A Felted Fit's First Fitting

Wow say that 10 times fast!  Well I guess its not that tricky on the tongue.

I am happy to announce that I had my very first initial fitting for A Felted Fit this week!  My good friend and former roommate Michelle is going to a Neurology Conference in Arizona at the end of the month and wants me to make her a dress.  Color me flattered.

Michelle wants the Rose Hi-Low dress in a deep eggplant color.  She stopped by the other day to try on the the Rose Hi-Low dress and I took some basic measurements.

I just had to share a photo of her in the dress, doesn't she look beautiful!

This dress fits her pretty well so I will be making some minor adjustments while making hers.  But I just love how the diamond shapes hit her perfectly along her natural waist.

It was really exciting for me to see the dress on someone else and watch her move around in it.  So thank you Michelle for my first custom order:)

Are you in the Portland area and looking for a unique custom made dress? 
Contact me and lets talk!

Time to get it out there

Well it has taken much longer than intended to get photos of our First Year final show up on this here blog.
But alas, here I am with time on my hands, in LA while Christian is at work waiting to leave for Costa Rica to get married.
So without further ado here they are.
Enjoy!

A shot of my forest canopy/tent/fort in the daylight, it is even more magical at night!

This one has a close up of the tiny led votives I added some of my green dyed fabric to for a look of glowing grass.

A peak inside.

Kathryn Bradshaw with her amazingly beautiful books.

Kathryn Bradshaw's impeccably binded book, she's got talent comin' out the wazoo!

William Ruek's Barn, with real live ducks.

Heather Bromer's modified teddy bears.

Killeen Hansen's Papercut Slide Narrative set-up.

Some of Killeen's slides projected onto the wall.

Karl Ramentol's felt bike seats and lamp.

Sheri Earnhart's set design.

Jody Dunphy's seeded and growing paper.

Sheri inside my forest canopy, probably my favorite shot of the night:)

Me and Christian enjoying a break from the show inside the forest canopy with our roommates.

Looking up inside the forest canopy!

And finally a shot of the inside of the forest canopy/tent/fort.

So if you made it through all those photos, I also made a video (my first one ever!) of the dyeing process for this project.  Check it out and let me know what you think!

Till next time!
Hope you are all enjoying your summer:)

Moving along

Here are some photo updates of where I am in my process of my final project.  I still have a ways to go, but I'm moving along:)

 

This is the fabric soaking in a soda ash solution, which is the chemical that helps the color absorb into the fabrics.  

This is my set up, lots of dye, some sponges, spray bottles, and extra towels and rags.  I must say I was lucky to score a good amount of wall space that I could pin up the fabric and plastic to.

Ready to dye!  That is a 12ft x 9ft plastic drop cloth on the wall behind the fabric, to give you an idea of how big the piece of fabric is.  They are about 10ft long and 3ft wide at the top and 9ft wide at the bottom.

 And this is what it looks like after its been dyed.  It doesn't look nearly as dark or saturated when its rinsed and dried, but it still looks just as vibrant!

After the dye soaked fabric sat overnight with an electric blanket on it, it was ready to rinse.  This is the Fibers studio at OCAC where they have ample sink space, it really did take 3 sinks for me to rinse these babies!

And this is the final product!  Don't forget, there are 3 other pieces with the same color sequence that were done as well, its only possible to take a photo of one at a time:)  They have all been sewn together to create a very large skirt like structure.

I have also been documenting my entire process with video, but will have to learn a bit more about video editing until I debut it here.  But I should be done with it soon!

Right now I am working on making pillows to go inside my super stellar fabric fort/canopy, and am having a lot of fun playing with different quilting techniques to make them.  It's a great way to be able to play with all these different techniques I have been dying to try all year.
Photos of the pillows are coming soon!

The Whirlwind!

Boy has this ever been a whirlwind of the past couple of months.  With 4 or 5 visiting artist lectures, making fluffy wool clouds for a window display, weaving, workshops, reading for classes, writing papers (its been a long time), and diving head first into dying fabrics and making art quilts, the first half of this semester has FLOWN by!
So here it is the middle of November and I am just getting around to sharing what I've been working on here in Portland:)

So here is a little taste of what I have been working on so far...

Starting with the dying, this is one of the larger pieces I did.  It was first painted with dye in a gradient of 2 colors, batiked, then thrown into another dye bath.

This is a piece I made in the Jane Lackey workshop I took.  It was a 2 day course at OCAC, where we were challenged to take everyday found materials and create a piece using 56 points and connect them in some way.

Here are some shots of the weaving I've been doing.  So far I only have pics of the loom set up, since we just started weaving last week.  It took about 12hrs just to set up the loom!

This is a shot of my very first attempt at an art quilt.

And these are some current shots of what I am working on now, which I am really excited about!
These are photographs that I have taken and printed out on fabric.

 

Yay!  Stay tuned as I will be posting some finished projects quite soon.  And after this weekend I will have some photos of the fluffy wool clouds I made with one of my classmates for a window display:)

Leave a comment I would love to hear what you think!

Welcome to Portland!

So I've been a bit busy between moving to Portland and starting school, that I have neglected my poor little bloggy blog:(  But worry no more for I will be continually documenting my journey through school, and my new life here in Portland!

For those of you that dont know I moved to Portland at the end of August to go back to school to earn my Masters of Fine Arts in Applied Craft and Design, (a joint program between PNCA and OCAC)... You may say what the heck does that mean?  Well to be honest we are all learning the history of the terms right now in our classes so none of us are really sure the literal translation.  But basically we are getting an MFA in Designing and Making our own work/products.  Its an incredible opportunity as this is a one-of-a-kind degree that is unlike any other out there, and I must say I am proud and excited to be a part of a new revolution in higher education!  Still confused?  Dont worry I will be describing the program in further detail as I go along in future posts.

For now I will share some photos of our first group project that we are working on called the Design Build.  This is a two week (10 day) intensive project where we as classmates design and BUILD a space for a revolutionary condo complex called Eco-Flats.  This is designed into the curriculum as a team building exercise for the class as a way for us to become closer and really get to know one another and our skills.  And a chance to learn some new techniques that we might never have been exposed to.

Here is the layout of the complex.  We are building on the area labeled Stormwater Basin

Site visit to hear from the Developers Jean-Pierre Veillet and Doug Shapiro

A view of the site from the second story of the complex

After the site visit it was back to the studio to brainstorm and build models of our ideas to present to the Developers.

Brainstorming and Building models

Near the end of the Design process we broke up into 2 groups to build on our ideas and presented 2 options to the Developers.

Group 1 - living green wall with a secret garden canopy

Group 1 model side view

Group 2 model top view - a beautiful corner deck with mobile green wall panels

Group 2 model side view

So a decision was reached and we are now building a Living Green Wall and a wooden walkway over the 580 sqft storm water basin.

We just finished our 7th day in the process and are well on our way to completing the project by Wed 9/22:)

I think that is a good introduction so far, stay tuned for more photos of the process and more insight to this brand new program!