FRESH OFF THE LOOM

LOOM WOVEN GARMENT CONSTRUCTION

ADVANCED 3-D ART

Saori loom, weaving yarns, sewing machine

Senior Laarnie Barcelon has been pushed to the max this year in her 3rd level 3-D class with me.

Her assignment:

to construct a garment to wear from a long length of loom woven fabric she wove.

She also had to design her own pattern which involved high level critical thinking.

She did not disappoint.

The jacket below is amazing in so many ways.

Asymmetrical design...

beautifully crafted...

color choices that flow together to please the eye.

And... it fit like a glove!

Note her first little woven project hanging around her neck that compliments the jacket?

Difficulty occurred when she ran out of the warp thread before she finished her panels for the sleeves.

So she had to re-warp the loom with not as much warp as she needed 

(end of year running out of money and supplies needed)

to a wider setting which caused the lower half of the sleeves to look a bit more airy

 and looser in structure.

It actually turned into a very pretty detail in the end.

You can see it here where she has extended out her elbow.

Laarnie, 

this is only the beginning for you.

You will go on from here to do great things,

be inspired by fabulously creative teachers,

and travel to places and see things that you will be able to incorporate into your work.

I'm so looking forward to your future.

LAARNIE AS A BLONDE

RECYCLED ART AND FASHION

ADVANCED 3-D ART

extra credit

Two posts ago I featured senior Laarnie Barcelon's participation in a 

Recycled Art to Wear Fashion Show.

These are her fabulous pictures from the show.

Description by Laarnie.

The outfit is made in two parts, the bodice top and the skirt bottom. 

The bodice is made out of saran wrap and masking tape. 

Afterwards, newspaper had been starched on,

and finished with a Mod Podged coating over top of the bodice.

 In the back (not pictured) are two strips of elastic that help keep it closed 

while giving it a bralette-like design. 

The skirt portion is made out of a textured packaging material for music stands 

that is as sturdy as cardboard,

 but is as thin as paper.

 Around the skirt are origami roses made out of old school handouts and tissue paper rosettes.

 To bring in some bits of color,

 old purple nail polish and gold acrylic paints where used around the skirt.

 The black front of the skirt is an old garbage bag 

that had been used to transport fabrics to and from school. 

They had been cut up and then I gathered them to have a ruffled look. 

 The cuffs that you see here are the cardboard coffee sleeves from Starbucks drinks

 that had been embellished with black plastic bows from a broken old toy.

Hanging from the bottom portion of the skirt are white stars made out of Styrofoam

 from an old take-out box. 

The stars's edges are painted with the same nail polish

 that had been used on the skirt to bring more of the purple throughout the design. 

The stars are attached to the skirt with an old rose wire

 that I reclaimed from my cheap .99 cent childhood jewelry. 

The bodice and skirt are held together using an industrial Velcro that connects at the waistline.

 I felt the dress looked a little bland with the bare waistline,

so I added a lace up belt.

 Extra accents to the design are the black petticoat, 

black felt hat, 

black heels,

 and a paper decoupaged suitcase.

Bravo Laarnie.

Well done!!!

LAARNIE...IN HER OWN WORDS

NUNO FELTMAKING GARMENT CONSTRUCTION - PART 3

ADVANCED 3-D ART

silk, dye, wool roving, misc. fibery items to embedd, misc. fabrics, & misc. embellishments

Hello everyone! 

It's a pleasure to be able to post on Mrs. Sposa's blog again.

 Now... on to the dress!

 Just as a heads up, 

I had gone into the assignment not knowing what I was going to do.

 I had an idea of what color scheme I desired,

 but no design to work off of.

 So the dress itself is as spontaneous as the weather here in California! :) 

The main fabric pieces that have the interesting textures are silk fabrics that I first dyed using RIT dyes,

 and then I Nuno felted over top them. 

I later came back to the purple fabric and created a non-objective design using the free motion quilting technique I had learned in the stitch paper quilt assignment.

 I also tried to bring in blues into my color scheme

 as I had them in my Nuno felted fabrics, 

so I dyed a small piece of silk, 

Nuno felted it, 

and then used it as a dress strap that goes right around my neck. 

