Pillows to DYE for!

Although I have been teaching art a long time, I never get tired of it.  In fact, this year, I developed 2 new courses which both reflect my long time interests...fashion drawing and sewing.  The first semester, the girls created fashion designs using Adobe Photoshop and the second semester, they worked exclusively with fibers and fabrics, sewing, dyeing and printing their own fabric.

I am totally in love with the things they have produced and just had to share their latest project.
The sides with the flowers are the fronts and I have shown some of the back sides of the pillows too.






This student used her hand dyed and block printed fabric for the pillow front.
She hand dyed the ruffled corner pieces.



 







 

The girls who took this course didn't know how to thread a need or sew a few short months ago, but now some of them told me that they were able to sew a hem, a button,

 and fix a hole in a sweater.  Our school does not offer home economics, so I, thought this course would not only allow them to be creative, but it would provide them with some practical skills as well .  One girl said she is going to continue to do some dyeing over the summer.  Maybe a few more of them will continue to sew.  Some of the students definitely stepped out of their comfort zone in this class, but they are more confident student designers and seamstresses.

Beautifully brilliant tie-dyed pillow front!

 

This student used her batik fabric for the back of the pillow and
made another piece of batiked fabric to match the front.  She added a hand dyed
yellow flower for the front of the pillow.

I love the look of the flower this student created from her tie-dyed fabric

Countdown to Christmas

I haven’t written about my sewing club much lately.  We have been working on the same projects we started several weeks back.  It’s hard to really get anything done in a half hour after school, but the girls don’t seem to lose interest in their projects, even if they miss a meeting or take longer than expected to finish.

      Fleece hedgehog pattern and tutorial from the book Wild and Wonderful Fleece Animals

My little hedgehog

Last time we met, I had planned on making cute upcycled mittens made from old felted sweaters.  One of my students felted a very heavy sweater which was difficult to work with, so she abandoned that project.  Another girl, who used a thinner felted sweater, actually cut out a pattern and made one mitten today.  Some of the girls worked on their felt owls, pillows and some began this really cute fleece hedgehog pattern I found online before the meeting.   I tried it out 45 minutes before the meeting and was putting on the finishing touches when the meeting began.  The girls fell in love with this little hedgehog and much to my delight, were definitely onboard with the project.  I had enlarged the pattern slightly and brought my fleece out of the closet.  I made mine in gray, but some opted for pink, turquoise or multicolor hedgehogs. One or two of them have decided to give their little creatures to a younger sibling for Christmas.

The pattern called for sewing the hedgehog by machine, but I made mine by hand and decided that was a quicker and easier route for the amount of students who showed up for the meeting.  I explained how to cut out and pin the pattern, how to place the one piece on the fold, and how many of each piece to cut.  Some just cut, some just pinned, and one actually stitched her hedgehog body to the bottom and added the eyes.  The one student who started putting her hedgehog together has had several years of sewing experience, so she catches on to projects immediately and works quickly and skillfully.  Although some have very little sewing experience, they are moving along pretty well.
Honestly, I don’t care which project they work on during the meetings, I am just happy to teach them a little bit about sewing and watch them as they become more adept with each new project.

Student hedgehog in progress

When I was out and about doing a little Christmas shopping about a week ago, I was inspired by the little felt gift bags for sale in several stores, and thought that would be a great project for the girls during this holiday season.  They can decorate the outside of the bag with hand stitched appliquéd shapes and then stitch the bags and handles via the machine.   I’d better introduce that project soon.  I can’t believe we only have 2 more Thursday meetings until Christmas vacation!