Green Thumb

Wow, it has seriously been too long since I've last shared my work with you!  To play quick catch up - I'm now in the third quarter of my freshman year at SCAD.  I only have 8 more weeks to go till I'm back home to the lovely fields of Indiana.  Savannah is gorgeous, but I'm starting to miss open space, and the smell of dirt, and the sound of birds as they start to migrate back north.

During my week of spring break I started planting a small garden and fixing up my backyard.  I wanted to start a project that gave me a break from creating constantly.  I forgot how much I missed the smell of dirt as one works with it.  There's nothing better than a slightly rainy day in spring and working in the garden and feeling satisfied.  I still have a lot to fix up, but I'm hoping by the time I go back home the backyard will look brand new and there will be a few vegetables for my roommates!

 

Outfit:

Kaftan:  Handmade Esther from the Sticks

Maxi dress and necklace:  Red Clover Boutique

 

 

Photography:  Esther Boller

I made my Kaftan throw over just the other day.  It''s made from chiffon and I'm thinking of making another one in a jersey knit.  I'll be posting a tutorial on how to make one in my next post!  A Kaftan is such an easy garment to make and you don't even need a lot of sewing experience to make one.  If you can sew a few inches, then you can definitely make this garment!

As far as other projects, school tends to take up most of my work time, but I have made a couple dresses that I'm looking forward to sharing with you!  I also have some school projects from last quarter that I plan on sharing soon once I find the time to document it all.
I hope you're all having a fantastic spring so far!

Custom Wedding Dress: Beaded Leaf Gown

This past summer I was contacted about making a custom-fitted wedding gown for a client in Australia.  She’d been following my blog for a while and remembered the Beaded Leaf Gown that I made way back in the 9th grade.  [If you follow the link  - you know that moment when you look back on an old diary page and think, "I can't believe I wrote like that!"?  Well I just had that moment.  Please don't judge my middle school writing style too harshly.  Haha I was only 14-years-old at the time.] 

She asked if I could remake the Beaded Leaf Gown into a wedding dress her size.  I'd already wanted to remake this dress, because there were a lot of kinks in the construction of the first design.   This time I was able to sew it without any of the technical problems that I ran into when I first made it.  Therefore, when she asked me to make it for her wedding dress I was excited with the idea of recreating it! 

 

As I can remember, my inspiration was layered leaves.  The bodice is in the shape of a maple leaf, as well as the leaves around the skirt waistline.  The skirt leaves are inspired by elongated leaves that are each cut separately and then sewn into the waistline of the skirt overlay.  There is beading along all of the skirt leaves and two of the waistline side leaves.  This is to give a subtle emphasis to the leaf shape. 

The invisible zipper was sewn into the back.  Because I had panels of leaves overlapping each other along the waistline, I added hooks and eyes in the back of the panel so they could overlap the zipper and flow like the rest of the dress.

All of the appliqué on the front bodice was hand sewn on top of tulle into the pattern of a maple leaf.  Each piece of appliqué is about 2 inches in diameter.  Once it was hand sewn I lined up the tulle darts with the bodice darts, and hand sewed the tulle down into the bodice fabric, because doing so gives a better fit without warping or sagging.   [This was an issue that I had with my first dress - I sewed the appliqué onto tulle without sewing darts first. ]

The applique in this gown is actually cut up pieces from this 1980s dress that I got at Goodwill on 50%off day way back in middle school.  I was really happy when I found a photo of the same dress online just to see the before and after!   

Overall, the construction of this dress took about 150 hours to make.  What I find funny is that if you look back at my post from 2010, I've really learned to enjoy hand sewing and fine detail work since then.  It's something that I look forward to in designing now.  It’s funny to look back on that post; considering the title is, "Never want to hand sew again!!"  Ha

 The gown was packed and shipped to Australia in the beginning of January.  This was my first wedding gown that I made for someone, and I feel like I learned so much about the process! 

Multi-Colored Beaded Necklace

 In the 3rd grade I was really into jewelry-making and went through an entire season where that's all I did.  I watched Beads Bobbles and Jewels on PBS religiously every Tuesday afternoon and stalked their website for hours, bookmarking every project that I thought looked cool (which was every single one).   Of course, once I found knitting, my obsession moved to a hobby that I still did from time to time.  Looking back jewelry-making ultimately started me on my path with textiles and fashion.  This past week I went back into a small jewelry-making phase.  I made the necklace that I'm wearing out of felt, beads that I had laying around, and ribbon.

My inspiration for this necklace was a painter's pallet.  I always love the random look of the mismatched colors.  Pallet's always end up looking cohesive to me, even though all the colors are very different and no thought is put into where each color will go.  I tend to over think most of my projects (am I the only one who does that?) so I wanted to make a project where I forced myself to not over think the design process.  So when I was planning the pattern of the necklace, I just laid down whatever color that I first picked up.  It was so much fun and a nice break from thinking too hard!  

