Embroidery Round-Up

Because I waited too long to make an entry, I now have about 10 million picture to share. This, plus the fact that I'm on shaky stolen wi-fi means that updating is going to be a struggle--so it's a two-part entry today. Later I'll post up all the print-work I've been doing, but for now, here's some stitchery~!


Deer skirt-the skirt itself is so nice, I found a bunch of Jcrew and Banana Republic stuff in great condition that week. And the deer came out so cute, I'm glad it translated from sketch to stitch really well


Close up. I was thinking of making a little booklet of animal pictures and things that I draw to sell as embroidery patterns with little sewing kits. If I can get it together before the Flea Market, I will. Hell, even if I don't, I can try to etsy it at least.


Whale skirt. I got a random request for a whale riding one of those little 'Rascal' scooters that morbidly obese people use in Walmarts.


So there he is. Chillin' like a villan.


And Astrid's been hard at work too, making little pouches I'm going to sew up tonight.


French whale (oui, oui!)


Happy little 'shroom.

And just so this isn't allll stitchery, here's the dress made out of the dyed cotton I had posted last week. I'm super happy with the piecing and the piping, unfortunately the back got a little messed up, and I'm going to have to do a lace-up finish so it will fit a real person and not a doll!




Hopefully later tonight I'll go back and show you the print work I've been doing~Lots of wings!

Half and Half

So I'm a little divided right now. On one hand is the opera internship, and on the other I've got all the work I want to do, both stuff to sell and just stuff for myself.

On the opera hand is tons and tons of felt and fake organza and a whole lot of conceptual set pieces that aren't precisely my cup of tea. But whatever, it's credit, so I'll certainly do it. The play is an opera version of Romeo and Juliette, and we've been working on props right now--mostly the 'balcony' and Juliette's bed.

Mi-Kyoung (my teacher) tracing out the giant onion of a balcony.

The Onion in it's finally form, 9 feet square and made of lots and lots of orange and purple felt. I didn't even know felt came that big!

Juliette's bed is made of hundreds of these little guys, who are deceptively time-consuming to make. I still think it's just going to make her bed look like it's made of hundreds of yo-yos.


But my own stuff is going well too, and having access to the studios has been excellent, I've been dying and printing yardages there to work with.

Some recycled and dyed cotton I'm make a dress out of right now. I love the color theme I was able to get.

Some printed bandannas and scarves, with my old screens. I'm trying to do a cloud repeat design right now, but I keep messing up the screen.


And a cute ketchup+mustard top I just finished from recycled t-shirts. My mate Astrid is embroidering this one now with a little mustard and ketchup bottle, then hopefully we can get it sold. I really need to start making money this summer. I'm afraid to make an etsy though, last time I did, nothing really sold. Crud.

Summer Bustle and Final-Project Catch up.

Unfortunately, I seem to have left my camera at the studio today, so no pictures of what I'm currently working on. But rest assured that I'm both working hard on my internship (with an opera company, help with set and costume) and making my own work, though mostly smaller, more sellable things right now. Lot of screen printed scarves and bandanas and cute dresses coming soon. And hopefully an Etsy in the works. I'm collaborating with my mate Astrid a lot on these little things, and it's been a great motivator for us to bounce off of each other.

But anyway, at least I finally got picture of my final Projects project. They're a little odd looking, partially because my teacher doesn't seem to have focused them too well, and partially because I was scanning in slides.

The project invovled making a relic, or something to be passed down through a family. I made a quilted suit of practice armor for a little boy with horns.


Front--the two front and back panels are all hand-quilted and corded, the sleeves and side panels are machine-corded, and the shoulders are machine quilted (I was just about finished the hand work at 10 o'clock the night it was due, so everything else became machine work real fast. The little knobs are functional frogs and loops. All the giant piping on the piece was hand made, it's hard to see, but it's seamed together at intervals that get closer and further apart, with I think mirrors the idea of horns.

The back-the holes are to accomodate for horns, this particular boy has four, like a Jacobian sheep.

My crit for this piece wasn't terribly helpful, but I had Chrissy Day, my experimental costuming teacher take a look at it, and I think some of the things she said really struck me. I think the phrase was 'narrative or situational garments,' the idea that myt pieces often force the viewer to think about the person who would be wearing it and why. Which is great, because that also goes back to a lot of my illustration work (I acutally started out going to school for that, not Fibers) So I'm trying to expand upon that idea this summer.

Oh, and here's some bonus shots of a dress I did quite a while ago, and never really got good pictures of.



Made out of every scrap of 18 XXL red t-shirts my old boss gave me because they were misprinted.

New Jersey Convalescence

Thanks to everyone that's left a comment, it's really great to know that people are reading this! Sorry I've been absent, the end of the semester really kicked my butt, I wasn't really eating or sleeping for a while there, and moving into my new place was a two week long process.

But I'm here now to start giving a recap on what I've been doing. Not all of it is photographed yet--you'll only get a little peek at my armor, sadly. I'm not totally sure how to scan in my slides yet, so I took a picture of the slide up against a lights.

Anyway, on to the work. Here's some Charlie Archeopterix for you. I was inspired by the Fursuit maker I met recently while helping Seamus on his documentary, so I took that idea and applied it to a more sculptural idea.


Just the newspaper and foam-form.

Some scales for his belly--thanks to Sam for donating her purse to the cause!

Getting some fur on his body---that's all sewn on individually with mono-filament, I'll try and get a close up of his scales at some point.

Finished! He still looks at a little raggedy, but it was 7 o'clock in the morning on the day of the crit when I sewed the last scale down. I'll fix him up this summer a bit better.

My critique went well~~!

Not quite as exciting but just as labor-intensive, my double-cloth weaving. I scanned in a sketch I had done, then made a pixel-drawing from it the dimensions of the warp that I was winding. Unfortunately, the cloth wove almost 4X as long as it was wide (so the warp was longer?) and so I had to 'skip' every other line on my pixel drawing. But still, I think it came out okay.


In my insanity, I actually did a little side project with a screen I'd already burned and made some cutesy pillows. Too many cutesy pillows. I have like 6 of the lumpy misshapen things hanging around my room now. You want one?


And here's a bit of a look at my armor. Better pictures when I figure out how the heck to scan a slide properly.

A shot of me working on it, courtesy of Diana (I was doing that damn quilting up until the night before it was due! all the construction was done that night/morning)


And a shot of my slides~


Oh, and finally, a happy customer (sort of!) I found a home for my pink dress so it's no longer shoved under my bed. Sam'll do well by it, I'm certain.