Secret Project no. 2 - Small Talk

Here is a bit about the design process for the Evening Wear category.

I think I mentioned previously how successful the dyed silk twill turned out. The next step was to create the appliques I wanted to add. I decided to use fused paper. I had rescued a French/Japanese dictionary and also had a few pages of a French/English dictionary. I thought this would make a fun connection with the Fashion Sans Frontieres aspect of the show. But also, in the story (most of my pieces start with a story or senario, this helps me to have direction in the choices for the design.) I imagined standing around at an evening event making small talk and someone would notice 1-that your flowers on your gown were actually made of paper, and 2 - that it had words on it. This, in theory, would lead to more interesting conversations than usually develop in those situations.

So, to make the papers the colour I had decided would go with the blue.

I used the inside of the small 'shed' for spraying the pages.

Papers sprayed

Papers pinned to ivy leaves to dry while I sprayed more!

Oh but a breeze comes up.

never mind, I have other interesting papers for some future use.

Dried collected papers

torn up in pieces so as to get a random scattering of the variations on the paper.

arranged on a layer of Misty Fuse, then fused to silk organza for strength for stitching, then a layer of Misty Fuse on top to keep all the overlapping edges down. It does not remain sticky as it is not actually a glue adhesive. It will help the paper to wear better. (I do not plan to wash this, only wipe with a damp cloth. I do plan to do more experiments about what type of seal can be done to make paper on a garment hold up to a hand wash though!)

Tracing and cutting loads of petals and then positioning them on the skirt and bodice.

The skirt had been underlined with dress tulle. This has served well to keep it from creasing during transport and then subsequently during storage in the wardrobe.

one of the smaller flowers

one of the medium flowers

one of the large flowers. Each type had a slightly different arrangement depending how much space there was around the centre of the flowers.

Here is the full circle skirt

and here is the bodice

As I worked with the flowers, I realised the colour would be picked up very well with the addition of a plummy brown silk organza. I had purchased this fabric when I did the first Bernina garment. The swatch looked like it matched. The fabric did not when it came. So, it had been living in the cupboard all this time! Just right.
I made tubes of the fabric and gathered them and then caught it down onto the top of the bodice and the straps.

And then with the rest I made a sort of stole/shrug with cuffs of the blue at the ends.

and there you are! Secret Project no. 2.
Here is the blurb for it.

Evening Wear – ‘Small Talk’ - bodice and full circle skirt of cornflower blue silk twill with stitched blossoms of fused painted paper from foreign language dictionaries, and a stole to pick up the colours of the blossoms.