Craft Napa Sheer Paneled Jackets and new work

 

I love teaching at Craft Napa! For the foreseeable future it will continue to be virtual. Craft Napa students are unique: they tend to have large stashes of all manner of ephemera, paints, dyes, stamps, markers, screens and of course, fabric.

This is a great example of why online classes can be fabulous. One student showed her jacket in process, and I felt like the white lace she had chosen was not the best choice, it needed some color. Well, not more than 30 minutes later, she had dyed the lace and added it to the jacket! That’s how Craft Napa students roll😊

We had a small class of 6 and had a grand time with lots of interaction. Two students had time conflicts and another was not feeling well, so there were 3 “working students” in class; each either finished in class or almost did.

Forgive my poor photos, these are fuzzy screen shots:

Lynn found a thrift jacket and made this whimsical creation in class. I love the coral jacket and her fun take on sheer flowers! Several of the flowers had dimension to them which was a great touch.

And she added this beautiful flower to the front! I really like bringing the floral to the front; it was just enough.

Krista made this for her granddaughter who happened to be visiting the afternoon of the class. She put the jacket on, gave a big grin and did not want to take it off! See the pink lace that Krista dyed on the fly? I love the perky bird and her vibrant, bold use of color! It just makes me smile. Lucky granddaughter to have a creative Grandma.

Jan was a little shy about doing something so “artsy”, but she knocked this out of the park! One word came instantly to mind – lyrical. I love the way she intertwined her stems and I am smitten with the 4 smaller flowers. The butterfly in the upper right is just the right finishing touch. Brava Jan, you’re and art quilter now!

I am so pleased! This is such a fun project – approachable, flexible and you make something wonderful. For some reason sheers bring out the best in everyone, maybe because it’s not your normal cotton? And expert free motion skills are not required! I’ve had students in my other sheer classes that had never dropped feed dogs before produce fantastic work. Sheers are just fun!

I had some time in my studio this week and I am so thankful! I resurrected this piece, which had already gone through some transformation:

This was my first try. That is a gorgeous ice blue dupioni background with the silk flowers atop. I built those flowers maybe as long as 10 years ago? I have a considerable silk stash and I intuitively cut out shapes and machine appliqued the shapes together to form flowers. I thought this was the way I was going to go. I like the dupioni, but it didn’t do the flowers justice.

So I wasn’t sold on that direction. I “took inventory” of my flower stash by putting them on some hand dyed raw silk, just to get a better feel for what I had. The raw silk was gorgeous also, but went dead with the flowers.

My art critique group pulled this turquoise dupioni from my stash. That was it! I have tweaked this arrangement a bit since I took this photo. I did have an issue trying to figure out the best way to approach the assembly of this piece.

The flowers will be machine appliqued to the dupioni and care needs to be taken to assure that it will lie flat after stitching down the flowers. I reached out to machine applique expert Betty Jo Tatum who suggested stabilizing both the dupioni and the flowers. I used Pellon Bi-Stretch Lite , my go-to for light stabilization, but also like Quilters Select Fabric Prep, both of which stabilize without altering the drape. The Pellon was an easier reach, so that’s what I used.

I am in the process of blanket stitch appliqueing the flowers to the dupioni now, which might take a million years. Funny thing – I used fusible knit interfacing to control the silk when I made the flowers eons ago. That stuff is heavy and thick! This top actually has some weight to it because of that knit interfacing. Oh how I wish I’d used  Pellon or the Quilter’s Select!

Once the flowers are appliqued to the dupioni, then I’ll decide if I want to trapunto those flowers. There will be leaves and foliage at the bottom BTW. At this point, I am excited! But I have lots of travel coming up and I may lose my mojo in the interim.

I’ll share at:

Nina-Marie’s Off the Wall Friday