Bolero...A Shrug, Not The Sultry Music.

In my ongoing experiment with the Alabama Chanin patterns, I decided to try the bolero next. And, since Robert gets more free red and black pet food promo T-shirts than any other color, other than maybe dark blue and an icky tan (he's now asking for extra large shirts just so I can cut them up, as he only wears a large), naturally, the bolero ended up red and black. I almost managed to work around the logos on the shirt, but still ended up with a bit on one sleeve. The binding got sewn on with, at this point, my rough execution of the herringbone embroidery stitch. Later I will add stencils to the front and back, but I need to get some black fabric paint. I may also add red beads to the black binding.

For future boleros, I think I'll make the sleeves a tad longer, and make the armholes a bit looser. They felt a little tight to me. Oh, and I used the size large on the pattern sheets, even though most of the time I wear a medium. The bolero still fit snug. I'm going to wear it a few tines before I make the next one, and decide whether I want to make the next size larger to get a looser fit. I think they are supposed to fit snug, but it felt a little too snug for my comfort zone—I have wide shoulders for my size. Anyway, time will tell.

I should also state that I didn't have a rotary cutter at the time I made this (I just bought one yesterday, along with a small mat board), so the binding is cut with regular scissors, which don't always leave a clean edge when cutting long, narrow strips.

 The hint of pet food logo I couldn't quite work around. Oh well.

So that's it. My first AC bolero. I like it because = I can get a bolero out of only one extra large T-shirt (other than contrasting binding), I like the feel of it, it's comfy to wear, easy to sew up, and makes a great little canvas for artwork. Can't beat that.

For further bolero inspiration, check out these amazing ones made by Rice, over at the Voodoo Cafe. They will knock your socks off!

Inspiration

I think I've stated before, somewhere in this blog, that I really like vintage/antique jewelry, In particular, Edwardian. It has a cleaner, more graceful line than Victorian, which to me can seem overly fussy. On the other extreme, I like the look and colors of religious icons, medallions, and medals. So, to that end, I danced off to the library and brought home two books that have tons of inspirational ideas in them. You just gotta love the library!

Vintage Jewelry Design by Caroline Cox
Relicarios—Devotional Miniatures From the Americas by Martha J. Egan

I have long wanted to be able to reproduce, at least in feel, the Edwardian jewelry that I love. Since most of it is made in finely crafted gold, silver, diamonds, and various jewels—not something I could readily afford or reproduce, even if I wanted to—my quest was to reinterpret those designs in something, well, let's face it, more mundane—wire, beads, crystals, pearls. I'm not attempting to copy these jewels, but get their, for lack of a better tern, aura, using fairly inexpensive supplies, easily acquired.

Today was my first attempt at this, trying to replicate the lines and feel of a beautiful Edwardian pendant done in white gold, pave diamonds, and pearls. After five hours, and four failed prototypes, I finally got one pendant that is close to what I am after. It's not quite "there" yet, but I'm getting close. More work and experimentation is needed, but I have to confess, I kinda like the way this last one of the day turned out. It showed me that progress had, indeed, been made. However, a lot of wire ended up in the trash before I could get this design to work, even at this early stage. Lots more playing is needed. But here is the pendant = Hammered "silver" wire, steel wire, slider with crystal, faceted AB crystal bead, drop crystal, and emerald-green glass beads. Pendant is about 3 inches long.

More pendant ideas are floating around in my head. I want to do one in "gold" wire and one in black wire. Well, actually, lots more in silver, gold, and black. As "they" say (who are "they" anyway?) practice, practice, practice.

Next I'm going to play around with the relicario pendants...maybe do small works of collage/drawings on wood, and put them in metal bezel frames? Not sure. More playing is needed.

Playing...it's a good thing. :=)

Celeste

Here is one of my cats, Celeste, stalking birds through the dinning room's sliding screen door. They are just on the other side, and she is sure she can pounce on them...if she could just get a bit closer. Actually, she is so "round" that she'd be too slow to catch anything, but it's the thought that counts.

Finished Tank Top—Review

Okay, here is the finished tank top, with the new reverse applique covering the pink blob/stencil mistake.