As I worked on the garment, 

I just knew that it needed something... more. 

So I went to several craft stores in search of embellishments 

that were elegant and in my color scheme. 

The beading,

 the flowers, 

 the buttons, 

and the main jewel on the garment's neckline had served their purpose well. 

I wanted to make the neckline the most extravagant part of my entire dress.. 

so I dyed a doily I had found in the blue RIT dye.

 Then I brought in several beads and flowers to frame the jewel piece I had sewn in. 

As Mrs. Sposa had mentioned in the previous post,

 I had found a lot of fabrics in the fabric bins that we have at school.

 I discovered a nice purple fabric that I had used in the skirt,

 and also this  flowing, 

sheer, 

 maroon-y fabric with butterflies on it that I really liked.

For the back,

 I had no idea how I'd go about the closure. 

Originally, 

I had wanted to do a nice corset lacing, 

but the fabric wasn't strong enough to support that backing. 

So I talked with Mrs. Sposa,

 and we came up with the miraculous closure that you see here. 

I lined the buttons up across from each other 

(although when worn, it gets a little funky!)

 and a suede cord wraps around them to create a pleasing design,

 and an effective garment closure.

 Along the edges of the buttons are some of the beads that I had mentioned before. 

On the sides of the dress, 

I have attached this wonderful silk that I had dyed in the blue RIT.

 It brings the color all around the dress. 

I have also embellished the sewn areas with some flowers and beading. 

As for the petticoat portion of the dress, 

I came to the conclusion that having the petticoat fabric show wasn't attractive at all. 

It looked bunched, 

weird,

 and a little obnoxious... 

so I added a bit of beading to bring in some elegance,

and tie it visually to the other colors in the dress. 

A fun little fact about the petticoat fabric 

is that all of it had been used to Nuno felt with!

 Some of this netting was used when I felted my fabrics for this assignment

 while the other pieces had been used by the Intermediate 3-D art students to felt their vessels.

 They had all sweetly given me them to me to use in my assignment, 

which is also one of the reasons why the dress itself ended up being really, 

really poofy! 

Thank you for reading!  :) 

LOTS OF HARD WORK

NUNO FELTED GARMENT - PART 2

ADVANCED 3-D ART

silk, dye, wool rovings, misc. fibery items to embedd, misc. fabrics & misc. embellishments

Here's cutie patuti senior Laarnie Barcelon

 working to felt her wool rovings to her silk piece.

She needs hot, soapy water

 and a lot of elbow grease as you can see.

She has felted before but never on this large a scale.

She is required to build from scratch a garment that will fit her 

which needs to be constructed largely from her handmade nuno felt.

But she is also able to incorporate other fabrics as well.

Because Laarnie is such an exceptionally creative soul,

without being required or told,

she thought to built her own mannequin in her dress size from newspaper,

 duck tape and cardboard.

Hummm...

another idea for a new assignment for next year.

YES!!!

And here she starts the process of trying out different ideas,

being able to pin them onto her mannequin.

I have large bins of donated fabrics of all kinds, 

and if the kids are willing to plow thru them they will discover a lot of buried treasures.

She played around with a lot of ideas and colors.

And tomorrow we will see her finished,

 frothy creation.

OOPS!!

NUNO FELTED GARMENT - PART I

ADVANCED 3-D ART

silk, dye, wool roving, misc. fibery items to embedd, misc. fabrics, misc. embellishments

Sometimes I goof up.

Yup.

Sometimes little goofs,

sometimes bigger ones.

Senior Laarnie Barcelon was experimenting with creating nuno felt 

for an upcoming garment assignment,

and I told her I'd put her felted pieces in the washing machine

 and check on them every 5 mins. for shrinkage.

So here they are above after she felted them;

loose, 

soft and flowy with a wonderful drape..

and then after I goofed up.

I forgot to check the washer for the entire cycle.

Oops.

So here they are now.

Thick, 

hard 

and miniscule.

Sorry Laarnie.

But despite me,

 I'll be posting her remarkable results tomorrow and Thursday in a two parter.

So stay tuned!