Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Mending in Camel & Black

After spending DAYS over New Year's clearing up and out by office and studio spaces my mission for 2015 is to simply start.  Take one piece, project, inspiration piece what have you and work on it until it is done.  In the past I have worked in assembly line fashion, paint 20 backgrounds, cut out 20 pillows, embroider 20 things and what it has left me with is LOTS of half finished things and no inventory to sell or art to present when an exhibition opportunity arises.  I was crushed and flummoxed when I was invited to do a show at the end of last year and I literally had nothing new to present,  Ugh.

 Am determined to leap between art, craft, writing and business development and simply do.  In this case replace a velvet waist band that had dryrotted on a lovely wool felt circle skirt from the 50's.
 A simple matter of cutting off the old waistband, measuring a slice of black velvet (donated to me by buddy Nire Nah when she made the command decision to quit pretending SHE was going to do something with this lovely black velvet (!) drape!).
 Pinning the waist band on- while wondering WHY I picked a project that when finished will fit on a person with a 25 inch waist.  Who IS this woman and do I even want to know her?
 After recognizing I really didn't have a beef against folks with slim waists although I have never had one even when I weighed 50 pounds less I pinned
 and seamed and clipped threads...

 and hand hemmed the edge under to make a pretty facing.
 Ta Da! The Finished project- ready for sale. $90 at Stifel & Capra
 Loving all of the details with the appliques and the cording.  Quite the fancy home sewn project by some svelte lady way back when! Imagine how tiny that 25 inch waist would look with crinolines?
 Next up? Cute wool sweater with moth holes...
 snazzed up with some crocheted appliques!
Pardon the boots- my computer is fighting me & I didn't want to torture myself trying to find the edited version of this shot!!!! Super cute I think, What say you?