Handmade Designer Women's Apparel
Can you believe it? Here we are again. The light returns and a new year begins.
Let’s acknowledge this magical time!
However you celebrate I hope you have the very best and happiest holidays ever!!!
And, for sure, I send all my wishes to you for a joyful, delightful and blissful 2023!!!
A few weeks back, Holly Andres, photographer extraordinaire, asked if I would participate in a fund raiser for our local greyhound adoption organization, I enthusiastically answered yes!
When greyhounds can no longer race, often between 3 or 5 years old, they are retired. The Greyhound Pet Adoption NW organization helps to find homes for these beautiful dogs.
The idea was to photograph the dogs wearing ‘Elizabethan Collars.’ Not those cone shaped collars that dogs wear after surgery, instead, they wanted fancy, Tudor inspired collars.
Holly gathered 12 local designers and asked them to create their own version of an Elizabethan collar. The photos would be for their 2023 calendar.
What to make? I still had a headpiece for the ‘bride’ in this photoshoot from a few years back and thought it would make a good starting place.
It wasn’t quite Tudor size, so I added bigger bias loops. And in honor of Elizabeth I, it needed more pizazz and sparkle, so I added some good sized beads.
A detail shot.
I handed the collar over to Holly who photographed it and the 11 other contributions.
The final photo, on the beautiful Zia, looking glamorous and fetching. And oh so sweet.
Miss November.
The calendar is available at the Greyhound Pet Adoption website. Only $19.99! All proceeds go to the adoption, medical, transport and housing of these retired racers. Check it out here.
The backside, so you can see some of the other photos. I am always blown away by how different the results can be when creative people are asked to complete one task. Amazing!
Please check it out. And consider helping out this wonderful organization by buying this calendar!
People ask, “Where do your idea come from?”
Sometimes they are from something I made before and wanted to do again, only in a different way.
For example, I’d been wanting to revisit this piece I had made years ago. It was a white on white wrap top. Sewn from a matte silk crepe and appliquéd with satin bias tubes.
I liked the subtle textural contrasts and have been wanting to do something like it again.
This time, instead of concentric spiral shapes, I decided to do something with more energy. In my pile of old drawings, I found a sketch of a skirt with scribbly, graffiti shapes.
I went with a gorgeous tomato red kimono silk for the base and used a slightly redder, shinier fabric for the appliqués.
Below, in process, pinned and ready for basting. The back and sleeves have the same designs.
Now it’s in my hand-work queue.
Stay tuned.
Another coat, from over a year ago, made with the fabric below. I was surprised to discover that the Japanese weavers wove the plaid in a random, totally laissez-faire way. It is not at all what I think of as ‘plaid,’ where all the stripes are the same distance apart and you can line them up so ‘the plaid matches.’
I laid out sections of the fabric next to each other and in most areas there was no way to line it up. It was one step from impossible to match the plaid. Can you see how the horizontal lines are close at the top, then shift so much that they are completely out of alignment at the bottom?
Although I had to go through the whole bolt, I was able to find enough areas to at least, kind of, match the plaid.
Below, the front of the finished coat.
I didn’t even try to get the sleeves to line up. If I had, my head would have exploded. But, I did manage to line up the sides and pocket pieces so they were close enough.
After I finished that coat, I thought, I’ll use the rest of the fabric and make another piece where absolutely nothing lines up. I’ll work with the uneven, totally random, ‘plaid-like’ fabric. Everything will be totally out of order and it will become a piece about a plaid that absolutely does not even try to line up.
On my wall, in process.
Below, Finished!
Nothing lines up and it is not supposed to.
One last thing, as requested and in order to make my blog more readable, we’ve adjusted the font so it is darker and thicker. After all, my whole goal here is to tell my stories. Legibility is definitely the way to go!
What a way to return to in person shows! The Smithsonian’s 2022 craft show was a rousing success. A gala party on Wednesday night, followed by four days of the show. I wasn’t the only one who was happy to get out and back to seeing people in person with no computer screen between. We were all in celebratory mood, like long lost family members reunited.
