Happy Valentines Day!

In honor of valentines day I am posting a couple of small projects with romantic themes. 

First are three small hearts (~4 in.) for a hearts for a Dollstreet Dreamers heart exchange.  Each heart is made with a different African wax print fabric that I hand drew and then machine stitched. I painted each portrait with kissing lips using Jacquard acrylic fabric paints and added detail with Micron and gel pens.  I embroidered X's and O's, the traditional letters representing hugs and kisses on each heart.  I then embellished each piece with beads collected from South Africa and the United States.

 My second project is for yet another ATC swap with a mermaid theme.    The cards are drawn with colored pencils and ink on card stock.  These drawings are inspired by my daughter and her love of princesses.

Proofs back from Spoonflower!

Garden Path Swatch Collection in my Spoonflower Shop

Onogadori Chicken
1 of the Garden Path Chickens

Just got back my proofs from Spoonflower and was super excited by how great they turned out.  The colors are terrific and really strong. My original Rose Argyle designs did not show as much contrast printed as they do now with the revisions.  This is why it is important to get samples.  Also it is much easier to see the scale of the print when looking at the actual swatch. 

My Cape Cod Boats design is brighter on a white cotton woven material than the organic cotton knit print shown below.  I like the earthier colors of the knit.



Cape Cod Boats as yardage in organic cotton knit

More Sewing for My Girl - The African Dress

I may have mentioned in the Shoe post that my daughter is in love with pink and purple.  When I offered to let her pick out some wax print material shortly after we arrived in Senegal she made a beeline to this very pink and purple fabric. 
I decided to use it to make a simple dress, similar to the pillowcase dress I made previously.  My daughter loves a full skirt so this gave me the opportunity to add some box pleats to allow the skirt more fullness. The trim and sleeves are made of white flocked pink polyester chiffon that I had in my stash.  I added turquoise embroidery thread behind the box pleats to help them hold their shape as well as bring a little of the color up from the border.  This dress is about ½ hand sewn and ½ machine stitched. 
My girl says she loves her new princess dress. 

 

15 Days of Senegal

Theme today is Red and my entry....

For those of you curious about life in Senegal, check out the photos posted on the 15 Days of Senegal group on Facebook that started yesterday.  It will provide plenty of visuals about life here in Senegal. 

Red Swap

My first swap of the year with swap-bot.  The swap guidelines are for piece of art at least 5 x 5 inches in which the predominate color must be red.  This work measures about 7 1/2 x 8 1/2.  I began by painting a red background on watercolor paper.  I then stamped the paper with browns and golds to add subtle detail.  I hand-drew flowers with black Micron pen over the stamping and then added some paper collage elements and tissue paper for texture.  The figurative elements are drawn with oil pastels.  The last details were the sari fabric scraps I sewed and glued in place.
Below is the wonderful artwork I received from my partner, Bug. The heart is an impression of a hand carved stamp.  She has used embossing ink to give it a little texture.  This is one of my favorite swap-bot pieces.

Happy Holidays!

My holiday greetings to you, done in the style of Souwere (glass painting.)

Senegalese Print Palazzo Pants

A few years ago I was at an event for artists of many different media and I remember having a conversation with a man who suggested that clothing could be designed just by draping, pinning.  Whoa, I was just learning how to sew and that was a mind-blowing idea. No pattern?  Well, voila, here are some pants I conceived the idea of and used a combination of the draping method and modeling them on some boot cut pants, that, well, fit my booty.  The legs, of course, in Palazzo pants style angle out from the fitted hips to the ankles.  The result is they are very comfortable and dressy. 

Senegalese fabric is just so great.  Check out the print. The back side of the fabric is the same print but without the metallic gold.  I have made the pants 100% reversible so I can wear them casually if I choose.