Linen Tunic: My Garden

   A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and before you know it you have something wonderful, quite different, and really fun to wear. I have wanted to make one of the Japanese style aprons to wear as a tunic or top for quite some time. 
   My theme or story for this piece is my little front garden. It is quite wild and unruly, but it gives me a great deal of pleasure just to be there in the midst of the nasturtiums, ferns, and other growing things. Just as I no longer strive for perfection in my art, I have no desire to tame the great outdoors.

    After searching for ages, I finally came up with the closest pattern I could find to suit my needs; Simplicity #1133. This pattern had a huge dart along the side seam that I eliminated by pinning the edges of the dart together. I wanted to have one entire piece with no seams so I could freely paint and stitch away. It is made from the Natural Linen I carry in my shop.

   After sewing the garment together, my first step was to spray it with Jacquard's airbrush ink. After heat setting the ink, I started applying my nasturtium shapes and rectangular strips of fabrics. The flowers were glued on with a teeny bit of glue, and the rectangles were hand basted on. The last thing I want on a garment is a fusible that will be stiff and heavy feeling. 

 After machine stitching around the edges of the flowers and leaves, I painted in my moths with my Giant Moth Stencil using Neopaque and lumiere. Next came the really fun part as  I started drawing in the abstracted stem shapes for the hand embroidery to visually tie all the shapes together.

 I wanted to emphasize the edges of the garment, but I didn't want anything too fussy or exacting. I first worked a row for Cretan Stitch around the edges, then an irregular blanket stitch, and ended with short little stitches for just a little touch of added color. I found some beautiful old shell buttons that were just the right size for the tab closures at the shoulders.

  Detail of the stitching on the back.

   For the rectangular overlays, I used scraps of my hand dyed cotton. I love the way the fabric puckered up after washing to give it that beautiful bumpy texture. 

   Now I am getting ready to start another tunic. My next effort will be in black linen that will be cut on the bias, so it will be interesting to see how different the fit is. I am thinking rust tones,splashes of brilliant blues, and little bits of a lovely pearl gray hand dyed sateen. I haven't quite decided on a theme yet.

Bloom: Painted, Stitched, and Embellished.

I am working on a new piece titled Bloom. It incorporates many techniques that I have been working on improving lately including painting, stitching, creating depth and dimension, and color value.
 I am almost finished, and I am down to the final hand embroidery now. This has been a really fun and challenging piece, but I have had a lot of fun creating it.
 It all began with a little square of fabric that I started as a demonstration on how to create a central motif without any marking in a workshop last summer at the Mendocino Art Center. I wanted to do something different, so I painted the dimpled longhorn beetles in metallic pink and purple with Lumiere paints.
Then I decided that I might as well add a few embroidery stitches to it and use it as a little sampler.
The piece floated around my studio for the past year. It would surface occasionally, and I would often think that I should do something with it.
This first image is a mockup I did in Photoshop to help me decide on the proportions and composition. I call this my cartoon, and it is actually the most important part as far as I am concerned. I often do a lot of preliminary sketches just to help my ideas gel.

That was a photograph at the upper right of the initial painted and hand embroidered piece.

All of the hand painting was done with my Textile Design Stencils.

The stencils I used were the Beetles, Moths, Poppy, Small Stones, Lattice, Passion Flower, Moths, and Springtime. I love combining them in different ways.
 The finished piece is 36" x 52".

The inspiration for this piece was the amazing diversity found in nature, and how we are rewarded for taking the time to notice and appreciate the details of our surroundings.



The gold and blue circles were hand dyed silk that was appliqued on. I hand painted the two strips and the background separately before putting them all together. I was concerned that if I made a mistake I would have to redo the whole thing, so this was a much less stressful situation.
From there on it was all just filling in the blanks. Although it is involved, that is the easiest part for me.

 

This is the Indonesian lantern fly framed by the poppy. The curved vertical unstitched areas create nice little ridges between the rows of stitching.

These are dimpled longhorn beetles. The center was painted with the passion flower stencil, but I haven't decided how to embroider the middle of it yet.

Now you can see the detail of the background. The gray stripes are 1/2" wide. 

I will post a full image when the piece is done. I still have some hand embroidery to do on it. Here are the details of what I used to create the piece: Better Black Kona cotton, wool batting, Neopaque and Lumiere paints, Aurifil thread, DMC and Weeks Dye Works embroidery floss.

 I would love to hear from you, and don't hesitate to ask any questions.
Also, I have two WORKSHOPS coming up in the next couple of weeks if anyone is interested.



It Must Be Spring: Almost a Tutorial

     I have been thinking about bright happy colors lately. In my weekly ongoing for art class with the fabulous Mimi La Plant, we have been doing color studies for the last several weeks. We have been doing LOTS of mixing, and learning to use warm and cool versions of each primary color to create the perfect mixable hues. It is challenging and rewarding.
     Mimi is such a great teachers, and color happens to be a specialty of hers. I am so happy to have the opportunity to study with her and learn from her vast experience as both a painter and an art professor.
     So, I am challenging myself to work in new color palettes and spread my little wings. Pink has never been a favorite of mine, but now for some inexplicable reason I seem to be drawn to it.
     This project was supposed to be a tutorial on painting, but as often happens I was too anxious to get started. I forgot to take a beginning picture of this t-shirt that I purchased for $8.00 at an outlet store. And then, by the time I started painting, I completely forgot about the tutorial. In case you wondered, I never ever get distracted.
Stencils used are my Textile Design Stencils, and the paints are from Jacquard.

I painted the pink strip down the center by drawing the curvy shape on freezer paper, cutting out the center section, and ironing it to the shirt. Next I just placed my stencil over it and painted. Once the paint dried a little, I peeled off the freezer paper and repeated the process on the sleeves.

Now I am starting the embellishment. I recently received a shipment of hand overdyed embroidery floss and pearl cotton from Weeks Dye Works, and I am in love with this stuff. The colors are gorgeous. It's interesting in these photos how different the colors of the floss look on the white background of the first photo versus the way the colors look on the green in the second photo.
 This is a sample for a workshop I am teaching next weekend at the CNCH 2014, a fiber artisan's conference, that will be held at the Oakland, CA, Conference Center. I am so happy to have been invited there, and there are already 19 students registered!
 I am participating in Nina Marie Sayre's Off the Wall Friday blog roll, so please check out her site along with the other artist's involved. Thank you.

Little Bees Hand Painted Tunic

 

 This purchased tunic in a cotton/linen provided the perfect background for my new Bee Stencil. I loved the neutral colors of the taupe and cream color combination, so I decided to further enhance the color scheme by painting the bees in gold and silver Neopaque paint. I have already washed this garment several times, and the paint has not faded one bit.

I embellished the design with a bit of hand embroidery using a simple running stitch which was done with 6 strands of DMC cotton embroidery thread. I did a backstitch periodically to keep the  threads from pulling or puckering.

I even made a necklace and bracelet to match using freshwater pearls with gold and silver spacer beads. It was my first piece of jewelry that I had ever made, and I am so happy with the way it turned out.

I wore this tunic to my opening at the Sewell Gallery in Eureka, CA, with a really beautiful gun metal gray metallic chiffon scarf that my friend Nancy Branch gave me for Christmas last year. The scarf added the perfect finishing touch.