One big family

My mom loves those old fashion dolls that you see on sale at craft shows.Usually its made from just some tea dyed muslin and homespun fabric. Well for mothers day i decided to create a family replica out of dolls. Unfortunately i have a big family with three sisters and a niece. I cut out circles and rectangles for their body parts and traced out shapes out of contrasting material. For their hair i used yarn. me and my youngest sister have curly hair so i tried to make the yarn squiggly to show curly hair. I painted their nose on with orange paint and their eyes are buttons.

Recycling is Fun

My school was donated a whole bunch of recycled ties for a special event. So i used all parts of the ties to create a strapless top, shorts and a little bag. The top was created from the tie being opened up and stitched together. I was alittle tricky because ties are created on the bias for stretch so each piece was on different bias angle. but because of the bias i didn't need to put a zipper or button closure. The top simply pulls over with an adjustable back closure. the shorts was created out of the interfacing inside of the ties. i cut the in straight pieces and stitched each one with a sportswear decorative flat lock stitch. The bag was crated out of six ties. I used everypiece of the tie, even the tag-which is used as a closure. i used the interfacing pieces of the tie as interfacing in the bag and handles. I had alot of fun creating each piece and it was inexspensive because it was made from recycled ties.

Fun with buttons

I love buttons and i love shine so i decided to combine the two. I collected all my pick buttons and adorned them with swarvski crystals. I used the 5000 bead glue which works wonders. then i sewed them onto a white vintage wristband. Unfortunately it turned out to be tighter than my hand so i now use it to hold my yarn.

Not just another reusable energy

I had to create a garment using on food items. So i decided what better than CORN! not just a renewable source of energy but serves as a great textile too. After great design issues i finally decided on a style that would best suit the con and a human physique. I began gathering my material from the local Corn festival that was going on at the time. It is a huge festival where the local town "celebrates" Florida's agriculture. Luckily i was able to get two huge bags full of corn husk.
I started working with my pattern and sewing pieces of husk together to create fabric. I molded it in the shape of cups for the top piece. I used the zig zag stitch because otherwise the stitching would rip right through the corn. In fact some pieces i had to stitch several times because of the delicate husk. I then began sewing corn husk in pleats for the bust and for the hem of the dress. For the waist cincher i interweaved corn pieces to create a basket weave. For the bottom portion i overlapped pieces of corn.Then when i tried the pieces started to curl beautifully. Inorder for someone to wear the garment i had sew a lining for the dres. So I added some nice green cotton crepe for a lining and a Velcro closure for a great adjustable fit.

Going to the Chaple!

My sister got married last year and she asked me to make a veil for her. She sent me some pictures of her dress with the beaded corset and i try to replicate the beading design in Adobe illustrator. Afterwords i printed out the replication to use as a pattern for the bead work. I made a huge oval and flipped it in half to create a tierd two layer veil and gathered it in the middle for some nice fullness. Then i sewed a nice 1/4 trimming around the edge, which in the end created a nice curl for the veil edge. Afterwords i sewed the middle piece onto a hair piece and began my bead work. The bead work is made from white sea beads and swavski crystals. I created a swarvski flower in the middle with two vine shaped curves coming out of both sides with tiny leaves made from sea beads. Talk about time consuming. But i finally finished all the hand beading and she wore it proudly down the isle and at the reception!

Surface Designing

I recently took a textile surface design class where we experimented with different types of techniques. one technique i really enjoyed was dyeing and creating shibori effects. I trasformed purple viscose plain weave fabric into a green/black shiboried dress. below are some pictures from my transformation and the step by step processes.




on the left is the fabric dying black, on the right is the fabric original face. then i wrapped it tightly around a 3" diameter PVC pipe. I wrapped very very tightly and tied the ends of so they could fall of. Afterwords i used color remover and slowly removed the dye in a circular fashion around the tube to eliminate streaks of black.



After a weeks worth of prepping i took the fabric of and it was green streaked over black with all these wrinkles, which is known as a shibori effect.