Definitely time to sew again...

Empire-style dress design drawn for a costume history class in 2016

But not with a patterned fabric used like this batik-style one, although I just made over 2 dozen versions of this design in colorful new incarnations.

I have been falling for wonderful linen fabrics, which come also in the soft greyed colors which are my favorites, as well as brighter colors. And some of my favorite fabric designs go with some of those linen colors.

So, the parts of this picture with the patterns will be solid colors of linen, with a pattern on the front of the bodice.


Maybe one of those 2-Sprig colorings I just made. This version of the design fits more closely together, and has some interesting layouts.

You can see that these textured designs look like embroidery.  So for me, they seem more appropriate for smaller areas like a bodice front.


Time to start making something...

When I was in school the first time, 50 years ago, I used to draw the costume I was going to make during vacation, and prop it up on my desk to look at while I studied for finals. I find this drawing has the same effect. I keep looking at it.
 

Time to Sew Again 2020

My 2-sprig textile design

from part of a copper batik stamp

I am cleaning up my sewing room, and organizing the fabrics I have on hand for the top 20 or so projects I have in mind. (Of which if I get 2 or 3 made, I'll be very happy.) I want to alter/make a couple of patterns, for a linen tank top to replace the one I used for sleeping for many years. And a linen princess-line tunic to go with my favorite multi-color long skirt, which I plan to embellish with card-weaving (time to get back to doing that too) along the seams. And from that a pattern for linen tunics/dresses with a bodice panel from one of my textile design fabrics. Maybe a Viking costume with card-weaving. . .

I have plenty of fabric on hand, linen and my (and Amy Vail's) textiles, a few pre-washed, for the first few projects. Time to get a washing machine again, once it is possible. Linens are beautiful, soft and strong, but definitely need to be pre-washed several times.

Here's another of the Empire/Regency inspired clothing designs I did several years ago for a Costume History/Fashion History class, using textile designs I did for the project.

Empire-inspired dress design
using my textile designs

It will be fun to get back to doing one of my favorite things. Maybe roses next. . .

Tablet-weaving / Card-weaving

One of my first learning projects, showing how you can make many patterns with one warp setup.

A new thing I researched and learned last year, and wrote an illustrated how-to paper on. And I really fell in love with it. The weaving process can be simple and quick (a few hours or days for a band). Or it can be very complex and time-consuming. I might not tackle those - my strength has always been to learn a simple technique, and then design complex patterns for it. And I am already doing that.

The technique is ancient (at least Roman, Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 1500BCE at Hallstatt, 1100BCE in Italy are recent discoveries), and related to weaving on the warp-weighted loom (which is at least neolithic in age). The woven bands can be very strong, "camel straps", or 1 cm wide delicate silk strips used for headbands (fillets), or clothing borders, sometimes woven-in. 

My enthusiasm for this is encouraging me to get involved again with the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), which I have always considered myself part of the community of, and make some clothing. Viking, Anglo-Saxon, 12th century London. . .

But of course, current retro/boho fashions are also the perfect place to wear these decorative bands. Wish I had run across it back in the day.


One of the things I was doing while I wasn't posting. (While I didn't have internet from home)

Rexie thinking about being a wildcat...

Bob In Tall Grass/ Rexie on painted chair

For a class assignment, I was putting together some presentation slides, and found some fun things looking through my images and photos. These  two cats were similar ages, still visibly young, although not kittens anymore, when these photos were originally taken.
Bob, being wild out in the grass, has been Photoshopped, using a filter.

Pure serendipity that I found them and saw how to put them together.

Doesn't Rexie look like he is dreaming about being wild?

A new version of the camouflaged cat in tall grass, from June 2012

watercolor and fabric design from early summer 2012

The grass is taller than ever this year (2012)  - I'm not weed-eating until the redtail chicks have flown.

I did this design in watercolor class, with misket as the silkpaint-style resist. It uses only 2 colors of paint, viridian green and a brown.

Then I put the photo or scan into Photoshop and made it repeat. That takes a very long time.

One thing I like about the misket, is it does what it wants to sometimes. Here I was using up an older bottle. That large root was a large blob that just came out, and I drew it out into the organic shape with a toothpick.

That collaboration with a tool with it's own agenda leads to a very spontaneous style. 

For me drawing on the computer is like that, very different from my pen and ink style. (Biological illustration with a crow-quill dip pen and India ink. Fine stippling. My nose 3 inches from the paper. Hours.)

Another new (old) fabric design

 Spoonflower is having a contest for black and white designs, entry deadline May 3. I made this on April 21.

I was looking at my designs wondering which would be good in black & white. I wanted a bold graphic, one without too much expanse of black background, since blacks at Spoonflower don't print really dark, and may fade in the wash.

I wanted a variation in the texture, the size of the black and white areas.

Which ones would do? The ravens? The cat drawings? The new sea turtles virtual batiks? A quilt-style combination of all of them? Hmm, that's earth, air and water, just need fire...

Although this one was drawn as leaves, long ago when I was learning to draw by playing on the computer, once I had redrawn it as a vector drawing, with a black background, it looked like stylized flames too.

I may do those others in black & white too as companion fabrics, but I love the bold graphic effect of this one. And yet it's organic, not quite symmetrical. I would buy this in the fabric store.

And now that I've redrawn it, I can do it in lots of colors, with companion fabrics in those colors.

Of course the newest design one has made is always the most wonderful design in the world....

When I was learning to draw...

A couple of summers ago, when my Mac was new, I wasn't taking any computer classes, just a drawing class. And I would go home & play on the computer, figuring out how to draw with it. I was just using Appleworks, because that's what I had, and I hadn't taken any vector drawing classes yet, and I didn't know what I was supposed to be doing. I was just playing, figuring it out as I went along.

I would make a gradient of colors I'd created, or pulled off a photograph, and fill the background frame with it. The colors set the scene for me, and suggested what I'd be drawing, undersea or desert. And I would just start drawing, and see what happened. I know I was doing it all 'wrong', because I described the process as "collaborating with a wildly squirming line", and it's not supposed to be that way. When the line squirmed into a pleasing shape, I would capture it & pin it down.

I can't redo that process; I don't know what I really did. But the result is very spontaneous in feeling. Well, I had to move fast to grab that line…

The look is very free and imaginative. And very unlike my pen & pencil style, which is biological illustration, pen & ink with fine stippled textures. Very planned & detailed & carefully observed.

Now all of the graphic design teachers went to art school in the old days, and learned their art the old way. And they all agree that it's not possible to be creative on the computer. One has to start with a pencil and paper, and come up with ideas, and work out the best one, then go to the computer only for the final polished version. I read an interview between 2 graphic designers, and one asked the other if he thought there was anyone capable of being creative directly on the computer. And the answer was,"Yes, but they're all under 12 years old".

The more I've learned about how it's supposed to be done, about how to draw a line where I want it to be, the stiffer my drawings become.

But I think, if we come to the computer like a child, without years of bad habits and frustrations, and if it's a Mac, so the graphics are easy and intuitive to use, and most of all, if we just play, that all creativity originates there, in play. Have fun.