Stitch Adventures

Fashion Institute's Oscar Nominated Costume 19th Annual Exhibit

You've got to go, you just have to.  The Oscar nominated costumes are once again being shown at the museum at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles.  I make sure and go almost every year - because the chance to see the materials and innovative use of materials by  the nominated costume designers will just take your breath away.

And if you're taking others, there is a movie poster exhibit on the walls of the museum that will keep your non-sewing companions enthralled while you do your self-guided tour.

I'm not able to post pictures (no cameras allowed), but I did find a great website that will let you look at pictures taken by the press allowed to do so: Costume Exhibit.

The most captivating costume, in my opinion, was the "Volcano coat" designed by Sandy Powell (which is picture #3 on the link above).  Made from wire and plastic pieces, it was pure sculpture, made to look like pieces of lava and rock.  She also designed the men's jacket costumes and a dress from the same movie, "The Tempest".  They were made using zippers - many zippers, which added a unique decorative element: zipper men jackets.  Sure, you might see a zipper showing on a dress in a mall, or a pin-on flower made from a zipper, but these garments were made almost entirely from zippers!

Another designer, Michael Kaplan, did the costumes for "Burlesque".  The dancers costumes on display were, surprisingly, all decorated from a base of undergarments - bras, girdles, tights, etc., which were easily visible close up.  But the undergarments had tons of pearls, beads, chains, crystals, painting and other adornments.  From far away they would look quite nude - because the designer dyed the undergarments the same flesh color as the actresses wearing the costume.

Another interesting thing is the size of the costumes.  The costumes you are looking at in the exhibit were actually worn by the actors; so the Mad Hatter costume was worn by Johnny Depp, Chistina Aguillera wore the burlesque costume, etc.  That's one tiny woman!  It was amazing to see how small many of the costumes were.  Perhaps I expect them to be bigger because the actors are famous, (bigger in the viewers eyes).

The exhibit lasts thru April 30, 2011 and is free!  Believe me, it is worth the drive if you live in California.  Here's more info: FIDM Museum

Dodgers Game Quilt

Dodgers Game Quilt

I'm sitting high in the stands at Dodger Stadium, enjoying just being around my oldest daughter and her in-laws, even though it's over 100 degrees. I'm definitely not a sports fan, especially not in record breaking heat. But, 43,795 people think this is fun, and paid for it, so there must be a reason. So many people – all wearing different colors, lots of blues. Tiny people, multi colors, voila, a live postage stamp quilt!

 

A few days later ago I showed my daughter two Keepsake Fabrics sample boxes, filled with several hundred 1-1/2” cotton prints that I received as a “member” of their club. Only in her twenties, my daughter is the expert quilter in our family, and has always wanted to make a postage stamp quilt. Well, she forgot to take the samples, so after the Dodgers game and my visualization, I started fooling with them.

First I did some research on postage stamp quilts – some using 2 inch squares, one woman made one using 2,935 1 inch squares and then hand pieced and quilted it (crazy!). Use of a flannel board for placement. Put all your squares into a paper bag and pull out random squares of fabric and place in rows.

Didn’t find that yet, but started playing with the colors that came in the boxes. I spent hours! First, I did the random thing. I made a few changes as I went along – to make sure I had red, yellow and turquoise squares randomly scattered throughout the piece (one website advised to do this to make the other colors “Pop”). But the random colors just don’t look like something I want to make and hang on my wall.

 

Then I wondered what the pattern would look like if I grouped them by color – light to dark, maybe with strips of solid color in between to separate the strips.

Then it came to me – make this the Dodgers game quilt. Random people in different sections – with strips of blue in between (like where the graphics and advertisements were displayed). Now I like it!

So time to figure out how to sew these little squares together.

Sew Expo is the Best

It must be the after affects of the Sew Expo in Washington, which I went to last month. For some reason, while on my morning walk, I started whistling “Oh what a beautiful morning” from the musical Oklahoma. The song exemplifies the three euphoric days I spent being inspired, overwhelmed, and enlightened. As one lady checking out from my hotel said, (in a sad voice), “oh well, back to reality”.

Here's a picture of one of the vendor booths - enthusiasm is rampant, and wearing a thread spool headband fits right in!

And even though it’s windy and cold here in Ojai, and I no longer get to see Mount Rainer in the morning, I feel energized and inspired. Can’t wait to get back into my sewing room. Can’t wait to try out my new embroidery machine!

For those of you who haven’t heard of the Sewing and Stitchery Expo, I’ll let you in on my “little” secret. It’s got to be the most awesome event for sewers of all ages. It is held at the Puyallup, Washington fairgrounds (just south of SeaTac airport and Tacoma) every year. It is organized, with no glitches, by Washington University, and attended by thousands.

You should sign up several weeks in advance to get your choice of workshops. You can choose from hundreds of topics, well known speakers, and different machine manufacturers for hands on classes. You have choices of 1 hour lectures, 2 hour lectures, hands on half day or full day classes, fashion shows (free and for a small fee), sewing icon nighttime comedy shows, and the Red and Pink morning fashion show, with donations going to the American Heart Association and the American Cancer Society.

The vendors take up two fairground buildings – patterns, fabric, books, yarn, embroideries, threads, and sewing machine dealers, (uh oh). There are several places to eat, and huge classrooms and plenty of seating everywhere. What’s nice about that is you can change your mind about what classes you want – at the last minute. I did lots of changes this year – because I bought that embroidery machine, and needed to find out what I could do with it!

This year, I took the plane up on Thursday afternoon, and spent three days going to classes. They also have Wednesday classes, but the main workshops are Thursday – Sunday. My three days of Sew Expo admission, classes, fashion shows, vendors, and being surrounded by literally thousands of friendly like-minded sewers cost me $80. How do the wonderful organizers do so much for so little money?

I did spend more money on the air flight ($150) and a cheap hotel. I was just too exhausted at night to care that I was in a $44 a night motel, but it felt safe, and included free breakfast and decent coffee. Lunch was shoveled in - between classes, and I got dinner salads from Trader Joes. I get so involved in the experience, who has time for food?

And of course, I did buy supplies – not so much fabric and books (I had to keep away from the fabric – or I would have had to pay for another suitcase!). But I did buy new notions, threads and designs. And yes, I did buy that embroidery machine (which I hadn’t planned on, but trying not to feel guilty about that).

It is so hard to depict the energy, openness, and inspiration of Sew Expo and all those women who love garment sewing. I’ll write more about the specific classes I went to, in separate blogs. There’s so much to tell!