DIY: A Colored Pencil Dress (and Bolero!), Many Dif Ways

I know what you're thinkin', "Holy cow, Stephens, another stitched dress?!" (by the way, teacher buddies, don't you love how the minute you became a teacher, every other adult in the school addresses you by your last name? I mean, the only other time I've been called "Stephens" was when I forgot to feign cramps during P.E., walked onto the volleyball court and promptly got whacked in the head with a volleyball. Tho I vaguely recall a "Look out!" before "Stephens" which obvi did me and my molasses reflexes no good.)

Wait. Whut wuz I saying? 

Oh, yes. Another dress. 

Weelllll, don't hate me because I'm so athletic, hate me cuz I scored an entire week off! That's right, y'all. That snow day I mentioned on Monday morphed into a glorious thing called a Snow Week which is just as glittery, sparkly and absolutely divine as it sounds. Especially since we've got built-in days so we won't have to make up for lost time. And especially-especially since this dress has been an UFO (UnFinished Object) in my sewing room for the last coupla weeks and now I can scratch it off my never-ending list of UFOs (y'all. There are so many UFO's up in my sewing room that they are thinking of filming the next X-Files movie in there).

But enough of this rambling (guess who hasn't left the house in 4 days nor spoken to anyone besides the cat and her hubs?!), let's talk dress, y'all! 

So when I showed you this dress, I tole ya that there were three more from the same pattern in the works. This here's dress #2! I've never worked on three dresses at once before and I gotta say, I kinda liked it. The progress was a lot slower, obvi, but I liked working piecemeal like that. I did manage to screw up the pleats every single time on every single dress but, you know. When you work with limited brain capacity, you come to expect such things.

 

The fab fabrics I used were the pencils by Alexander Henry and these scribbles by Ed Emberly. Super cuteness, right? In fact, Anthropologie used that pencil fabric in navy for a skirt they sold last year. I love the color palette of this light green fabric, it's feels very retro to me.

For this dress, I opted to go sleeveless mostly cuz I didn't have enough of the scribble fabric. Which is cray because I always over buy my fabric. This is also how the dress is supposed to be worn. But as you mightah noticed in the early snaps, to make it work with the bolero, I did something a lil different. 

But wait, DID SOMEBODY JUST SAY BOLERO?!

Das right, y'all! I made a wee jacket to go with my dress! I decided I needed a new outfit for the art teachers conference (NAEA for those of y'all in the know) in New Orleans where it might be a lil chilly without sleeves. AND everyone knows a jacket is all kinds of professional-looking which I'm hoping to fool people into thinking I am when I present a whopping four times. Yikes! In reality, I should prolly be working on my presentations...good thing my Magical Totally Professional Looking Jacket will fool folk! 

"Golly, Janet, what was that presentation even about?!"

"I have no earthy idea, Eunice, but it sure was professional. I mean, did you see that jacket?!"

Not to mention, it's reversible, y'all.

Re.Ver.Sah.Bulll.

 

 And I kinda dig it with a lil faux lapel, don't you? It's like a lil peak-o-pencil, know what I'm saying?

 Here's how it's supposed to be worn without the faux lapel. It's a lil too blue with this ensemble. Not to mention between the jacket and the waistband I do look a lil bull-fighter-esque. Toro! Toro! 

Like I said, reversiBULL. It's all coming together now, riiiiight? 

 So the pattern I used was that vintage number shown above. It's called "Advance". Not to be confused with "Advanced" which I would never use. The silly pattern did call for me to do some hand sewing and I was all "whuuuuut?" and the pattern was all, "yeeeeeesssss." But I had to lay down the law. It's 2015, I ain't hand sewing nuthin when I got a machine that can do it in a blink. So my bolero is all sorts of top-stitched where it isn't supposed to be. But whateves, tis the reason I ain't advanced. 

 By the way, tell me honestly, does this look like I have red toilet paper accidentally tucked into the backside of my dress? Well, does it?! A good friend would be honest with me, ya know.

But wearing it this way, with the straps criss-crossed (will make ya Jump!Jump!) around the waist and tied in the back works best when wearing it with the bolero. Says me. AND I kinda dig this look all on it's own. But that's because I'm all about the big fat belt. 

And there ya have it, folks! I promise I won't share another dress post for at least a couple of days (ahem). Until then, stay warm, buddies! 