My conclusions after this first attempt are:

My embroidery skills suck! I hadn't done any in, oh, about 20+ years, so this first attempt back into it looks pretty rough. Also, I've decided that, in the future, for most of the sewing of the shirts, and the decorative stitching, I don't want to use embroidery floss. For the designs I like, it looks too primitive. Actually, the whole design on this shirt is more primitive than I would normally like or wear, but since it was an experiment, I kept things simple...for now.

Don't use the blanket stitch to sew on the facings. Because of the way it is sewn, it tends to make the facings fall outward. Next time I'll use either a chain stitch or a Cretan stitch.

I liked doing the reverse applique, and I really liked the stenciling, even if in this case it got covered up. I also enjoyed the beading. So, I figure the pieces I do in the future will have more stenciling and beading, with less embroidery.

Next, I really want to experiment with refining the color combinations betweeen the fabric, thread, stencil color, and beads. It's one of the things I like about the Alabama Chanin clothing...it looks sophisticated and classy, rather than primitive. Nothing at all wrong with more primitive-type designs. Lots of people love them and look good in them, they just aren't my thing.

 A few weeks back I picked up some really nice XXL T-shirts at the Goodwill (I wanted something that did NOT have a pet food logo on it). One was a lovely pale grey/green, and two others were rich purple. Those will be the next ones I play around with. One of the purple shirts had a great machine embroidered picture of a Tibetan temple on it, which I'll use on something. When I was enthusing over it at the checkout counter, the lady ringing it up kinda just nodded her head and mumbled something like, "Oh yes, very nice." Obviously, Tibetan temples don't float her boat.

The picture makes the green shirt look more mint-greenish, but it's actually a soft pale green.

Final word is, I love the idea of recycling T-shirts. I like that I can use beads and embroidery floss I already have, although the fact that the floss is 20+ years old might have had something to do with the fact it tended to tangle...A LOT.  I want to try working with quilting thread, and also metallic threads, or adding beaded stitching.  I NEED NEW GLASSES OR I WILL GO BLIND DOING THIS STUFF.

For fun, I'd like to incorporate rubber stamping, or drawing directly on the fabric to add to the stencil design. They do a bit of the drawing on fabric with some of the Alabama Chanin clothing, and I loved the look. I'm also wondering if some of the techniques used on T-shirt material could be used with recycled sweatshirts, since it's cold so many months of the year where I live. Lots and lots of things to think about and play around with, to keep me busy during the hot summer—As if making jewelry, writing, gardening, and working horses wasn't enough. LOL

Mistakes...They're A Good Thing!

I've been hearing a lot lately about letting yourself be free to make mistakes, because we always learn something from them. In some cases, for those of us with artistic proclivities, they can lead to a whole new fun way to play. Case in point: my attempts to stencil on T-shirt material.

My first attempt at putting a design on T-shirt material with fabric paint worked okay...sorta. The paint was a bit thick and as I dabbed it on with a makeup sponge, the fabric stuck to the sponge and pulled up through the stencil. It still worked, but I thought it would work better if I thinned the paint down with water.

With a new, larger stencil (found at my local home improvement center in the paint department), and some red pigment mixed with water, I tried again, and got...a blob of icky pink, in the vague outline of the stencil. The mixture was too thin, and the water bled under the stencil. And, alas, this blob was right on the front of my first tank top project. Wonderful, I thought, as I stared down at the nasty shade of pink. What the hell do I do now?

First, I let it dry. Then I thought, well, I'll just re-stencil the same design over the top of the blob, since most of it would be cut away anyway in a reverse applique. So, with a different color of paint (not my first choice on any of these colors, but I wanted to use stuff I already had during the experimentation process), I redid the stencil over the blob. To my surprise, I loved the halo effect the blob gave the pattern, but really hated the colors. Now I'm thinking of ways to purposely create the blob/halo before I put down the actual stencil design, using much nicer colors.

As for the final pink and white design...it got completely covered with a design that tied in better with the colors and design of the section of pet food logo that ended up on the top right of the shirt (I'm using old work T-shirts of my husband's, and most have pet food logos on them somewhere).

Even though the experiment with the watered down color failed completely, it actually gave me a new idea to play around with, so in the end, it wasn't really a failure, is was a mistake that led to new ideas. So, go ahead, make mistakes, and you, too, might create a big icky pink blob that leads to new ideas.
 

