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.
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