Project 1 Revisited

Before I get to the update on project 1, and 3, I wanted to follow up on last night’s ice cream adventure.  The key lime ice cream was wonderful.  Of course the kitchen was a salty mess, sort of looked like my driveway after an ice storm, but no matter, my daughter had fun, and we had ice cream.

After the ice cream adventure, she scampered off to her room, and with her endless supply of duct tape, she sat down and made a beautiful rose pen, which she’s made before many times, but this one she did in clear duct tape, with a silver stem (built over a Bic pen) and added rose buds.  She just gets these ideas and…  This afternoon she redid her trombone folder, completely in orange and green duct tape, with pockets and compartments.

I sat down this morning, determined to finish up all the critical handwork on the coat and on the dress from project 1, in preparation for the photo shoot.  I got all the critical work done on the coat, buttons sewn on, and when I went to couch the black yarn around the collar, I realized the zig-zag stitching would show through to the back where the felt was, so if I wanted to avoid that, I probably should hand couch it on.  That went pretty quickly, and the coat is basically ready for photographing.

So that brings me to the dress.  I put it on the dress form, and really looked at the front, as much as I loved the way it draped over the bustline, and the way the colors all came together, there was something missing.  The center front seam looked kind of naked.

I had briefly played around with some strips of fabric, making some kinds of medallions, with beads, and I kept thinking it was looking like a craft project.  Back in the summer, when I roomed at Convergence with Robyn Spady, a fabulous weaver/teacher from the Seattle area, we curled up one night with a bottle of wine, and some black chenille stems, and some funky knitting yarn.  We wrapped the chenille stems with the yarn, barber pole style, with very little of the black chenille showing through, and then bent the stem into all sorts of shapes and buttons.  It was really a fun night.  The little spiral I had done was sitting in bowl of oddities on the edge of my cutting table, by the dress form.  I grabbed it and loved the look of the spiral, if only I had extra yarn from the dress…

I had used the leftover dyed warp from the dress on the inkle loom, for a pretty complex wide band, which you can see in the photo.  I started poking around the studio, looking in odd baskets and containers, and you won’t believe it, it is like the universe just handed me a single warp thread, curled up in a basket with some beads, I don’t know why one 8 yard warp thread was hanging all by itself in a basket with beads, but I don’t question those gifts from the universe, they just are meant to be…

I grabbed a couple of chenille stems, and doubled the rayon bouclé warp thread and started wrapping.  I wrapped three chenille stems, end on end, and then started coiling and shaping the chenille into spirals and a viney sort of shape up the dress.  I’m really liking the effect.  In the basket along with the warp thread, was a funky beaded something that I cut up and I used the glass beads, all in the colors I needed, to place strategically around the vine, which really played on the whole Floral theme of the dress.  I pinned everything into the dress form, but I needed to permanently attach everything with a needle and thread before I actually photographed the dress.  The wire in the chenille stems acted like a boning on the front, and gave it some nice support.

So the photoshoot was pushed off to tomorrow, while I get this all tacked and secured.  Stay tuned…