DIY: A Mondrian Moment in Dress and Shoes

Well, kids, today is one of those days that every teacher on the planet dreams of: A Snow Day! In Tennessee that means we scored a whooping 2" of ice pellets (which, as it turns out, sounds like someone is throwing rabbit pooh at your windows all day. Not my fave sound in the world). One of the best things to do on a Snow Day is turn it into Sew Day! And that's just what I did in finishing off this Mondrian Dress-terpiece. 

 

The whole idea started when I saw this fabric and popped it into my virtual shopping cart faster than you can say, "OMG, don't you have enough fabric already?!" Answer, no. Also, if anyone ever says that to you they are: A. Being absurd. and B. Prolly your husband. So see A.

Once the fabric arrived, I set off to JoAnn's to pick up a new dress pattern. I've been using and reusing, like, the same 4 patterns and Ima starting to get a lil bored. Not that this here pattern is much of a stray from my norm. I'm all about the 1950's fitted bodice, flair skirt deal. 'Tis my fave.

I'm currently working on two other dresses from this pattern, each with a diff collar. I'm hoping to finish 'em off with tomorrow's snow day (yeppers, I scored a Snow Day Double Header, yee-haw!). I decided to go with the "stand collar" for this dress because I wanted it to have a 1960's feel. But more on that in uno momento.

Let's talk about Simplicity #2444 for a sec, kay? Do y'all sew? Personally, I love the Project Runway patterns because they come with a ton of options and are pretty stinkin' simple. Also, I secretly stalk Professor Pincushion who creates videos of many of the PR patterns and walks you through the entire dress-making process. Yes, you read that right. No, I'm not even kidding. She's totes stalker-worthy.

 So, the stand collar. I know the fit and flair of this dress is mostly 1950's but I wanted a nod to the 60's. Mostly because this era of Mondrian's paintings have a super mod vibe to me. I'm happy with the collar, I think it gives this dress a bit more attitude than the no-collar version woulda had. Whatcha think? 

 So let's talk ole Mondrian for a moment, shall we? I'm gearing up to start a big fat hair Primary Colors unit with kindergarten and who better to showcase than this ole boy? What I was totes bummed to find is that there is, like, one kids book on Mondrian and I wasn't loving it. Do you all have any recommendations for me? I recall learning about Broadway Boogie Woogie (1942-43) in those dark and sleepy art history sessions in college. Please tell me I'm not the only one who always fell asleep and woke up with drool-soaked notes. How you gonna turn off the lights, talk in a monotone voice and not expect me to snore my way through your course?! I'm hoping to make Mondrian more 'citing for my kids.

As I was stitching up this dress, I got the idea to MOD-ify some booties (get it, MOD-ify 'em?! Sometimes my incredible sense of humor even leaves me in tears. Of sadness. That no one else is nearly as hysterically humorous as me. Ahem.) Mostly cuz I always thought that when I got around to Mondrianin' a dress (yes, now he's a verb) it would look like this 1965 Yves Saint Laurent number.

I love Yves Saint Laurent. He studied under The Greatest Designer of All Time: Christian Dior. Oh my goodness, don't even get me started on my love of Dior. It's borderline cray. But back to Laurent. This dress of his is so mod and so 1960's that I always thought it'd be the perfect thing to stitch up. The prob? I'm not a fan of the shift dress. I get it, it's comfy, it's classic. But it's just not my bag, baby. So some 1960's Mondrian-inspired booties would just have to do the trick. 

Now, before I go too much further, lemme just throw in a disclaimer: I prolly shouldn't even be showing you this here DIY. Mostly cuz I just used whatever I had on hand: booties and acrylic paint. I hear they make paint specifically for leather. And I hear you should treat your leather before painting it. I learned all this after I started painting and decided to do a lil googling. Eh, says me. Too late now. 

 This truly was a simple and speedy DIY. Just mask off some geometric shapes and start a-painting. I used a coupla coats. 

And allowed to dry before pealing off the tape. Some of the acrylic did come off with the tape (nice job, acrylic) so I did have to do some retouching but it really wasn't a biggie. 

And I was pretty psyched with how they turned out. Y'all should totally do this. Then we'll be Mondrian Bootie Twins! Wait, that doesn't sound right.

