Custom Art wear pants

Well it's been a while since I did a posting, but here we are.
I've been working on a beautiful pair of custom pants for Gina. She was inspired by a top that I had previously made, The Misty River Halter Top. I had a funny time with this top. I had it on my rack for three months and it just wasn't attracting any attention, then all in one day someone posted it on their blog, another woman bought the top, another woman asked me for a maternity top based on the design and Gina contacted me about pants inspired by it.

Funny and very serendipitous.

I was pretty excited by these pants. I really love the rust linen and swirly psychedelic blue applique fabric. It took a while to find time to make these, but it has finally happened.
After cutting and doing the first stages of construction I began working on the applique design.
Gina had asked me to send her some drawings of my design. I'd let her know that I don't really sketch my ideas, that I do the majority of my design process on the fabrics in front of me, and when I do draw my ideas the finished product looks nothing like what I had planned.
For some reason this interaction made me more aware of my design process as it was happening. What I discovered about the way I do this was really interesting(to me anyway).
I start by drawing a rough sketch with tailors chalk directly onto the pant leg. This gives me a rough idea of the size and shape of the forms I will use and of the directional sweep of my design.

Next using these lines as a guide I make "paper roughs". I play with these, shifting them around on the pant leg until I'm starting to feel happy with the general shape. As you can see the spiral of the second seed form is already facing the opposite direction. Ah ha!
The first sign of why my sketches are so different from the finished piece.

After I am happy with this I use the roughs as templates for my applique. It's during this stage that the clunky, out of balance shapes gain there flow.
Again see that the second spiral has changed direction again and is upside down to the two original stages.
After this it back to paper roughs to work out the next layer of the applique.
When I'm happy with this I cut the next fabric out and position them onto the first layer. Then fuse the whole thing down with wonder under and a hot iron. I have to be careful here that I don't shift or buckle the fabrics. Again you can see that the layout has changed. So much of what I do is intuition and based on a sense of when a design 'feels right.' It was good to get my head around this and to learn some more about my process.

From here it's pretty simple. Just satin stitch the applique edge, using a paper stabilizer to prevent the fabrics rippling and then finish constructing the pants. I love them! I hope Gina does too.

Lucky Me!!!

Two of my best friends are amazing clothing designers. They make really beautiful hoodies and pants that fit like a glove and really slim you down. Their label is Morphic and they have a website, www.morphiccreations.com, in case anyone is interested in checking their stuff out.




Anyway last summer I found myself seriously lacking a medium weight long sleeve top. I decided then that I wanted to get a hoodie from Morphic, but I had an issue. I'm really into one of a kind garments and Ray and Halee do seasonal ranges, which I'm not so into.
What I decided to do was approach them and see how they would feel about letting me applique one of their hoodies with my own design. They were into it!

I tried on a hoodie for size and style, chose my colours, chocolate and rust orange (Halee says they're way too retro together, but what you gonna do!)
They cut the pieces out and sent them my way to be appliqued. How exciting and kinda scary at the same time. Halee and Rays designs are truly exquisite so I was wanting to do a really unique and faultless design so that I could do the garment justice.
I agonized over the decision and finally decided to do a design that had been kicking round in my head for a couple of months. It's based on the crazy root systems of one of my favorite organism, beautiful fungi.
They're not even really root systems. Most of the plant actually lives as a web work of interwoven filaments underground. The mushroom is only the fruit of the subterranean plant.
First I sketched out the basic design then made a paper pattern.
This was quite a process of cutting and readjusting as I wanted to use two pieces of fabric and weave them together.
When I was happy with my paper pattern I ironed wonder under onto the back of my chosen fabrics and traced the two pattern pieces onto the two different fabrics. There was a bit of fiddling with this bit because I wanted to get all the edges flowing and smooth.After this was done I cut both of the forms out and placed them on the back panel of my hoodie. What a trip this bit was! First one way, then the other, then over here, then over there. Turning it, twisting it Argh! Until finally I was happy. Then I covered the whole design with a cloth and ironed it down with my iron on a hot steam setting.

Bliss! From there it was time to stitch it down. I used paper stabilizer to prevent puckering and a slightly narrower width satin stitch than usual because the designs is predominantly fine stems. I discovered a new thing on my machine. It has a lock system for satin stitch that prevents the stitch going outside of a certain range. Very useful!
At the end of the process I stood back, very happy. I love it and cant wait until the hoodie is put together.
A Morphic/Beautiful Chaos collaboration.
Halee's coming over on Thursday to get the pieces (and have food and fun of course.)