Another Project...Really?

I need another project like I need a hole in my head, but after seeing Rice's numerous and amazing experiments with hand sewing and beading over on her Voodoo Cafe blog, and after purchasing the book Alabama Studio Sewing + Design by Natalie Chanin, I had to jump in and play.

It has been a long, long time since I did any kind of hand sewing or embroidery, so the first thing I decided to do before diving in with wearable items, was to experiment with the fabric on small sample projects. All of the embroidery I had done previously had been on cotton or denim, material that didn't stretch, and that I could put in an embroidery hoop to keep it flat and smooth. I had never done anything on knit fabric, so was unsure how that would work. How would I keep even thread tension if the fabric was moving around?

First I dug through my husband's T-shirt drawer. He gets tons of the things for free through where he works. All of them have pet food logos on them somewhere, so I will have to work around those. To start, I picked out a black one and a grey one, and cut off the sleeves. Then I made a simple paper pattern and cut out two pocket-sized pieces from the sleeve material.

On the grey piece, which would be the top color, I stenciled a star with alternate wavy and straight arms, using some pale rose fabric paint I already had, dabbed on with a small makeup sponge. After it was dry, I pinned the two pieces together using two of my grandmother's long, pearl-headed straight pins. Using dark grey embroidery floss, I back stitched all around the star stencil. Then I back stitched around the border of the two pieces, about a half inch from the edge. Lastly, using some old rose colored beads I'd had for decades, I did a beaded back stitch next to the original back stitch around the star. Final act was to cut away the painted stencil to reveal the black under-fabric, and trim the grey away from the border to give the piece a black frame. Then I added three rose beads to the center of the star. Done.

Notes to self for future reference:

In the Alabama Studio book, they use paint mixed with water and spray it on the fabric to make the stencil pattern. Now I see why. Using straight paint made the fabric very stiff when it came time to cut it out. Also, dabbing at the fabric caused the material to pull up in the middle of the stencil, as it kinda stuck to the makeup sponge. Once the design was cut out, it left a stiff edge rather than a softer one, which makes the reverse applique look kinda spiky.

Use a simpler, slightly larger stencil next time, at least for the reverse applique. When it was all finished, I couldn't really tell that the arms of the star were different shapes. It ended up looking like an amoeba rather than a star.

My embroidery scissors are still too blunt-nosed to get in the sharp corners of a cut-out design, so I need to find sharper ones.

I need lots more practice with my embroidery. This first piece is pretty crude in that respect.

The beads I picked, although a good color, were too big and clunky for the design.

I very much like the feel/weight of the doubled fabric. Since where I live there are more cold days than warm ones, I think I will be doing more work with two layers rather than one.

One lucky break was that I already had in my personal library the embroidery book Elegant Stitches by Judith Baker Montano, which is the book the Alabama Studio author recommended.

 Conclusion:

Am I hooked? Oh yeah. Embroidering on the T-shirt material was easy and relaxing. After more practice with small pieces, I will attempt an article of clothing—probably a tank top. Will I have an entire wardrobe of hand sewn clothing? Probably not. I just don't have the time.  But I will enjoy embellishing articles of clothing I already have, using the techniques shown in the Alabama book. They are very inspiring.

The most fun for me, I think, will be adapting the techniques and embroidery into designs more in keeping with my personal style of dressing. I have no idea what I'll end up with, but, as always, the journey is the most exciting part of the process.

Around the Garden

Here are a few pictures taken of the flowers in my large fenced garden. It is fenced so the deer won't eat everything, since the little darlings sleep on the lawn during the summer. They like the cool shade and soft grass, I guess. For the rest of the yard, I have become a bit of an expert on putting in plants that deer won't eat...well, most of the time.

Anyway, here are just a few photos that I took about two weeks ago, when everything was pretty lush. As we roll into summer, and it gets hot, the first bloom of the roses is over, and the blosoms left  or that come later, fade in the heat.

Oh, and I included a picture of our little pond turtle. He/she turned up about three years ago, and stayed. We have no idea where he came from, but we're kinda happy he likes our place.