ToDo/NewDo: Original Textile Prints and One-Yard Fabric Designs with Garment Designer by Carrie Schneider

African Culture Transformed: One-Yard Print Challenge 

Carrie Schneider

Recently, San Diego Mesa College Fashion Program was involved with a collaboration with the African Art collection at the college and Visions Art Museum in Liberty Station, San Diego. 
Students designed fabrics using imagery from the online African Art archives. Approximately 20 fabrics were printed in one-yard pieces. These fabrics were placed in an exhibit at the museum called African Art Transformed.

In early March, the museum hosted a fashion show of African-inspired garments from Mesa Fashion students (also part of the collaborative effort). Carrie was challenged to create a garment from a one-yard piece of fabric. And this she did, not once, but twice, with two fabrics she had designed.

Here are Carrie's prints.

And now... look at what Carrie managed to do with a single yard of each! She used Garment Designer to create the pattern and her ingenuity to manage garments with a yard of fabric.

Straight skirt

Square neck, cap-sleeved top

A little about Carrie
Carrie Schneider is a biologist who never fails to be entertained by the unique and fascinating qualities of San Diego's natural habitats. She grew up in the verdant countryside of the Hoosier state then moved to the east coast, where she earned a Ph.D from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is now a consultant in biotechnology company. She led the Environmental Systems subcommittee for the City Wide Canyons Sewer Maintenance Task Force, whose proposed improvements to City procedures for accessing sewer infrastructure in open space parks were adopted by the City Council in 2002. She is a co-founder of San Diego Canyonlands, started the Friends of Switzer Canyon in North Park, and continues to lead volunteers to restore upland and stream-side habitat. She enjoys contributing to the Herbarium collections at the San Diego Natural History Museum as a trained parabotanist for the Plant Atlas project and was president of the San Diego chapter of the California Native Plant Society from 2002-2004.

ToDo/NewDo: Ethnic, Up-cycle, and Surface Design with Anna Walden

Getting It Done! Completing Projects

Anna Walden, Point Loma, California

Anna has been completing projects. Here are a few recent ones.

First is a pair of Harem Pants made in plaid cotton flannel according to the instructions in the diagram.  I made them smaller because my fabric was narrower but it turned out to be a good decision as they would have been too large on me.

Second is the Sweatshirt Dress, a up-cycle project. I cropped the sweatshirt, added a skirt in a Liberty knit borrowed from a dress pattern, made the collar from the leftovers, again borrowed.  I drafted the sleeves in Garment Designer and appliquéd the lace using HeatBond and sewing machine.  

The top below is from the Garment Designer pattern I made for the Kuba top project I made this past Fall in a Textile Design class at Mesa College in San Diego. When I made that project, I incorporated fabric that I had dyed using an Ice Dye method. When cleaning up recently,I found the extra fabric, and I sewed it up.  I love this top.  

 A Little About Anna
Anna is a Psychologist and an active textile artist. Most of her creative time is spent sewing or knitting, and ow she has thrown in various forms of surface design. She has published numerous knitting patterns and was part-owner of a yarn company in years past.

ToDo Challenge: Art with a Toddler

Creativity with Art: Toddler-Style

Meet Fiona, from the greater Denver area

Fiona, Two Years Old

It is never too early to encourage our little ones to be creative. They are so free in their mind, and everything they do is amazing. If only, as adults, we could adopt their mindset and not worry about how good our work is. Fiona is fearless. She likes to try everything.




Here you see Fiona painting in her back yard. She is trying out the new easel that her Nonna sent to her for her birthday. She likes to dress the part (notice the artist smock),

Two Year-old Artist

Nonna loves watching her creativity and adding some of her own to it, by taking one of Fiona's early art pieces (with a little help from Mom) and turned it into a fabric using Photoshop and Spoonflower (digital printing) in the process.

Fabric designed by Fiona with Mommy's help and Nonna's translation to a repeating pattern.
Printed by Spoonflower in North Carolina

A little bit about Fiona

Fiona is an aspiring artist who lives in the greater Denver area. She likes to think about what she does which you can tell because she moves into a complete-focus state when she is busy. She loves to be read to, likes to poke and push things, and keeps busy at all times. She also likes her quiet time, flipping through story books, as if she was reading them. Fiona turned two this week. Her parents are encouraging of all her activities and were reading Harry Potter to her in her first week of life.

Fiona, always, always checking things out.

Zen in the Yard during Challenging Times
During this 'at home' world we now live in, Fiona's dad created this Zen area in their yard. A lot of brush was removed, and now the area is being used for yoga (for Mom, Dad, and Fiona), reflection, and quiet time. At present this space is now deep in snow, when three days ago, it was a lovely afternoon. Welcome to Denver spring weather.