I'll post a pic of the finished piece when I get it back.

Spurge Flower Pants

Over this past summer our property was inundated with flowering spurge. I got absolutely fascinated by them. Not only are they the strangest, richest colour, but they are also weird as. They start with one large flower which sprouts two smaller flowers. Each of these sprout two more small flowers etc. The most layers I counted this summer was 4. Awesome. A living fractal reiterating itself.
Well it got me going I can tell you. I had to make myself a pair of pants with this amazing flower represented on them.
I used my standard wide leg pants pattern, but I widened the leg even more to make them super bell bottom. I have worn them and worn them and worn them.

Gina, who is one of my repeat customers, spotted them on a picture I had on my website and they sparked her interest. Gina has bought several garments from me and has started to get me to make customized art wear for her. She is great to work with. She takes the seeds of what I make and develops the idea in her own way, extending and pushing my original concept. She has great ideas and a creative mind and is very clear about what she wants. It's great for me as it takes all the guesswork out of the process and because she has come back several times now I'm no longer nervous that she won't like what I do for her.
A while ago I made her a beautiful two piece that I was so happy with.

The design on these is based on the seed pod of a native kowhai tree. Gina wanted her new pants to have a similar feel to these, with the applique showing around the leg from different angles. The spurge design is perfect for this.
I started with a beautiful pale green/grey wool blend. Perfect for the coming winter and, once again, used my favorite pants pattern as the base.
The first step was making the piping for the pockets. I love these pockets, they are big and practical and have cute little pixie peaks on them.
The next bit is the applique. This is my absolute favorite part of what I do. Gina had specified that she didn't want the orange cuffs, just the applique, but she also wanted me to extend the idea by adding another tone of teal to the original design. Fun! So I started with the two teal fabrics and decided to use the dark one on the base and the paler one on the top. First I fused a light bonding web onto the back of the fabrics and drew my first form onto the back of the dark teal. I cut the design, flipped it over and lightly marked it out on the light teal. This gave me the basic size to work the smaller pieces within.

Next I fused the two layers together.
Then positioned the design onto the pant legs and ironed down. Next I satin stitched around the top layer, then around the bottom layer. Stabilizer is so important for this part. When I first started doing applique I hadn't gotten on to stabilizer and the edges of my designs would often pucker and ripple.
As soon as I had finished this stage I saw potential to step it up a notch. I wanted to machine embroider the light teal with some sort of textural pattern. I needed to run this by Gina as machine embroidery is labour intensive and would add a chunk of $ to the original price.
I had a short wait and Gina was into it! She gave me the go ahead with bells on. Yay!
As soon as I had her approval I hit the sewing machine. I have a collection of beautiful sari silk threads in various variegated colours, I used a beautiful dark teal and white to embroider leaf forms all over the lighter shapes. Beautiful!

From here it was a quick finish. Another pair of beautiful pants to be sent to one of my favourite customers.
Thanks Gina.

Twin Spiral Hoody

I've finally started the Twin Spiral Hoodie for Lou. I'm loving the process so far. Something about the challenge of finding solutions to problems brings me so much satisfaction. The challenge of this piece has been the fabrics. Lou loved one of my other hoodies, but it was too small for her and she isn't a fan of fleece fabrics. So I needed to come up with fabrics that would fit her criteria. Add to this that she lives miles away from me so I couldn't use anything that needed to be tailored. It needed to have some stretch to it.
After searching the net for a week or so I found a beautiful textured knit, multi coloured on a rust base.

It arrived two days ago and was everything I hoped it would be until I pulled it out of the bag.

See through as all hell. Argh!

Not to mention far too loosely woven for the project!
I didn't want to give up on the fabric. It's beautiful and I hadn't come across anything else in my searching that had come even close to filling my brief for this project. I hunted through my stash and found a burgundy retro knit. Nice to touch on one side but the other felt strange and slippery. It had a nice stiffness though and only a small amount of stretch. Not a fabric I was likely to use for anything. So here is my idea. I lay them out, cut my garment and lightly quilted them together. Turn two imperfect fabrics into one perfect one.
I feel pretty pleased with myself. for working my way through this one.

Next bit is the twin spirals. Cutting a spiral is usually soooo easy for me. I've learnt through my hours of drawing and painting how to get my forms flowing just right. What makes doing a twin spiral more tricky is that I'm trying to get two spirals cut out in one piece so that they create the negative and positive of each other. I cant afford to slip in the cutting of one because it breaks the form of the other and I need to make sure that both forms are balanced as individual pieces. I am pretty happy with how these two worked.

