Autumn Song

Today's post is a creative blast from my recent past-- a garment that I collaborated to make with Tal Landeau, weaver and fiber artist. We called it Autumn Song. It was part of a show of collaborative works between members of the Fredericksburg Spinners and Weavers Guild and LibertyTown Artists held in October, 2008 in the main gallery at LibertyTown.

Tal and I began meeting in January, 2008, and hit it off right away. We got along so well and felt our styles and skills meshed beautifully. We enjoyed our creative meetings so much that we were in danger of missing our deadline for finishing the project as it got bigger and bigger!

We finally settled on creating a Tibetan folklore vest. The pattern required sewing together strips of material. We decided that Tal would hand weave and dye in the shibori fashion, part of the garment, and I would print in fabric paints on commercial fabric that she dyed as well.


The above piece is the back focus panel.


This is the front center panel.

Here is a selection of the dyed and printed strips drying on the rack before assembly.

We also wanted the garment to be reversible, so we bought a lining fabric and used it matte-side-out. I used oil bars, especially meant for use on fabric, and found and created surfaces for rubbings to decorate the lining.



This rubbing was created with the stem of a live plant that I liked the shape of. I sealed it in a sticky plastic wrap so that I could place it under the cloth for rubbing without getting plant juice on the fabric!


The darker red pattern was made by rubbing on a wooden, jointed placemat. The flower and leaf shapes I made with fun foam stuck onto scraps of mat board, and the gold patterning was made by rubbing over a honeycomb cardboard packing material.



The final garment is hanging on the wall of my studio. It is pinned back so you may see the lining. You may also see Tal's gorgeous dyed handwoven on the front of the vest in the picture below. Tal also put the entire garment together. We made our deadline just under the wire!

We are currently working on another garment which has been commissioned of us. It is going more slowly than we had hoped, as we are trying to fit this into two very busy schedules!