My booth, in storage for over two years, went up without a problem. What a happy relief to see all my work out of my closets, hung up and ready for viewing.
And what a place for my first show, the Building Museum is a magnificent space.
The ceiling is well over 4 stories high. Fantastic!
The entire show is a fund raiser for the Smithsonian Institute. The gala party on the first night was the perfect way to start things off with a bang.
Then the show. People coming in with friends, family, alone, and in a few cases, with their sweet little dogs.
I was delighted to see my pieced trench coat, sold right at the beginning of the show, back again several days later.
I love that my clothes are out and about, worn and used!
Another one of my pieces in use just days after the show. Nina, on her way to the opera and wearing her brand new coat. Looking fantastic.
I had appliquéd strips onto a very cool kimono silk with bold, oversized, abstracted grass forms.
Gorgeous!
I admit, I do love to spend time in my studio, so I haven’t been too terribly unhappy during our covid isolation. But boy, I did miss the shows. The Smithsonian Show was the perfect medicine.
Whew! What a rush. At the end, we packed up and were ready to head home.
But we still had a day in the city, the plane was leaving at the end of the day. Perfect! There was time for a trip to the Smithsonian’s, fantastic, magnificent, amazing and glorious National Gallery of Art. As with all Smithsonian museums, free to everyone.
Free!
I am a proud museum nerd. I can spend days inside looking at whatever is up and on view. But, wow, they do have some gems.
How about this little grouping? 4 Vermeers in a row.
With only a few other people there at any one time, I cold move in close and look as long as I wanted.
Jan Van Eyck? Another of my favorite artists? Sure. The Annunciation, right over here in this other room.
Standing in front and studying it for as long as I wanted. Painted around 1435. Gabriel’s rainbow colored wings, the wooden floor painted with old testament stories, the lily, the interior of the gothic church, the depiction of the textiles, Gabriel’s beatific smile, Mary’s ultramarine blue gown [at the time, ounce per ounce, more expensive than gold,] all perfect.
Look at the colors in the one below! And the strong geometric shapes and forms. Glorious!
By the ‘Master of the Osservanza’ and painted in the first part of the 1430’s, a tryptic of Saint Anthony distributing his wealth to the poor, leaving his monastery and meeting Saint Paul.
The attention to detail, the quirkiness [can you see the funny little dog [pig?] on the far left? Or the centaur behind the trees at the upper right?], did I mention the colors???
I just about lost it when I saw ‘The Cornell Farm,’ painted in 1848 by Edward Hicks, more than 400 years after the one above.
All the cows and horses, with the landscape behind. I absolutely love it!
Detail, detail, detail, I see a theme here.
So many. So many paintings to see and analyze, study and admire. And I was in just one part of one floor of one museum. If you’ve never been, you must figure out a way to get there. If you’ve been, then return to see all that you’ve missed or forgotten.
At the end of the day, it was time to leave and head back home.
By chance, as I was heading out the door, I found myself in a room with a few paintings of women sewing.
The one above by Gilbert Stuart, painted in 1793. And the one below by Ellen Day Hale from 1893.
The third, by Joseph Rodefer Decamp from 1916.
The perfect way to end my visit to Washington, the whole reason I was there. All because of my journey with sewing, fabrics, clothing and love of art.
And how cool is this? So very, exactly, perfect. As I left the room with the paintings of women sewing, right outside, at the information desk, this woman was bent over, needle in hand, working on her embroidery.
Thank you Smithsonian Women’s Committee and everyone who came to support this wonderful organization! Not to mention all of the artists! We were finally, at long last, out and in public again!
Goodby Washington, I’m already looking forward to coming back again, whenever that may be.
Just in time, only a few days before the Smithsonian Craft Show, my new video is finished and ready for its close-up. It’s under ‘videos’ in my website. I’m calling it, ‘At Holocene’ because that’s where we shot all the footage.
Please check it out here.
And check back in the next day or two, because we’ll be adding one more called, ‘Pink.’
No need to clear your schedule to watch them, they are both short, under a minute each.
Next up, the big show! Smithsonian Craft Show, this Thursday evening through the weekend, April 20-24. Can’t wait!
