Locavore happened last Saturday. It was such an inspiring and creative event, I can't believe I've been able to restrain myself from posting these images until now. Carlynne is such a graceful and lovely model, I'm absolutely in love with all the photos I took of her... but I truly attempted to narrow it down, I promise.
In the photo with Carlynne is Rachel Sumner, our photographer for the day. I'll probably post her images once I get my hands on them.
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On Sunday a few of the designers and artists participating in Locavore were treated to a print making class with Mary Mac Dahlke. This lady is an artist after my own heart. She takes her inspiration from the relationships between sisters, twins, and girlfriends, which manifests itself in lovely dresses and girly images. She's a southern girl paying tribute to her roots with white tights and gloves, red Mary-janes, and vintage sewing patterns. Below is a shot of a few stencils and examples she brought to class, but for the full Mary Mac experience, you should take a look at her portfolio.
I had never been to the Kirkland Arts Center before. The amazing building is over 120 years old and has great character. The gallery is on the street level, printmaking above and ceramics below. There is an unbelieveable ceiling installation at one of the entry ways that I couldn't help but photograph.
In class we learned to carve small plates and ink them up to make one of a kind hand printed designs. It was a lot of fun, but the highlight of the day was printing our fern designs on fabric with the big printmaking press! I'm pretty lucky to have Dawn on my team, since she's been printmaking for some time and knows exactly what she's doing. She designed and carved two large linoleum blocks with the fern motif, dyed the silk a nice ombre color, and then we printed on it! This fabric will be used for the train of our dress design. Can't wait to put it all together!
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I can't believe how much I learned in my very first class! Pattern Draping began last night at NYFA and after a 40 minute show-and-tell by the instructor, we rolled up our sleeves and created the first pattern pieces of our very own sloper. Look what I made!
Everything about this school is inspiring to me. The building with tall windows in front, the wooden tables, the myriad of dress forms, the tools of the trade strewn about the room. By the way, "Wolf" dress forms are, according to my teacher, the Mercedes of dress forms, and they run about $950 each. Check out this amazing video from How Stuff Works showing the process for making a Wolf dress form.
I don't have regrets, but I often wonder how things might be different had I chosen fashion rather than acting as my major in college. My mom taught me to sew when I was young and I did get some experience in the costume shop, but I've always been a refashioner, so maybe my background led me to here?
Last night I also learned that the draping method is the one followed by the French couturiers houses, and is considered a bit of a waste of time by the rest of the world. I can't wait to waste some more time!
Thursday is the first night of Pattern Drafting which I'll be taking at the same time, so hopefully I can keep my methods straight. To follow my progress throughout the next few months, you can click on my Flickr Set called NYFA 2011.
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Although I didn't win the community vote, I really enjoyed making my tea towel for the Assemble contest. I used reverse applique in the center - stitching around the pattern of the top fabric, then cutting away to reveal the double layer. I also used a few Sublime Stitching transfer patterns for the bird, the stars and the words "Yours Forever." Finally, to give it an antique quality, I dipped the tea towel in actual steeped hot tea to stain it, and ironed in the wrinkles.
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To challenge myself to get back to slow design, I entered the embroidered tea towel contest at Assemble a month ago. The theme was "Not for all the tea in China" and the opening show and voting took place on Friday, May 14th in conjunction with the Phinney/Greenwood ArtWalk. Guess which one is mine? To reveal the winner, click HERE.
It was a lovely ArtWalk! I stopped in to many places that have been on my list for some time.
All pieces above by artists showing at Tasty.
Vintage tin, antique hardware and found stuff by Nancy O'Connell at The Fiber Gallery
painting by Diana Comstock at The Chocolate Shoebox
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Where do I begin?
I've been looking forward to this day since December when I discovered that one of the Alabama Studio Style Workshops was going to be held on the west coast in the cultural city of Berkeley, California. I own both of the stitch books (Alabama Stitch Book and Alabama Studio Style) and have attempted the stencils and techniques previously, but had not actually tried making any of the projects in the book until the day of the workshop. My husband found a lovely artist loft rental for the weekend and we quietly assimilated into the rural street, just a mile or so from where the workshop was being held. He rode his bike around town while I spent all day Saturday at The Edible Schoolyard.
Such an inviting and colorful space in which to create! Can you imagine learning about organic gardening in elementary school? That's what they do there at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School. Now about the food! The good people of the schoolyard prepared a lovely breakfast for us, but the light and fluffy quiche we had at lunch might have been my favorite flavor of the day with a layer of caramelized onions on top of the crust. But then, there were also fresh, hot, chocolate chip cookies...
The entire day was filled with stitching projects, stories from Natalie about her life and her business, education, physics, nourishment and laughter.
All the attendees appeared to me to be accomplished stitchers, and the projects taking shape around the room were breathtaking. Many of the attendees wore their Alabama Chanin style garments to the workshop!
Natalie's partner Butch Anthony demonstrated the chair weaving technique with recycled ties. He's a national treasure in Alabama. If you're not familiar with him, you can read about his annual art show in this recent article from the New York Times. He is as soft spoken and genuine as they come, absolutely teeming with history and creativity, just below his skin. As attendees of the workshop, we had the unexpected pleasure of witnessing the filming of Les Blank's ongoing documentary of Butch and his life's work.
The workshop concluded with a tour of the gardens and despite the light rainfall, it was a perfect day. I completed about 1/8 of my project (although I was stitching every minute that I wasn't taking photographs) so I have a few more weeks of work before I'm able to model the corset. There was something to take in at every turn, from the stitching to the walls of the schoolyard, to the ground. If you get the chance to take one of her workshops - or perhaps visit her at the Studio in Alabama - you owe it to yourself.
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a new venture in my quest to join the slow design movement... but it feels like a natural progression. I'm still maintaining the glamspoon aesthetic by using recycled
materials, but with a new slant toward as much hand design as
possible. the bodice of this dress is taken from a thrifted silk camisole, and the skirt is
double layered navy salvage yardage (I'm guessing a polyester satin)...
each of the flowers was made by hand from the cutaway scraps, then sewn to the dress by hand,
and tonight I started the bead work. can't wait to get my new labels in the mail!
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First the Alabama Stitch Book made me stop and take notice. Then their blog pointed me toward the concept of slow design in business... It's really shaking up my world after 3 years of instant gratification altering existing skirts in the tiny world in which I craft. but finally, I found a place to start. these are called yo-yo's by Heather Bailey (who was my biggest inspiration before I found Alabama). mine are made from recycled velvet.
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