DIY: A Felted, Light-Up Starry Night Dress!

Okay, first of all, lemme just say Thank You! for all of your amazing comments and input on teaching vocabulary. I started jotting down your suggestions and when I was done, I had three pages of incredible ideas. You guys are seriously awesome! For that reason, I've decided to create a follow-up post with a list of all your ideas (along with linky-loos to your blog if you've got one).

Second thang: Looks like ya'll are interested in an Artsy Book Club! I'm so thrilled, I seriously thought that when I suggested it no one would be down. But it looks like I'm in good book-lovin' company. I'm going to do a little homework to find a list of books we might be into and then I'll provide a poll for ya'll to vote. Suggestions are welcome, pretty please and thank you.

Now, without further a do-do, I present to you my Felted, Light-Up Starry Night Dress!

When I decided to create a dress for each of our monthly artists and began brainstorming famous works of art, I knew there would be just now way around Starry Night. And while the other dresses I'd created had been done with applique (with the exception of the Pollock Splatter Paint number), I didn't think that technique would really showcase the brush stroke business van Gogh is famous for. So I settled upon felting the thing.

 Just a lil back history: Vincent van Gogh painted The Starry Night in 1889 from the window of his sanitarian room...this according to the all-knowing wikipedia. However, I'd always heard that he painted the scene out doors while wearing a crown of candles. This info probably came from my all-not-knowing imagination. Regardless, this painting is considered a real turning point in van Gogh's painting style. AND it's rad.

Now, ya'll, I love felting. Way more than applique because it's much easier to control. That being said, this dress took me for-evah! So it's a good thing that I enjoy it so much. But I do believe I'll be giving it a short rest for at least a week. I might have stabbed my fingers a good two or twenty times and need a little bit of a break to heal.

Since I knew making a Starry Night dress was imminent, I'd had my eyes pealed for a navy blue dress during my thrift store jaunts. When I stumbled upon this dress, I knew it was perfect because I could basically use the entire front as a canvas...and it had pockets. I had this crazy notion that this dress was gonna light up (kinda like my Christmas dress) and I knew a pocket to hold the battery pack would be muy importante.

So I began by sketching out the entire thing...in chalk. Which was like the best thing ever because it erased easily and didn't effect the color of my fabric or wool.

And now here's countless photos of (slooow) progress of the dress. Hubs made a sweet little video of me felting but I can't seem to find it. For a more in depth look at how I go about needle felting, check here.

Despite what you see here, you actually don't need a lot of wool roving to needle felt. A little goes a long way. And, if you shop around online a bit, you can find some great retailers who aren't gonna charge you and arm and a leg like those big box craft shops.

You can see it's just a matter of placing the roving and then punching it until the fibers attach to the fabric. This is the first time I ever felted onto a 100% cotton garment. I'm usually working on a sweater. This took a little extra punching but I did get it to stick. By the way, I have a foam cushion under my dress that I punch into. Needle felting tools like the one you see here can be picked up at one of those aforementioned big box craft shops.

We did a lot of car traveling over the holidays. Hubs didn't think I should felt in the car (which is a total bummer because my mother-in-law had hooked me up with a little portable table and everything!). I think he had visions of us getting into an accident and me impaling myself with the needle tool. So I did the gold thread embroidery around the stars during those road trips.

And, after several days, it was as finished as it was gonna get!

Thankfully, I scored a Snow Day today. This meant I could stay up as late as I liked the previous evening...and I worked until the wee hours adding these LED lights.

I scored these for a mere $2 at an after Halloween sale at Big Lots. Notice that it has three settings: On, Flashing and Fading. Fading is my favorite as the stars really appear to twinkle. I think the kids are gonna Freak. Out. when they see this.

To add the lights, I ripped a little hole in the seam of the pocket and threaded the lights through it.

The lights were evenly spaced and there were 20 of 'em. I did have to add a couple of stars to find a place for the lights. To insert the lights into the dress, I cut a small hole in the center of the stars and sewed the light into the hole. I then tacked the wire connecting the dots down in several places on the dress. Fingers crossed these lights never stop working or I'll have a holey, light-less dress on my hands.

And there you have it! By the way, that little red-light clicker I'm holding in my hand isn't the light switch for the dress but the remote for my camera! For Christmas, hubs not only bought me a new camera but he also bought me this attachment that allows me to take pictures with the click of a button. I'm so happy, no more setting the timer for ten seconds only to trip over the cat and fall on my face before the camera snaps. Not that that has ever happened to me, ahem.

Don't forget to suggest an artsy book for the book club is a title comes to mind! Until then, have a great week!