Lilac and White - 6 Petaled Flower

This print is very Arts and Crafts movement and William Morris like - that is why I picked it.
The print itself is very 'English' and a neat looking print that sticks to simple line work, creating negative and positive areas. The light purple adds a soothing feeling and look to the print. 

The fabric itself is a nice light to medium weight cotton. Surprisingly the white trousers of this shalwar kameez are still white.

Denim Special

If you've been there form the start you will know of an entry on denim (Quilted Arcs) in which I touched on the environmental issues of denim itself. I decided that as the last post in September 2011, I'd look more into what can be done with cotton,
how it could be customised, reused or recycled.

Below are photos by Liz, a fellow student artist and friend:

Showing thick cotton stitch above,
of which Liz isn't a fan of - but personally
I think the thick cotton used is quite interesting.
Need to find and buy a roll of it myself to try out on my sewing machine.

Amazing macro skills here.
Liz tells me she ripped the jeans
and then stitched the lace/net onto the reverse side of the jeans.
A round of applause for the fashion guru folks.

Ah nice ragged effects.
Never gets old.

This is a great example of what can be done with old raggedy jeans,
in a way that utilises simple stitch skills (like the running stitch).

The above are the little metal studs that

are used in the corners or borders of pockets on jeans

to reinforce the corner areas, known as copper rivets.

The use of green thread here is quite different,
I've yet to see another pair of jeans using green thread.

Also the idea of tie dye being a way of stopping dye

getting to parts of fabric was also used on this pair of jeans.
Though this process industrially often involves more energy being used up.
It can also be done to jeans at home with bleach (here a link to a tutorial on the process),
however their are precautions you should take,
wearing gloves is just one of them.

Just something I've been working on very slowly,
looking at stitching scraps onto old denim using a brightish cyan like blue.

A better photo of what I'm working on.

Ending on an idea:
why not put words on jeans?

Back to simple stuff; dots and prints

 This summer I've been looking more into pattern on fabric,
mostly as at the moment those patterns are
more at hand and are interesting in some way or form. 
This fabric (above and below) is a form of Koshibo fabric,
this is a Japanese fabric and has a lovely small pebble like texture to it when looking closely.

The two yellows are quite subtle in terms of brightness
and as usual for any colour look great with black.
The simple flower motif is repeated on the darker yellow cloth, but there are two different sized motifs being used, one that is slightly bigger and lets more of the yellow show through and the other smaller letting more black through.

I seem to have an interest in the colour purple.

I'm fascinated with mixing that colour,

most recently in watercolour but a few months back in oil paint.

Here the dark blue-purple flowers seem to be wearing a white beaded necklace around their inner core area, this could be showing the very tips of the stamens of the flower, or perhaps like I first thought purely decorative, something actually found on a real flower or made up.

The range of purples, deep, mid and blueish tinted brings great depth to the fabric itself.

All the fabrics here are polyester based fabrics that though isn't great for hot weather, makes a great fabric type to print on and also in retaining dye.

This fabric can easily be put into the washing machine.

Where as anything cotton based tends to leak dye very easily in watter/rain, as you will notice with jeans and your now blue trainers.  

Brown and pink and all things pretty

Cut offs from an old kurta
(basicly a tunic top with a mandarin collar).

The deep pink colour can't really be seen here for one of 2 reasons:
1) my camera isn't as good as eyes at picking up colour
2) an incompetent photographer.
Take your pick. :D

The detail on the neckline area spills out onto the chest area.
The use of beads and pretty gold disks and
the chain like stich embroidery speaks for itself.

A closeup of these cicle disks shows they ae detailed with lines,
so far I haven't found any other fabric adorned this way.

The golden brown beads imbedded
amonst the very fine chain stich

Chain stich how to