ToDo/NewDo Project: Lisbeth Wahl, Up-cycled top

Upcycled Top

by Lisbeth Wahl, Peschiera del Garda, Italy

Materials available: 

• A nice quality wool sweater, which got in the wrong program and shrank in the washing machine. 
• Woven velvet fabric, with a little stretch. Odd size leftovers from the making of a dress to my daughter.
• All stuff that has been laying around for a while, until I finally turned it into this

 Unfortunately I didn’t think about taking before and after pictures.

Process:

• I cut away the sleeves and the body part, making them as long as possible.
• Then I used a pattern I had previously made in Garment Designer (A sleeveless tunic), adjusting the curve under the arm and the length of the shoulder to fit the sweater sleeve.
• Round neckline with an opening in the front. In the neckline I added a sweater “fish”form. About 1/8 smaller than the neckline circumference measurements, to make it stay nicely flat.

 Note:A weak point, which I might redo, is the uniting of the two materials in the breast-line. (the firmer fabric with the more elastic knitted sweater). Special care should be taken there to not stretch the various fabrics in the making.

About Lisbeth

Lisbeth is a world-renown felter who lives in Peschiera del Garda, near Verona, Italy.

Born in Denmark, She trained as a tailor and pursued her career in costuming and pattern making, most notably the costume department of Teatro alla Scala (Milan). She became interested in felting, and has taken her talents on to new realms. In 2016, she won the top award at the Australian Common Threads Wearable Art Showcase with her felt piece called Set Your Light Free, which combined felt with fiber optics.

Instagram: @ lisbeth.wahl.fiberart

https://www.facebook.com/lisbeth.wahl

Creativity vs. Corona Virus: Get Involved

As many of you know, I own and run Cochenille Design Studio, a company that develops software and design aids for the textile design world. I am a practitioner of many creative arts ranging from sewing, knitting, pattern making, cooking, mosaic, beading, photography, art, and many other things. Having grown up on a farm in rural Ontario, Canada with a mother and grandmothers who were creators gave a sound education in the home and creative arts. Having trained for and taught as a Professor of Fashion for most of my professional career also further nurtured things along.

Today in this world, we definitely live in uncertain times. For my business, we have had two trade shows canceled, which is no surprise given travel and other restrictions. We have also canceled our Italy retreats this June, and are still pending the decision for the France retreat (although I think that has now been taken out of our hands).

Here, at Cochenille, we’ve decided to try and make the best of our new daily life by using our at-home time to be creative. It is after all, National Crafts month.

So, we are asking our Cochenille audience and readers of this blog to join in and share with us on this creative challenge.

We are calling this challenge –ToDo/NewDo

• The To Do portion is to finish a project that is sitting in your ‘need to do’ pile. This could be a partially-complete project, alterations, or similar
• The New Do portion is to create a new project using any craft technique, from scratch.

Here is a link to a page on our website, where you can download this ToDo/NewDo list to use.

Join us in this creative solidarity. We hope to make it global. Send me (Susan) a photo of your project along with your info, and a brief description of the project.

I will share and post these for others to see. These do not need to be Garment Designer or Stitch Painter projects. Just jump in and finish up those UFO’s (unfinished objects), or start something new from scratch! In fact, your projects could be things like organizing your sewing room, yarn stash, or other.  Your project doesn't have to be fiber arts; it could be woodworking, home arts, a new recipe, etc. The idea is to use our time creatively and to share with each other.

We will be using this blog as the hosting site. This morning I posted a To Do.... now complete. Check it out.
So, I say Tag!! your turn

I will will post the images sent by those of you willing to be involved on this same blog. Please send them to susan@cochenille.com

Feel free to join the mail list of the blog so you can be notified when an entry is posted. Also feel free to invite friends to join in the ToDo/NewDo Challenge.

Be safe, and be well.

Our very best to all our audience.
Susan Lazear
Cochenille Design Studio

Garment Designer Pattern Software Top: African Influence

Design with imagery in Garment Designer Pattern

African Culture Transformed into Fashion

Recently, I oversaw a project at Mesa College in San Diego, which involved a partnership between our Fashion students, the Mesa African Art collection, and Visions Art Museum in San Diego Liberty Station. There were several aspects to the project, but the final activity was a fashion show featuring African-influenced clothing. 

Many of the garments came from my Textile Design students in my Fall semester class. I decided that I too needed to get involved, and so embarked on two different
design projects. In this blog, I’ll share the first with you.

My source of inspiration was a piece of carved wood. Sad to say, I don’t know future details, only that I took the photo while we were visiting the artifact collection.

Since the original wood piece was rounded, I had to use Photoshop to straighten it out a bit.

Photo of Inspiration: a piece of carved wood

I wanted the garment to be relatively simple, free of internal structural lines, so that the wood imagery would be seen as it was designed.

Below is the pattern I settled on. This was modeled after a top I own that I purchased in Japan.

Pattern created in Garment Designer pattern software

=In Garment Designer, I set the page size to be the size of the pattern, and then saved the pattern as a PDF.

Then.. on to Photoshop.

There I opened the large pattern pieces (each on a separate page), and I brought them together into one document. The width of this document was set up to the width of the fabric I wanted to print on (which was a polyester chiffon, 58” wide).

