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!

Nuno Felting with Embellishments - Student Work

NUNO FELTMAKING

with Embedded Bits of Magic and Embellishments

BEGINNING 3-D ART

This was a really fun unit to teach and it was great seeing all the creative solutions.  I rarely show all the students pieces, but I really wanted you to see all the variety of solutions.

When my students turn in their work I always have then put their pieces on the board for the other classes and myself to enjoy.

So let's take a look at a few individual pieces.

This first one was done by 8th grader Annie Lin.  What a brilliant solution to the project.  She has also moved her colors really well and planned well with her embedded items.

.Because I've been weaving since the 2nd grade, I really gravitate to woven art pieces.  I love how senior Vinisha Kothari cut her piece up, wove it back together in a very pleasing way, then hooked on all types of embellishments.  How Fun!! 

Then look at senior Jinnie Choi go in this highly developed work, WOW!  So much handwork was added after the felting.  I'm thinking she probably had to take this home everyday to make it happen.

Next is this very delicate and lovely piece by junior Payal Morri.  How clever to turn her piece into a dimensional work.  Very pretty Payal!

And then junior Clarrisa Bloemhof is really thinking outside the box.  She has taken her adorable little sister's shoe/socks and made then a part of the piece.  She also took advantage of our Eco-Dye unit and colored her four squares with plant pigments.  Great critical thinking!  

Everyone loved senior Sam Kim's "Starry Night" on the left.  And I was really impressed with junior Jon Madamba's piece on the right, how he took his felt and turned it into a pouch. 

Check out the complex design of this next one by senior Rebecca Tjahja.  She really rummaged thru my treasure chest and found a wooden key from Fossil, and a soldered work from last school year.  Who would have thought to put the two together, but somehow she has made it work.

And this next one is amazing by super star student, junior Bianca Tolentino.  Two-sides with lots of embedded items then tons of embellishments.  LOVE IT!!!

And our last one that I want to show off was created by another junior, Kaili Hamada.  She is also proving to be a go-getter, coming in everyday at lunch to have extra time to spend on her incredibly beautiful work.  I took a close-up so that you can appreciate all the time she has put into this piece.  

Experimenting...

with a bit of Nuno Felting and some waste materials.

Felted

Now to eco-print with rusted objects.

The result...but not done yet.

I gave the piece to my super-duper 3-d art student, Karisma Dev, and asked her to do what she pleased with it, and OMG, told you she was super-duper!!!

What I love is that it was a joint effort, and the two of us will be linked together through this piece.

Forever...

Professional Textile Artist Michelle Hoffee

My other favorite artist at the Artist License Show was Michelle Hoffee.  I bought this amazing wall hanging from her that's already installed in my studio.  She specializes in eco-dyeing and uses silks and handmade nuno felt, and woolens.

In this piece she has woven and stitched her eco-dyed strips together and as well as inserting a bit of text for a very sensory piece.  The "t" is covered in the photo, it reads "trust" instead of "rust".  :)

Another very cool piece I bought from her is this re-purposed apron from an old corn sack.  She has also incorporated her eco-dyed silks along with a lot of stitching detail.  I just love it and it's currently on display in my studio.

I also really like Michelle's tags.  They are very clever and give her a lot of options to circle for each unique piece she creates.  Plus she has eco-dyed them as well.

Here is Michelle in her own creations at the Artist License Show.  In case you are interested in attending next year, it happens the last weekend in October on that Friday and Saturday, usually from 10-4 and is held at Estancia Park in Costa Mesa.

Professional Fiber Artist Lori lawson

If you scroll back to November you'll see I posted about the Artistic License Art Show.  What I didn't have pictures of then were a couple of the art wearables I purchased from 2 of my favorite artists.

This gorgeous nuno felt scarf was made by my good friend Lori Lawson of Capistrano Fiber Arts. 

I love how Lori is all about surface design on her pieces and spends hours hand and machine stitching her embellishments.

Lori has a terrific selection of handspun yarns, hand dyed rovings and finished pieces for sale on her Etsy site.

She also is working a lot with the eco-dye process on silks and woolens. 

Check her out and treat yourself.