Elixer of Love Costumes

I did get to 2 performances of the opera I made tie dye tees for last weekend. The costumer did a great job of taking the tees I dyed and turning them into all sorts of differently shaped shirts! What I don’t have is a photo of the pareo I dyed for the lead to wear with a black bathing suit…it turned out great, and hopefully someone else has a photo of it. Anyway, here’s some photos (excuse the blurriness – these were all taken in a dark theater with the flash off). More photos are on my flickr site.

 

I’m trying not to panic, but I have a lot of work to do for my next show. Plus, it’s getting towards the end of the semester, and I have to get ready for MayTerm! AAAHHH!

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	100%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	100%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	10%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	30%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

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Inspiration: Simply Robin

Head on over to Simply Robin’s (whoops, this link was wrong, it’s fixed now) blog – as a guest blogger there I talk about how her work inspires me, and how I made this quilt (which is yet to be faced & hung – but hey, I only had 24 hours…and I had to sleep sometime!)

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She Loves it!

So, I made her come to my house to pick up her birthday present – what a jerk I am! No matter, she loves it! Phew!

Scroll down to the previous post to see the house up close & personal!

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Teahouse for Liz

Quick…what’s bergamot?   Some sort of wildflower, you say?  Well…yes…and no!

My good friend Liz had a birthday this week. I had to do something extra nice for her because she’s such an awesome friend. Anyway, she’s English and loves Earl Grey Tea. She also really loved the art houses I did recently. Couple that with the fact that I saw this little house over at Sue Bleweiss’s blog awhile ago, and I knew I had to make Liz her own little art house that stores her beloved Earl Grey Tea!

So, as any self respecting tea drinker knows, Earl Grey is black tea flavored with bergamot, so looking for inspiration, I did a quick google and discovered that the bergamot that flavors Earl Grey tea is an orange, Citrus aurantium ssp. bergamia to be exact! (Info and image from Wikipedia) It’s a pear-shaped, bitter fruit and grows best in Calabria, Italy! Who knew….certainly not me!

The other bergamot (Monarda didyma) is also known as Scarlet Beebalm. Pretty, but not a tea flavoring!

Any old who… this was the inspiration I needed to focus on a design for a teahouse! I constructed it similarly to my other 3-d houses, but becasue of the small size of it (the sides of the house are 3.5” x 4”), most of the construction was done by HAND! Through PELTEX! AAAHHH! The only thing that made it bearable (besides a strong thimble) is that the zigzagging around all the edges made little holes for the needle to go through. Anyway, I got this far on the sewing machine:

And then I spent some quality time with my thimble. The end result is worth it:

Yes, that is a homemade Dorset Button. I Hope she likes it…and I hope she can keep from peeking at my blog like I told her until she gets it in person!

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Prototype Clutch Complete!

Many people have loved and purchase one of my Grab n’Go bags:

But I can’t tell you how many times someone has held it to their hip, and said “I wish this had a long strap that went around my shoulder.” I too think that this is an excellent idea. So I’m working on a new bag that has a long, thin (1/2”) strap which clips off, so it can also be a hand held clutch. I’ve found and ordere the right kind of hardware for this, but in the meantime, my friend Liz’s

son has been admiring my Grab n’Go’s and has told his doting Mum he’d like one to hold his slide oil and metronome (he’s a tuba player), but he didn’t need the strap or the belt loop. Well, perfect opportunity for me to try out the slightly altered dimensions of the clutch! Also the perfect opportunity for me to practice freehand sketching a Tuba – no…really, that wasn’t a skill I needed, but I’ve got it now! 😉

Anyway, it’s slightly shorter and wider than the Grab n’Go:

Plenty of room for palm pilot/Ipods and wallet – or slide oil & metronome:

Pockets on the front for credit cards, ID’s, regularly sized cell phones:

I’m quite pleased with the proportions, and can’t wait for the hardware to come so i can make one compete with strap!

I need a better name!!!! Any suggestions???

Cross one more off the list! WooHoo!

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	90%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	100%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	10%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	30%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

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Step AWAY from the realism!

So, I had a deadline of this past Friday to have some pieces ready for the Floral Show at the Redlands Art Association. I also have been testing some new PFD fabric, and wanted to use what I had dyed to confirm that the new base I’m going to use actually worked, so I needed to use a the deep turquoise and orange/red fabrics. My first try was really nice….but of course, HEAVILY influenced by the website of Jennifer Moore, the designer of monluna! Her little birds were just up the freeform alley I’ve been working towards lately, and I also like her use of a horizontal line.