Outfit:  

Blouse and Necklace - Esther from the Sticks 

Flare Jeans - Forever 21

 Hat - Thrifted

All photos taken by myself

 I forgot how much I've missed working with jewelry, and I'm hoping to make a few more of these necklaces in different styles and colors. 

I'll be posting a tutorial on how to make this necklace next week!

The Burdastyle Sewing Handbook - Skirt Variation

Well I've been in Savannah for over three weeks now and I'm absolutely in love!  The people here are so friendly and it's incredible to be surrounded by a city of fellow art students.  This summer my time was filled with work projects and preparing to leave. Now that I'm starting to get settled in Savannah I feel like I finally have the time to post the work that I made this past summer.  Here is a skirt that I made, and a photo shoot that I took back in August while still in Indiana.  

I made this skirt over three years ago.  It was when I was asked to be a part of the Burdastyle Sewing Hand Book.  They asked me to make a variation of the pattern that they were first-time releasing in their book.  It was very exciting to be a part of it!  

The skirt pattern is one of the 5 patterns that are in the book.  My variation separated the panels on the skirt instead of sewing the overlay together like in the original.  That way it gave a lot of movement and flow to the skirt.  Also I did some hand sewn bead work detail on the waistband and bottom of skirt panels.

Sketch from three years ago - it's crazy to look back on old work! 

^I'm the 1st on left in the 2nd row.  (Photo snatched from this lovely blogger/seamstress).

This was my first project using an invisible zipper and it definitely shows!  I even remember writing an apology note that I sent along with my skirt to Burdastyle explaining the poor quality of the zipper. I didn't know that an invisible zipper was supposed to be sewn using an invisible zipper foot so I sewed it using a completely normal pressure foot.  I know all of you experienced seamstresses are gasping in horror right now.  Thank goodness for kindness, because the lovely ladies at Burda never said anything about it.

 I'm pointing out that zipper, because it's very encouraging to me to look back at old work and compare it to more current work.  For instance, this zipper compared to the zipper on this swimsuit. It's cool to see the growth that can happen in a couple of years.  It always reassures me that with time and practice I can learn how to properly make a technique that I'm struggling with now.

Have you ever made, or created something that turned out badly but later you learned how it's really supposed to be made?  If so, tell me about it!  What are your tricks or tips?  If you have a picture anywhere include a link in a comment.  I loved checking out all of your bedroom links from my previous post!

I did a lot of collaboration work this past summer, which was so much fun!  About 3 months ago my friends Zac and Jonah asked me if I would be willing to take some photos to go along with the songs for their new band Ariadne.  Their song "Guardian Angel" which hasn't been released yet, was the inspiration behind this photo shoot.  

Music has always been one of a main inspirations behind my photography.  Music has the ability to touch and inspire one in a way that words can't.  It was fun trying to translate what they were saying through their music, into my photography.   

Here's the first song that they posted.  I definitely recommend liking their page to keep up with any upcoming works that they post! 

I'm very excited for the new collaborations that I'm going to have here at SCAD!  Classes are incredible so far, and I can't wait to post some of the photos that I've taken while I've been here in Savannah.  Hopefully I can post those sometime next week.  Until then, I hope your weekend is lovely! 

Custom Made: 1920s Inpired Petal Dress

A couple of days before I left for Savannah I was working on finishing this dress.  This is the second, custom made garment that was auctioned off at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art's Fundraiser Gala.  As I met with the 2^nd woman to go over what she wanted, she told me that she was looking for something with a nod to the 1920s/30s.  She's getting married in October and the theme of her wedding is based from that era, and she was hoping on possibly wearing this as a reception dress.  So of course my mind immediately went to the gorgeous petal technique that I saw on the dress that Daisy was wearing in her opening scene of The Great Gatsby.  I fell in love with that technique right away on screen, and I had been wanting try my own spin on it for a while now. 

I drafted the pattern according to the woman's measurements.  The dress is made from chiffon and the lining from satin.  The lining is a completely separate dress from the overlay.  I find that whenever I make a dress from chiffon it's nice to have the option to choose between different colored slips. 

Every seam on the dress is finished off by either using a french seam, or by hand sewing the seams shut.  Chiffon tends to fray easily after a couple of wears and if all the seams are closed the garment will last much longer.  Each petal was hand cut and the edges on all the petals had to be slightly melted using a cigarette lighter to keep them from fraying.  After all the petal edges were sealed I started pinning and hand sewing each petal individually to the dress.  Many hours of hand sewing went into this dress, but it was such a fun dress to work on!  I'd like to play around with embellishing different garments with petals as well.     

All photos take by myself

I just ordered a new sewing machine the other day for my apartment here in Savannah.  It should be arriving tomorrow which I'm extremely excited about.  I'm partnering with a local boutique from Fort Wayne that's going to be selling my garments when I come back home on break.  I'm hoping in my free time to spend as much time as I can sewing between classes.

Also as a side note - I've put new photo prints for sale in my Etsy shop!  I'll be adding new clothes as well within the next week or two.  I have a whole week before classes start so I'm hoping to focus more time into my Etsy shop this week. 

  

I hope your Monday is wonderful and much more to come this week!