Loving the retro cotton. So cool. I really love the juxtaposition of the geometric shapes printed on the fabric and the sweeping curves.



















PART TWO a few days later.

Next bit of the mission was deciding on the fabrics for the hood and arms. It wasn't hard in the end. Lou had already told me that she was a fan of purple and I have the most beautiful deep purple, large wale corduroy. It was the obvious choice. Once again a no stretch fabric where I would usually use a fleece though. The simplest solution was to rework my pattern to have looser sleeves and my hood pattern is fairly large anyway. It just needed a little taken out to accommodate a stiffer fabric.

This created one problem with the hood though. With a fleece hood the inside is soft and snuggly. Not so with corduroy! I had to line it. I have some of this sooo soft stuff, I don't even know what it is but it is the best snuggly lining ever made. I chose a dark chocolaty brown that blends beautifully with the other colours to line the hood.
















I added a little peak cuff to the sleeves just to tie the whole piece together and stitched it up.
I am sooo pleased with the result. The challenge of unusual fabrics has paid off in one of the best hoodies I have made. I hope that Lou will love it as much as I do.

Identity Crisis

What is it about me that I seem to need some sort of box to stick myself in. I wonder if I need it to anchor myself somehow. My creativity can be such a fast thing. Great arms that swoop me up in a whirlwind and lead me dancing down a hundred new trails. I think I try to box myself just to limit the direction I could go in, the things I could create out of and the thoughts and feelings I try to express.
I've been searching "pixie clothing" on google and etsy lately. I've found some beautiful things.

















Spunky, sexy, funky stuff! But to be honest after a while I felt like I was visiting different versions of the same site. The same fabrics and basic concepts on every site.
At first I felt inadequate, like my work was 'uncool', too old school, not sexy enough. This crisis of confidence seems to be part of my process. I'm coming to terms with it and am learning not to give in too much to that mean old lemon lipped critic that resides between my ears.
So having seen all this beautiful clothing and experience this loss of confidence, I begin to ask myself "what do I love to make? Where does my work Fit?"
Envious as I am of these peoples talent, I realize that this style of work is not from me.
I hate to work with these super stretchy fabrics. Give me strong solid canvas any day, drill and crazy retro cottons and linens, none of which lend themselves to slinky sexy clothing.
So where does that leave me?
Unique!!!

Kowhai inspired bell bottomed pants.



















Utility Belt



















Spiraling seedpod halter



















Simons Custom Freeform pants

Fractal Pants

Well here I am, sitting in front of the Puta screen, launching into this blog thingy. I decided to get started today because I'm working on a pair of pants for my partner Dean and they are becoming quite a process.
For ages my work has been inspired by fractal art, but I never thought that I would be able to figure out how to represent this in fabrics. It always seemed to me that all the detail would be absolutely impossible to recreate. It is!

Then I found a series of art quilts on line by a woman called Rose Rushmore that she had based on fractals. Her art showed me that I didn't need to exactly copy a fractal, that using different fabrics and simplifying the forms I could create a representation that was beautiful in it's own right.

'Skating on thin ice' by Rose Rushmore

So that was one thread on this creative journey I'm on. Another thread is the story of Dean, his birthdays and the pants I make for everyone but him.
Not long ago I made the most beautiful pair of pants for my friend Rick. They were fabulous, the best I have ever made. Lovely colors and embellished with random cellular shapes of hand dyed cotton that was free machine embroidered with various sized circles of multi-colored thread. I'll try and score a picture from Rick so I can upload it later. Dean loved them! (guilt)
So I decided it was time to get started on those birthday pants I've been promising him for the last three years. Thats when the trouble began, every fabric I pulled out from my stash was not right,evry piece I brought raised a skeptical eyebrow and my confidence sunk lower and lower. In the meantime the market got stupid busy, and newyears at Canaan Downs and Luminate festival were drawing closer. Massive stock sewing began. Argh, man was I happy to get my butt up that beautiful hill to join the tribe again!

Dean in the tribal zone at Canaan(new years)

Fast forward>>>>Deans birthday was three weeks ago and I've finally started his pants!!
I've never felts so freaked out about making anything before. The applique I'm doing is well and truly the hardest I have ever tackled and Dean is my harshest critic and most fussy 'client'.
Well I have begun, fighting my insecurity and hoping that he loves them. I'll keep you updated as the fractal pants progress.

So far so good