DIY: A Kandinsky-Inspired Dress, Part 2

'Kay, so when I decide to quit art teacherin' and become a Big Time News Anchor, this will be my promo shot. My tag line will be sumpin like, "Cassie Stephens...where there's news, she'll find it (especially if it's celebrity gossip as she's exceptionally shallow). Where there's sports, she'll report it (for example, the fine sport of sniffing out sales at Anthropologie). And where there's unfortunate fashion choices, She'll. Be. There." Eh, whatevers. Maybe I'll just stick to art teacherin'. 

I may or may not be a totes glutton for punishment. Just when I was No Where NEAR the finish line with my first Kandinsky frock, I up and started a second one. You know, because needle felting for hours on end totally wasn't to blame of the pain in my neck (erm, no, that'd be the hubs) and the  reason I couldn't turn my head without rotating my whole body. You know, classic Terminator style. Every time I turned in such a way in art class, I'd widen my eyes and say in my worst Austrian accent, "I'll be back." To which my humorless students just replied, "huh?!" It's so sad when a comic genius like myself goes unappreciated on a daily basis. But I digress.

In case you missed it, that's last week's Kandinsky can-can on the left. Both were made from Target dresses. I scooped up the white one from the clearance rack along with the hot pink belt. The LBD was a thrift store/Target label find. Personally, I'm more of a fitted bodice, puffy skirt kind of girl so I like the fit and finish of the one on the left better. Howevers, I do love how they look side by side, such a contrast of crazy.

I mightah mentioned that Kandinsky is coming to our local art museum The Frist Center for Visual Arts. Where I will be taking some kids field trippin and where I will be wearing one of these crazies. Or both. Every good field trip deserves an outfit change, amiright? "Excuse me, Mrs. Museum Docent, mind if I leave you with all 80 of these angelic children whilst I slip into Kandinsky Can-can Number 2? And by "Number 2", I don't mean I'll be, like, number 2-ing, I'm just going to change. Into my second dress. OH FORGET WHAT I JUST SAID...[slow turn of entire body toward docent] I'LL. BE. BACK."

To which the docent will laugh uproariously because she will have a perfectly wonderful sense of humor. Unlike some under-10-ers I know. Humph.

Color Study: Squares with Concentric Circles, 1913. While I was working on this dress, I definitely had a "favorite square". I'm in love with the one in the second row, second from the left. That sea foam-y turquoise color is my fave...as you can tell from the painting in the background behind these snapshots. Is there one that you are drawn to? 

So in my sewing room, I actually have a stash of thrifted clothing that is just waiting to be DIY'ed. Some of it is tattered and some of it is boring (by my tacky standards). And I can't seem to part with 'em because for me, they're like blank canvases. Which makes me sound artsy and uppity when I'm really closer to fartsy and shluppity (I've no idea what that means and yet it describes me perfectly). What I'm trying to say is that I'm a hoarder with benefits. The benefit being that when I get an wild and wacky idea, I usually have the crapola on hand to make it happen. 

Like this Lil Black Dress. Or Lil BLANK Dress as I like to call it. It's a funky little number with a peebled pleather neck and cap sleeve and a rectangular panel of fabric down the front. I'd originally bought it cuz I thought it looked classy. And then promptly never wore it because, well, it looked classy. When I pulled it outta the hoarder heap, I realized that the rectangular line of fabric down the front would be just the place for me to felt those concentric circles. Which, by the way, I'm hoping come across as concentric circles and not a dress of colorful nipples. Pretty please lie to me and tell me it doesn't. Puh-leeeeeease!

To start the dress, I did a lil bit of math to make it so my dress was divided into equalish squares. Then I proceeded to watch back-to-back episodes of old Project Runways and felted away. Okay, I guess I should go into a pinch more detail. I use wool roving and place a cushion inside my dress. With my little needle felting tool, I commence stabbing the roving until it came through to the other side of the fabric.

Once that color was felted in place, more was added and felted. If you're kinda new to this blog, I'm not trying to be vague about this process...it's just that I do it a lot. And I've blogged about it a lot. And made a handful of short video clips. I've also made One Million felted sweaters, dresses, even a hat. If you troll this blog for a hot minute, you'll find a million plus. 

Do ya see how simple this is? Even still, because of the translucentness (look! I invented a word!) of the roving, I did have to layer the crap outta it thus taking forever. Like everything I do. I function at a drunken and demented snail's pace, so there's that. 

Yay! Rainbow Brite Areola!

Oh, look, here you can see that faux leather detail at the top. I like that it gives the dress a tough edge.   

And there you have it! I'm saving this number not only for the art museum but also for Dot Day week. Fingers crossed I'll have at least one kid remember what a concentric circle is! Otherwise, I'LL BE BACK to teaching it. Again. 

