Friday, April 23, 2010

Productive Week

As I look back over this week I realize I've made a lot of progress.  I finished one jacket, got a great start on another one, and have ideas for a couple more percolating in the back of my mind.  When I finished Summer Sunset, I spent the rest of my day going through my fabric stash and making piles of fabrics that might go together.  I ended up with at least 6 or 7 piles, but in all but one pile, at least one fabric had not been prewashed yet.  I filled up a big bag of fabrics to take home to wash, but left that day feeling a bit frustrated.  I wanted to be able to start on a jacket right away the next day, but realized I wouldn't be able to get the fabrics washed and back to the studio for a couple of days.

As I tried to figure out what to do, my mind kept going back to this one beautiful brown and maroon fabric with these great woven motifs.  Although I almost never make a jacket from a single fabric, I thought I could do something interesting with the motifs - especially if I added some couching to highlight them.  I felt so much better now that I had a plan.

My next step was to "audition" possible threads and trim.  I know that most women would like to look slimmer, so when I create my jacket designs I think hard about how I can emphasize vertical lines.  Making your eyes travel up and down the design helps the slimming effect.  One of my favorite techniques with a pattern with Princess seams is to add bias strips in the seams.  When going through my stash, I found some small pieces of a shiny maroon and gold fabric work with my motif fabric.  I was delighted with the way the colors and textures work together.  I also found a great brown and copper sparkly thread for the couching.  Can you tell I'm getting excited about this new one?  

Yesterday I spent almost all day fussy-cutting the pieces for it.  It took some time to figure out pleasing placements for the motifs.  Today I got a good start on the couched accents.

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