended up making over a dozen, so the rest will be offered up at Bouncing Wall this month for $28 retail.  I felted the wool by washing it in hot water and then drying it on high.  I tried to design an applique that was not recognizable but still familiar and one that I could repeat to create a sort of branding.  I think they're pretty cute. 

they're made of lambswool and the appliques are mostly from interior design fabric samples discarded at my office.

 

I'm going to make a few more with crocheted/felted appliques that take more of a cloche shape which was popular in the 1940's.  stay tuned!

Product Runway!

By day I manage an architecture/interior design firm in downtown seattle.  10 of us have formed a team to compete in the first ever northwest Product Runway challenge!  it's basically a fund raiser for the IDCW group to push licensing legislation in the state of washington... but it's going to be really fun!  designers and product reps collaborate to create a piece of high fashion crafted from the rep's product line - we are teamed up with Atlas Carpet!  Stay tuned for progress reports...

Product Runway web site