Layout in Photoshop (sorry this is a LARGE file and so doesn't downscale well)

Working between the imagery document and the Garment Designer pattern document, I used Selection tools, and copy/paste to bring the images in. I orchestrated a border
effect on the bottom and stretched the imagery to fill the space above. You can see the results below.

Garment Designer pattern in Photoshop with the imagery engineered into place

Once I had the layout ready, I threw in some variations of the pattern off to the side of each pattern piece, so I would have fabric to trim the neckline and armholes during the sewing process.

Extra imagery is added to the file to provide trim fabric

The next step was to upload to Spoonflower in North Carolina.

The order process on Spoonflower a company that digitally prints fabric

And then to wait until the fabric arrived, which of course was only a few days before the fashion show… so time to sew!!

One of the beautiful things about engineered design, is that you don’t ever print a paper pattern. Instead, your fabric arrives with the garment piece all laid out and ready to cut. Here is my fabric just before cutting.

Fabric ready to be cut. Note how similar this is to a cookie cutter approach!

I used some of the trim areas to make the binding for the neckline and armholes. These were cut on the bias and applied to finish the edges. The most challenging part of the construction was sewing chiffon on a bias grain. I simply serged the edge, pressed it under and top stitched it in place, attempting to have minimal handling.

The garment was complete, and ready for the show.

See how the back cut is different from the front

The final garment, yea! and in time for the show

I only have one shot from the show, a rear-view, but as you can see, it was modeled.

Alys modeling the top at the Fashion Show at Visions Art Museum in San Diego, CA

So, another ‘done’ project. I love to have a motivator (such as a fashion show) which gives me the reason to move ‘To Do’ items up the list of priorities.


And I course, I love Garment Designer. It is such a creative tool; I can do most anything with it and in very short order, and of course, because it knows my body measurements, I never have to alter. Can life get any better?

Fiber, Felt and Inspiration at the Museum of Craft and Design, San Francisco

Recently I seen a few hours viewing an exhibit at the Museum of Craft and Design in San Francisco. I specifically went there to view an exhibit called Felt Decoded, featuring artist Janice Arnold.

As an instructor of Textiles at San Diego Mesa College's Fashion Program, I'm always interested to learn more about fiber and anything related to that. I had heard of this exhibit through an Italian filter friend, Lisbeth Wahl. Small world, that an Italian had to clue me in to an exhibit in my own state, from many miles away.

Here are a few images that were 'wow' moments.

In one area of the exhibit, there is this amazing microscope that you could place over a sample fiber in a container. I have no idea what the level of magnification was, but it as a LOT. Below check out a few fibers (on the left) and their close-up versions (on the right).

Houndstooth

Merino Knit

Denim

Tussah Silk

Lyocell

Felted sample

At the Eiffel Tower

Paris is only Paris if you visit the Eiffel Tower.
Here are some shots, as Mesa Fashion students make a visit, by day, and by night.













- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Paris, France

Inspiration

This is often my view as I drive home. I love the billowing clouds.



And of course, there is the plant-life of Southern California.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:San Diego and San Marcos, California

Theatre in Fashion, Beverly Hills, CA, Oct. 14 - Nov. 13th, 2011

Want to be awed?
Need inspiration?
Just simply love couture fashion?

If so, I need to tell you about an amazing fashion exhibit in the Los Angeles area which has a limited engagement (four weeks). The name of the exhibit is Theatre in Fashion (Il Teatro alla Moda).

I first saw this exhibit in Milan last summer with my Verona Retreat group. We were all in awe as we walked through the galleries, and were pleased to hear that the garments were coming to Los Angeles area in the Fall.

Theatre in Fashion features 80 garments designed by top designers such as Armani, Capucci, Fendi, Marras, Missoni, Ungaro, Valentino, and Versace. These amazing structures were created for opera, drama, and ballet. Therefore, they are stage pieces and utterly fantastic. Sponsored by the Wallis Annenberg Center, the exhibition is located on Beverly Drive in Beverly Hills. As you tour the array of color, structure and creativity, you will walk through several galleries, laid out by designer. In numerous cases, you can see the concept sketch, and then the final garment.

I think what amazed me most is the fantastic architectural design that occurs when a garment is designed for the stage. I can guarantee you that you will not be disappointed in what you see. Every fashion student should make a point of seeing this show, sketch book in hand, to learn from the masters.

Do hurry though, as the exhibit ends on November 13^th, 2011. It is a four-week engagement.

Theatre in Fashion (hosted by Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts)

http://www.annenbergbh.com

Exhibit is located in a temporary space at

253 North Beverly Dr.

Beverly Hills, CA 90210

Hours: Wed – Friday, noon -7 p.m.

Saturday/Sunday 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Tickets are $10 per person, Thursday – Sunday;

Children under 12 and students with ID are free.

Admission on Wednesday is free.

Parking is free for two hours in a nearby lot.

And now.. to tempt you...

Missoni Costumes for the 1990 World Cup in Italy

Capriccio by Robert Capucci

Capriccio by Gianni Versace

photos provided with permission of the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Bouquets to Art At the De Young

Talk about creativity! In March I was able to see the De Young Museum (in San Francisco) exhibit called Bouquets to Art. Floral Arrangers create masterpieces of plant life, to represent paintings and sculpture in the museum.

The San Diego Art Museum has a similar event, coming up the last weekend of April. Theirs is called Art Alive. I encourage all to go.

Here are some amazing translations.