6 little birds - 10" x 20"

When it was complete, I loved it, and was sad I hadn’t used the contour of the line that was the edge of the fabric I used during the design of 6 little birds. I had enough of the blue fabric to make 2 more pieces the same size as the 1st, so I thought, ok, try to make some floral based stuff. A couple of ideas I’ve been thinking about include taking the circles I use in my baubles and quilting more realistic patterns on top:

Floral Fantasia -10" x 20"

Also, turning ovals into trees, which I used (I think) very successfully in “Home is where the Art is…#2:

House in the Woods - 10" x 20"

So… “meh” is my reaction. These are both too realistic, but yet not realistic enough, if that makes sense. What did I learn from this:

1. Step away from realism!
2. I still have a really hard time including too many different hues at once. The colors on these don’t feel cohesive to me.

Did I learn from these?  yes.

Moving on…

Here’s my list of to-do’s:

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	100%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	95%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	0%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	10%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	30%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

Not TOO shabby! I’ve now got 5 weeks to do most of that list….so I’m off to design a clutch!

As always, thanks for dropping by!

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6 Little Birds

So, I’ve been enamored of birds for awhile now…here’s my latest flock:

6 little birds - 10" x 20"

As you can see, I went with the the more detailed background – I was worried that the birds would blend in, but 1) I used bright colors and 2) I forget that the dark lines I free motion quilt around them also help with definition, so I’m a happy gal!

I’ve been trying to be more sketchy and free style with my bird shapes – I’m getting there.

EDIT: Note to self – take a look at the pictures you snap along the way, you may remember something you liked! I just scrolled down to the previous post and I love the line of the grass/horizon there than it is in the final product! Too late now! And this was just the shpae of the edge of the fabric…oh well 😦

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Subtle…or not?

I’m trying to make some small, spring-y pieces. Here’s a group of birds hanging around getting into trouble…do I go with the subtle background (which needs to be ironed):

or NOT subtle background?

Thoughts?

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30 Tees and Counting

Well, we had some sun today, which is great, as I’ve got to dye 30 tee shirts as well as 9 1/2 yard pieces of knit-fabric and one very large piece of silk for a production of Donizetti’s “Elixer of Love” – set in the 1970’s! All the chorus people are hippies! Anyway, here’s all the dye I mixed up:

Here are the tee’s all dyed up and batching:

Here’s the long piece of silk – the costume designer wanted green through dark blue to blue:

And just as I was cleaning up, I dropped a new jar of cerulean blue!!! Completely upside down! Thanks goodness I was able to get the dog in the house (phew!) and use a piece of cardboard to slide under the jar and flip the whole thing back over again. That could have been bad. Here’s all I couldn’t scoop back in the jar:

You know, I’ve died a lot over the years, and this is the worst spill I’ve had – I should count myself lucky! Now, for the washout!

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6 weeks and counting

So, I’ve got some shows coming up. The 1st is 6 weeks away, so I need to focus. Part of me is really inspired to make a lot of art right now, the pragmatic part of me knows I’ve got to make things that will sell, so I could possibly be in the black (supply wise) before summer. The economy being what it is, I’m going to focus on smaller things. I’m also tiring a bit on the making of my bags, so they’re going to be later in the cue, and if I don’t get to them, then I don’t. So, here’s a list of what I want to accomplish:

Item	Date Due	% Done
Floral quArt	3/20/2009	0%
30 Tie Dye shirts etc…for Elixer	3/20/2009	10%
Design Clutch – Will Tuba	3/26/09	0%
10 Notelets	4/24/09	10%
5 Warm Colors Grab & Go	4/24/09	0%
5 Warm Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
30 Going Green Totes	4/24/09	30%
5 Cool Colors Clutch	4/24/09	0%
Cool Colors quArt	4/24/09	0%
Crazy Colors Bags	4/24/09	0%
5 Cool Colors messengers	4/24/09	15%
Candied Fabrics Quilt	4/25/09	0%
Laptop bag for Liz	5/31/09	0%

So, yeah, I’ve got a lot to do. Fortunately, the week before the April show is my break between spring semester and May term classes, so if I keep on task with my school stuff, I should have a nice chunk of time to get a bunch of stuff done!

And, because no post is complete without a picture, I keep fussing with the color field quilts:

The colors on this aren’t smack on, but I’m too tired to fuss with it. My hubby thought the upper right green square was too dull, and I agree. He also thought the narrow bands in the center needed more texture, and i disagreed ;-). I’m still trying to decide what I’d like to do in the center of the one that will hang on the right. I had the plum color up on my working wall for a week and was liking it, but now I’m backing loving an orange stripe. Oh well, with that list up above, these 2 will be on my wall for awhile to come!

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