Sewing--fitted shell

I've been taking the Fitted Shell series class at Stitch Lab the last few weeks. It's been pretty cool. I've learned a lot about how to lengthen, shorten and widen a pattern. Tomorrow I'll have an unwearable dress to my exact measurements! I can then take those measurements and tweak existing patterns, or use the dreaded math to make my own.

I have a pretty lax set of guidelines about transferring markings from the pattern. Today when I was doing my sewing homework, I realized I need to pay more attention to those details. Makes a difference, and really, it's not that hard! I'm just lazy about it.

I think I have darts down...there were 16 on this dress. More accurate pattern markings definitely help! Hopefully it's all going to work out anyway.

Colored pencil--vision in yellow

I took a colored pencil class for the first time today. This design was taught by Kelly Hoernig. I really didn't know what to expect. I found the butterfly quite easy to do. It felt like coloring only on steroids. I almost had a meltdown with the flower because it was different...strokes instead of coloring in. I went to lunch and came back it was all good. It was a lot of fun!!

Rock star painting

Man, today was kick ass awesome. I took a watercolor batik class with Kathie George. I did this technique once before and really liked it. I learned so much. And most important of all I trusted myself. The flowers in the original were pink, and that's not really my favorite color, so I went with orange (well a pink orange) instead and kind of wound up with red, but I'm so happy. Every step of the way, I stopped and thought about things and then decided on my own (mostly) if something needed more color or whatever.

This is a big deal to me, because I'm usually very much the pattern follower and if the pattern says this color then that's what I use. I also think it was a good lesson to learn that I do understand color, value, and shading. Three cheers for me. I'm so unbelievably proud of this painting!

Watercolor--blue abstract

I'm at the Artist Expo in Houston for the next few days. Today I had watercolor class with Carol Spohn. The background was pretty cool to make...we used gauze, plastic wrap and waxed paper to create texture. Then we hit it with a little gold spray paint and waited ever so impatiently for it to dry. After it was dry, we peeled all the stuff off and there was a cool background. Next we added some lines and circles and voila.

I enjoyed the class, but am still struggling to find that happy medium of wet. I'm either too wet when I shouldn't be or too dry. Sigh. Ah well. Good fun nonetheless.

Steampunk Fascinator

Super fun...a little fascinator with some ribbon flowers I made a while back, and of course some gears.

Butterfly clips

I made these hair clips/fascinators as prizes for a big teen event that's coming up later this week. It's kind of hard to give them up. Too fun!

Rock Star Skirt

YES! The sewing gods were appeased by my blood offering the other day, and granted me a smooth sewing experience, complete with a good fit! It definitely helps making the same pattern more than once. All my zipper practice is paying off since I got this invisible zipper in with no fuss. I'm super happy and can't wait to wear the fruits of my labor! I am brilliant. :-D

Can you see the zipper in the last photo? Of course not! It's invisible! hehe