Now, as y'all might know, this isn't my first Artist-Inspired Dress Rodeo. In case you want some more, follow these linky-loos:

A Light-Up Starry Night Dress
Warhol's Soup Can Dress
Kandinsky Dress #1
Kandinsky Dress #2
The Great Wave Dress
Munch's The Scream Dress
Keith Haring Ensemble
Jim Dine Heart Dress
A Roy Lichtenstein Ensemble

DIY: A Needle Felted Tribute to Jim Dine

Well, hey there, love birds. Lemme be the first to wish you Happy Valentine's Day! Or, as it should truly be known, Happy-Hallmark-Marketing-Scheme Day, amiright? I mean, if I gotta hear the chic on NPR try to sell me another 50 Shades of Gray teddy bear (seriously, NPR? You can't go from StoryCorps to PornTeddy in a matter of minutes, it ain't right.) or the radio talk show host tell me that "buying her roses will warm her heart and clear your conscious" (like, ew, jerk face) Ima gonna scream. I'm totes over the commercialism of what's otherwise a beautiful thing: love. After all, tis the inspo for this here DIY.

So last Saturday I was puttering around, stitching a couple of dresses, working on a little painting project, completely avoiding housework; you know, the ushe. It was then I suddenly realized that V-Day was rapidly approaching and I needed a new dress for the occasion. I immediately thought of the artist Jim Dine and was inspired to needle felt a dress dedicated to him! So I promptly set about googling Jim Dine's hearts and found this lovely: 

 I loved it straight away mostly cuz it looked so art teacher-y. Splatters, splats and splashes of color? Say no more, Dine. You had me at splatter (wait, that don't sound right.)

And here's my tribute. I was excited to use some new gold tinsel-y stuff I'd picked up at a fibers shop. I used it in place of the black outline seen in Dine's heart.

Now, like I said, I got this idea on a Saturday and didn't actually start until late that night. Since time was limited, I knew I couldn't spend forever on this here project. So just one heart was to go in the center of this lil thrifted number. 

Whenever I start my felted numbers, I always sketch in chalk. It's the perfect thang because you can just wipe it off with the sleeve of your sweater (ahem. You should see my yellow-y sweater sleeves). And, don't forget, you can needle felt on just about any surface. I've worked on wool, jersey knit and whatever this dress is. Sweatshirt? I dunno. It's needle felt-able. 

 I started by placing my needle felting cushion inside the dress and shaping the heart before I commenced stabbing it. If you've no clue how needle felting works, friend, don't you sweat it. I've got you covered. You can watch these super vintage vid clips where I annoyingly explain the process. My apologies in advance. 

See? Like, insanely simple. If I can do it, well, drunk monkeys dancing on rooftops can do it. So you should be safe. 

 After the white background was complete, the layers of colors were added. I stared with the biggest and lightest swathes of color first.

Then layered smaller and brighter colors on top of that. The gold tinsel was a weird thing to needle felt cuz it wasn't as cooperative as wool. 

 And that was pretty much it. Three episodes of Project Runway All-Stars and I was el finito.

And ready to introduce my students to Jim Dine and needle felting! I hinted that I introduced our new heart-themed mural with an artist and that was, of course, Mr. Dine. I created this prezi for the kids that you are welcome to borrow and change to your liking. I'm really digging Dine's drawings of tools and totally using that theme in a drawing unit. Have any of y'all done that? 

When I introduced my fourth graders to needle felting, they really loved seeing my dress and knowing that I'd used the same technique. For this fourth grade project, I had enough needle felting tools, roving and a foam cushion for each student. They really enjoyed this process and proved that they could handle using a super sharp tool with only a little blood and finger poking. 

 So sweet, right? You can read more about the "Our School has Heart" mural here. 

Until next time, I do hope you and your 50 Shades of Awkward Teddy Bear have a super heart-filled Valentine's Day! xox!

In the Art Room: Our School has Heart! Mural Project, Part 1

Okay. So. I started ANOTHER mural project. I got the idea this weekend when I suddenly realized that Valentine's Day was this Saturday and I needed something to wear (other than last year's Catty-Valentine Dress and Poodle-Love Frock. Cuz there's more than just two days in a week, y'all). So I decided that I'd create an artist-themed Valentine's dress (with an emphasis on hearts. Can you guess who my inspo might be? Virtual high five to the winner! I'll share my dress later this week). And whilst I was working on that, I got this Big Fat Hairy Light Bulb Above My Head that everyone in our school should create a heart for what we are dubbing The Johnson Elementary School has Heart mural! Yippie!

There's only one prob. We're already in the middle of our Village of Kindness mural. 

