Hanging in the Gallery

The Back in the Gallery

Here's the back of the garment hanging in the Gallery at the University.  It is almost complete - thanks to some help from Rachel.  When I get back home, I'll work on the two front panels. 

Other garments that were created

Here's are some of the other garments that participants created.

And still other garments

It was a lot of fun to see all of the different garments that people created.

Almost have the back done!

Inspiration from my mom

Yesterday was tough but I thought that she'd want me to continue on...especially with where I was at with this garment.  There's still a lot of work to be done.  Klaus took off with the camera so I used my phone to take the pictures.  They're not the best but it works.  Here's the progress that I made yesterday.  The quality of the picture does not do it justice.

 For the sky piece, here are the fabrics that I am considering using.  I may need to make another trip the quilt store...my mom would be proud!  It's interesting how you can really see the contrast in the fabric from a photo...you don't quite get that feeling from looking at the fabric. 

Learning More New Techniques

We learned some fun ways to put together blocks on a garment to embellish it.  My favorite is the top one that looks like a swirl.  I also like the hexagon shaped one that looks like a flower - can you believe that began from a circle?!

Creating the background for the back

On the left is a paper sketch of what I was thinking about doing for the back.  On the left is the beginning of the piecing of the back.  My thinking is to have two pieces - the top portion which is blue for the sky and the bottom portion which is green for the grass.  For the grass portion, I am using a variety of quadrilaterals and greens to give the effect of grass and throwing in some color as well.  For the sky, I am thinking of using horizontal strips of blue to piece together the sky.  For the front, I am thinking that one side will have a blue sky theme and the other side will have a green grass theme.  On the blue side, I am consider putting a row of the red heliconia with a blue background.  for the green side, I was thinking about cutting out the leaves and creating a strip around them.  Any ideas or thoughts???

Last of the flowers

Paper Pieced Bird of Paradise

Final product

Paper pieced heliconia

Template for the paper pieced heliconia

Possible fabric

Possible fabrics

Today is my last day of making flowers...on to working on the garment - Rachel has informed me :)  She doesn't want me to just know how to make lovely flowers.  We worked a little on Saturday and we decided that it would be easiest to paper piece the heliconia since I wasn't getting the effect that I was looking for.  I was extremely glad that I did because I thought the flower turned out gorgeous!  I was able to find a paper pieced bird of paradise online but it looked extremely intricate so I decided to try to develop my own pattern.  I came out well.  I am thinking about making a mirror copy for the garment as well.  I learned a lot about paper piecing - it had been a while since I had done it the last time which was a Mariner's compass which is still in pieces.  I did do a lot of taking out of stitches since I didn't really spend the time figuring out which piece should be connected to which piece and connected to the next piece, etc.  

I am thinking about having a band of green and a band of blue fabric to connect the two groups of flowers but I found this awesome print.  I may try to incorporate it into the garment.  We'll see what happens tomorrow.

Creating the Garment

Pink Ginger

Pink Ginger

Red Ginger

Heliconia

Inspiration - Braid Technique with triangles & rectangles

Heliconia - but looks like bird of paradise

Red Ginger

These blocks are the beginning inspiration for the garment, which will be a short jacket.  I really liked how the initial piece turned out with the red.  I experimented with the heliconia but it does not have the right look or scale.  I don't think that I will include it in the final garment but we'll see.  With the orange and green piece, I was going for the look of heliconia again but it turned out to be more like the bird of paradise.  I like the piece.  I'm having fun experimenting with different sizes and angles to create different effects.  I just wish that I had more fabrics in the color range that I am working with - but we'll see what I need - that's Monday's project.

  I'm looking for suggestions and thought about what other elements could be added.  I'm feeling a little bit of a time crunch since we are scheduled for Lunch Bites on Friday with a Fashion Show.