Later, cats!

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DIY: A Kandinsky-Inspired Dress, Part 1

I have officially gone off the DIY deep-end. I mean, I always knew I had a lil bit of trouble with focus  (if you read any of my posts for more than five minutes AND are able to follow the three different tangents I have constantly running, you deserve some sorta metal. Although metals are overrated, doncha think? You deserve a lifetime of chocolate. Or maybe a chocolate metal! Which, by the way, I don't recommend wearing on a hot day. Cuz people look at you real funny like when you're caught licking melty brown stains off your clothes. Not that THAT'S ever happened to ME. Ahem.) Er, wait. What was I talking about?! Oh, yeah. Focus. Or lack thereof, in this case.

At last count, I had about a dozen DIY's in progress. I keep starting another one then another one then, you guessed er, another-freakin-one. It's pretty much ridiculous. But when I get an idea, especially one that I'm excited about, I get this urge to start it right away. You know, before the excitement fades and I never get around to creating. So, like, I've got 99 craft projects but a completed one ain't 1. Well, that is, until this weekend when I forced myself to sit down, focus for more than five minutes and finish this Kandinsky-inspired number.

I was inspired to make a Kandinsky-dress for a coupla reasons. Our local art museum, The Frist Center for Visual Arts is having a great big exhibit of dude's work this fall/winter and I plan to take the kids field trippin'. Ole Kan's also been one of our weekly Artist Inspirations and an influence on some of our Dot Day projects. He's, like, kinda a big deal in my art room. So, despite a kindergartener telling me today, "Mrs. Stephens, you have too many art dresses!", I decided to make Kandinsky's Composition VIII into a dress.

Now, y'all might recall that last school year, I got it in my big-fat-Bump-it-wearing-head that I should make an artist-inspired dress a month. Before I go any further with this Kandinsky-can-can, I thought I'd (re)share these lil numbers with ya. 

My very first ever art-inspired dress was that Hokusai Great Wave number. Then I scored some splatter-tastic fabric online and stitched up that Jackson-Pollock frock on the right.

One of my fave ways to alter a dress is with appliqué. For both of these dresses, I cut out the letters/shapes, attached them to the fabric with a wee bit of Stitch Witchery (which is like iron-on glue for fabric) and then used an appliqué stitch around the edges. I'm not gonna lie, stitching the Warhol dress was a huge drag but the Magritte birds were a snap. 

These two dresses, like the one I'm sharing today, were needle felted. And I think that spending a coupla back to back hours hunched my Kandinsky dress could explain the unpleasant pain I've had in my neck all day (hello and thank you, Advil). That Starry Night light up number took a while but The Scream took For-Eve-RRR. I really was screamin' for mercy in the end.

But enough about all that, let's talk about this wackiness, ermkay? So I'm kinda on this 80's revival kick right now. All the fun and funky florescent clothing and accessories I've been seeing around lately have really been makin' me happy. Not to mention inspiring me. So when I got the sudden notion that I needed a Composition VIII dress, I drug the hubs down to ole Target, snagged this dress and that belt from the clearance rack and set to work. 

Now, usually, I just create what I like to refer to as "Reverse Mullet Dress"es. You know, party in the front, all biznatch in the back. Howevers, with this dress, I had to make it 360 crazy. I mean, there's just so much happening in that Kandinsky painting...and I wanted to include it all. However, when doing so, I had to be very careful with what shapes I placed near the rear. I mean, I didn't want some huge target on my tush. I don't need to tempt the kids to take aim on me anymore than they might be inclined to, know-what-I'm-sayin?

Oh, that Kandinsky. Do you know the guy didn't take up painting until he was, like, 30? That's about the same time I took up sewing. And look! He became "the Father of Abstract Painting" and I became, um, "that Crazy Lady who Dresses Weird." 

Oh! Here's a lil look at the dress before. It is a lil on the short side so that's part of the reason I'm wearing the crinoline underneath. I'll probably wear a black t-shirt under the dress when I wear it to school so as not to frighten the children with my bat wings.

Now I've shared with ya all the deets of needle felting before (and if you need a refresher, you can visit here) so I won't go into it too much. I did my usual trick of sketching out my design in chalk before attaching with the wool roving.

Hubs walked in and was all, "why are you using such a small tool? Don't they make bigger ones?" I told him yes AND that they also make a needle-felting-MACHINE! "Why don't you have one?!"...um, because you've not bought it for me yet, I replied while batting my eyes. All I got was a "huh". So much for that idea! I really do need to upgrade my needle tool though. Geesh.

So much for following my lines. I mean, I really coulda gone without drawing them. It is abstract. I don't know why I was trying to be such a stickler. 