Now, what you might not know about me is that I like to work on, like, twenty things at once. In fact, at home right now, I've got three dresses in the works, a painting and a felted number. I get an idea, I act on it right away before the excitement fades and the motivation is gone. It drives me crazy, having so many projects everywhere and, yet, it's how I live my life. It's also how I run my art room. I ain't braggin'. I'm just sayin'.

More on that in a pinch. For now, lemme show you what every grade level is up to for our mural!

Mural Measurements: 

So for our mural, I'm using these two huge sheets of foam core that were donated to me. They're about 3' X 6'. I went to the school nurse on Monday cuz I heard she was really good at the math. After a lil clicking away on her calculator, she told me that if each of our 366 students created a work of art that was 3.25" we'd have our boards covered. Great, now, what will each create?

First Grade Painted and Puffy Paint Outlined Hearts:

Now I happen to be the owner of a cache of felt. I dunno where I got it from but I have a ton. Because I want this mural to hang for a while, I didn't wanna use fade-tastic construction paper. So I thought for most of the projects, I'd use up that felt. A lovely helper mama and a sweet unsuspecting art education student were promptly put to work on cutting the squares out.

I do want some consistency with our hearts. So, for first grade, they used chalk to trace a heart template (I know you template-haters are having a heart attach. Get it, HEART attach!? Lawd, I shoulda been a comedian). After tracing, they were instructed to use the warm colors for the heart and the cool for the background. Once finished, they outlined their heart in their choice of puffy paint. This took us all of 25 minutes.

Second Grade Yarn-Bombed Hearts:

Because I didn't want this to interrupt our previously scheduled program, I wanted these to only take us 25 minutes. Most managed with a coupla minutes to spare.

After picking out their felt color and pipe cleaner, they folded their pipe cleaner in half. The heart templates were on the tables for them to lay their pipe cleaner on top of and mold around the shape. They created an X in the middle where the two wires overlapped and then twisted. The cool thing about the pipe cleaner is that the kids didn't really have to tie the string on because of the grippy-ness of the 'cleaner. A wee bit of knot-tying was needed but these kids had recently finished Ojo de Dios so knot tying is no biggie for them.  Once finished, I hot glued them to their felt fabric.

Third grade Stitched Hearts:

Now I do see my third and fourth graders for an hour. We jumped right in. These dudes have used my sewing machines before and a couple of them are in my after school sewing club but most are inexperienced. They were thrilled to learn! I started by having them trace the square in chalk and the heart in the Sharpie color they planned to stitch with. After that, they were to hoop their design before returning to the floor for instruction.

There I showed 'em how to thread their needle and start stitching. These guys totally nailed it. I think third grade must be the right age to really start in with stitchin' stuff.

Our tapestry needles were too small to sew the button so we just glued them on. Later, I'll have to trim these guys to add them to the mural. 

Fourth Grade Needle Felting:

Y'all know I loves me some needle felting. I've always been apprehensive to give it a go with the kids because of the razor sharp needles used. So I started the class by saying the following:

"Today we are going to use a dangerous tool [gasps from the girls] because we are dangerous artists [cheers from the boys]. I'm not kidding. There might be blood [pin-drop silence]."

That being said, we only had one bleeder. Which is pretty good if you ask me. I've taught adults before and there's been more casualties. 

Again, we traced. The kids were told they could either use all cold colors for their heart or all warm. And then reverse that for the outside of their hearts. 

We did bust several needles but the results were pretty spectacular.

Kindergarten Watercolor Resist Hearts:

So my kindergarten friends have been painting all year. We are, like, experts. However, this was our first time to venture into watercolor paint town. So I was a little nervous. We talked a lot about the dif between watercolor and tempera. I emphasized that watercolor is translucent, not opaque. 

After tracing their heart template in black, they added designs in oil pastel before using the warm colors to paint. They turned out lovely and the kids loved using a new medium. 

And there you have it. Yet another mural started. It's so funny cuz when my parent volunteer and student assistant came in yesterday morning and I told 'em the mural news, the convo went down like this:

Helper Mama: Wait a minute. Another mural? [eyeing the houses on the floor].

Me: Uh-huh!

Student Assistant: You mean, before the other mural is finished [exchanging a worried look with the mama]?

Me: Yup!

Crazy has no bounds, y'all. Wish me luck and lemme be the first to wish ya Happy Valentine's Day!