Yay! Kandinsky-ness, complete! But, even before this dress was done, I got the grand idea for THIS NEXT Kandinsky dress:

That's right. In true "oh, look, squirrel!" fashion, I got the idea for this dress, shoved Composition VIII to the floor and dove into felting this guy. I just happened to have this little black thrifted dress in the back of my closet waiting to be DIY'ed. Now, the only prob I've found with felting this dress is making it so it doesn't look like a dress of areolas, ya know? Like, ew.

And there you have it! Another artist dress complete. I cannot wait to be the giant dork that I am and wear this to the Kandinsky exhibit. Cuz you know I totally will. Until next time, y'all!

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In the Art Room: Gettin' Outta the Art Room!

Hiya, kids! I thought I'd share with y'all today some excitingness that has me busting outta the art room and hittin' the road. The CliffsNotes version is this:

* On Saturday, September 6th, I'll be leading a workshop at Cheekwood Botanical Gardens in Nashville. The workshop will coincide with Cheekwood's current exhibit of Andy Warhol's Flowers. We'll start the morning with a docent-lead walk through the exhibit and then jump right into printmaking, leaf relief sculpturing and some textile work that will involve my personal favorite: needle felting! The workshop fee is a mere $25 ($20 if you are a member of the Gardens). Spots are limited so if you are interested, go here, click the link and get yourself signed up. I can't hardly wait!

* On Monday, October 6th, I'll be speaking to the art ed students (and any folks who'd like to attend) at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio! Yeah, you heard me right. Here's how the talk is being described: 

A Bloggers Guide to Bringing Art to Life

Cassie Stephens graduated from Indiana University with a BFA in painting and an art education certification.  After student teaching in Ireland, she moved to Nashville, Tennessee where she has been teaching art to kindergarten through fourth grade students for the past 15 years. She is a blogger sharing her passion for bringing art to life.  This might be by dressing like Andy Warhol's Soup Cans or Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night.  She enjoys connecting with art teachers from across the world with her blog and will share examples of art projects that reflect this global outlook.

Wow. Totally freaking the funk out about this one! I'm so excited to chat with art ed students as well as anyone else that would like to attend. The talk will start at 5pm, is open to all and it's free (I'll share the exact location with you soon). Hope to see you there! 

But first, let's chat about this Cheekwood Adventure, shall we? I love Cheekwood, y'all. When I first moved to Nashville, I used to go, hang out in the gardens and attempt to paint. It's always gorgeous, peaceful and inspiring. A fellow art teacher buddy and I visited this summer to check out their current Big Bugs outdoor exhibit (although the million degree summer temps prevented us from lasting too long) the Andy Warhol's Flowers show.

I like Big Bugs and I cannot lie. Actually I freakin hate bugs of any size. This summer, a buncha buddies and I were waiting to eat at a restaurant (which I will not name but I also will not be eating at ever again) when a FREAKIN HUGE cockroach landed on my friend's shoulder. I was the only one that noticed the monster crawling on him and started screaming "Oh my gawd, OH MY GAWD," at the top of my lungs. Meanwhile, everyone else was trying to figure out what I was spazzing over because I was unable to say anything other than, well, oh by gawd. When the others finally noticed La Cucaracha, EVERYONE started screaming and jumping up and down until the poor beast was finally crushed. It was at that point that we noticed the ENTIRE restaurant had stopped and was staring in our direction. Awk. Ward.

See? I done tole you the gardens were beautiful! We'll be using both Andy Warhol's printed flowers as well as Cheekwood's real ones as our printing/sculpturing/felting inspiration.

Now, if y'all can't make it, you can always read all about the process of printing that we'll be doing here. This is actually one of my most visited blog posts and I think it's because the results look so stunning. I did this project with my lil 2nd grade friends and they rocked it. You can check out all the deets here. 

One printing process results in two amazing prints. I'm hoping we can print some flowers while we are at Cheekwood. Although, in the past, I've just used leaves as their flat surface doesn't puncture the gelatin printing plate. But it will be fun to experiment, so we shall see!

For our relief sculpture, we'll be creating these super groovy leaf and flower pieces. I have done this project with my 3rd grade friends and they always look rad. You can read about that project here if you wanna.

 In the afternoon, we'll be needle felting! I'm still toying with the idea of just what we'll be creating...but I'm excited about the possibilities! Of course, we just might have to felt some flowers. You might recognize these from my Felted Fiesta Frock with Ballz.

So! I hope to see y'all there! And my Ohio friends, I hope you'll join us at BGSU. Until next time, I hope you have a super fab week, y'all!

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DIY: A Felted Fiesta Frock with Balls

Do any of y'all ever have imaginary conversations? I'm not talkin about ones where you replay annoying encounters with that hipster snob at the uber-chic coffee house and dream up amazing comebacks to her horrified look at your mispronunciation of "latte" (Y'ALL, so what if I want a soy LATE [with an emphasis on the T cuz there's two of 'em], it's almost $5. I'll call it whatever the frick I puhlease, thank ya vury much). Naw, man. I'm talking about the imaginary conversations that involve being interviewed. On T.V. By the likes of Barbara Walters. My most recent Imaginary Interview with Babs went a lil something like this:

"Cassie Stephens, you've done it all."

(humble nod) "It's true."

"You've felted a hipster likeness of your cat onto a sweater ("hipster" is a lil harsh, doncha think, Barb?).You've created some of the tackiest of art teaching clothing (aw, now, tacky is in the eye of the beholder, amiright?!). But do you find, in those quiet moments when you are stringing lights through a dress, that your life is missing something?"

(head bowed) "I do, Barb. I do."

(shocked intake of breath) "And what is it, Cassie Stephens? What is it that your life is missing?"

"A dress with balls, Barb. Big fuzzy colorful balls."

But before we get into that, let's do a bit of a rewind, shall we? I recently unearthed this dress from the back of my closet and tossed it into my give-it-to-Goodwill pile. I mean, even though this happened the last time I wore the dress, that was several summers ago (that's right. It was summer. No idea why Chewy was in a Santa hat. You know Wookies, they play by their own rules.) Since then, I'd deemed the dress too plain for my taste and too white for the art room (it'd only stay that lily white around the 5 year-old set for a hot minute. No longer.)

When I was getting ready to teach my Felted Pet Portrait class at The Skillery a coupla weeks ago, hubs made the remark that it was too bad I couldn't wear one of my felted sweaters for the occasion (it's summer in Tennessee, y'all. It's hotter than Ryan Gosling in a Speedo). I had just pulled this sweater outta the closet to show to the class when I got the idea: I'll felt this same floral pattern onto that uber boring -n- white dress!

Deets on that sweater here, kids. Now, I gotta tell ya, that sweater endeavor took forever. When I thought about doing a similar floral motif to the dress, I had serious flashbacks of the hours bent hunched over that sweater stabbing it mercilessly with my needle felting tool. With my felting class the following day, I knew I didn't have that kind of time to commit to the dress.

(Gah, why do I look like I have some sort of terrible spray tan, y'all?! Orange much?) Now the balls came later, y'all. Let's chat about the felted florals a pinch, ya wanna?

You know I'm nuts-o about this needle felting biz. For more detailed instructions, you can check out these short clips explaining the floral needle felting process. Please try to ignore my Skeletor hands.

And one more:

Now, I'd never worked on thin 100% cotton before. If you look closely at my dress, you can see that the needle felting tool left behind some pretty unappealing holes in the fabric. Which, once ironed, pretty much disappeared. 

For some reason, this dress didn't take nearly as long as I anticipated. Which made it so the dress was complete before my self-appointed needle-felting-class-teaching deadline. Where not one of those participants noticed my dress.

I was all, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?! Look at my floral bosoms and tell me it isn't the hottest thing you've seen since Ryan Gosling in a Speedo. 

After some serious self reflection and imaginary interview time with my girl Babs, I finally figured out why no one took note of my dress: It didn't have balls.

So I marched myself over to JoAnn's and stocked up on the most colorful and tackiest of rickrack and  garland-with-balls (anyone know what this stuff is truly called?). Now, if you decide to follow my lead and spice up your own wardrobe with balls, lemme just tell you something: This stuff ain't cheap. Assuming that something this tacky would be inexpensive, I loaded up on 3 yards...only to find out at check out that it was $11 A YARD. WHUUUUUT?! You ain't never seen a person pull up that JoAnn's coupon on their phone and whip out their 15% teacher discount so fast. I almost fell out. 

Once home, I spent some time pinning the garland-with-balls, rickrack and other rando trimmings from my stash to the bottom of the dress. This was easy to zip through my sewing machine and, I think, balances out that colorful floralness on the top.

Outfit deets: felted ball necklace: Paper Source; belt: Anthropologie; shoes: Frye; bangles: gifts from Diana and Aunt Rosemarie

Since the dress kinda reminds me of a fiesta, I decided to wear it when I hosting a wee art-teachers-n-donuts get together I had at my house. I just so happen to be the proud owner of a "donut machine" (which is basically a waffle maker in the shape of donuts, y'all) and while I'm no bueno at getting the proportions right to produce perfect donuts, these guys were so delish, don't nobody cared. Add my famous Krispie Kreme icing on top and you've got a taste bud fiesta.

And there you have it! Now I can finally tell Babs, "Why yes, I have done it all. Balls and all."

I'll be back with you kids soon with an Artsy Book Club assignment and a little What the Art Teacher Wore. Have a super week!

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