Sew Crazy For You!

With two classes coming up in a couple weeks, I have been really busy putting class supplies together for them. They each get a baggie with a muslin foundation piece of 11" by 11", about 12 or so fabrics, a color palette developed from an inspiration piece of fabric. They get some cottons, duponi silk, satin and moire fabrics; along with threads, beads, buttons, sequins and lace.
I will explain more about the class in my next post after the class has started with pictures of the ladies and their projects.
Today, I want to describe the pillow I am using as a demonstration piece for this class. My pillow is a 10" by 10" square foundation piece with jewel tone fabrics. This is a color palette I chose to build my colors with...

Then I chose a sweet picture of a lady, printed on fabric, and backed it with a stabilizer....

Now I am ready to choose fabrics. Normally, I would attach the picture to the foundation piece and attach fabrics to it as I went around her. But I learned a tip from Pamela Kellogg  of how to place all my fabrics down first, and then applique her on top...I found that with the stabilizer and the extra fabric it  really gave the silkie more stability.
So I started playing with the fabrics...always one of my favorite parts...

 Here the fabrics are coming together, pinks, purples, black velvet, moires along with black velvet and a velvet from an old vest.

 The fabrics are all in place in a crazy quilt pattern, placing the lady over them, and adding trim and a piece of corner lace, dyed,  from Barbara Nicki Seavey and a purple piece that I dyed. 

I added a couple more pieces of lace dyed laces, and now I am ready for some embellishments and stitches.

 

I decided to add silk ribbon embroidery flowers coming off of the corner piece of lace. Using two different colors, added some glass leaf beads and pearls inside of the flower buds. Below is a close-up picture.

Next I added a gold thread, lazy-daisy chain off of the flowers along with green silk ribbon leaves.

With more flowers, pearls, sequins and leaves added to this lace piece, I think it was finally finished. Now buttons were grouped off of the left side, and beads decorated the second lace grouping. The bottom lace has stitches and beads to decorate it. The blue trim was rouche down with pink beads to offset it.

The square was then put together as a pillow with a pink moire as a backing. Taking another tip from Pamela Kellogg, I crocheted a green hairy trim into a chain stitch and then attached it with a matching green thread all the way around the pillow....

I really love the way the hairy green trim contrasts with the pinks and purples, but pulls the green from the trim around the picture. Oh, and don't forget her pearl necklace...those are antique pearls I bought from an elderly lady who apologized that the necklace was broken when I bought it from her...but I didn't have the heart to tell her I was breaking it down anyway!!!  The pearls have a nice "old" look to them.

Here we have the finished pillow, which I will be teaching the students how to do the techniques used to put this project together...with different color palettes than what I have used here. 

Back of the pillow is pink moire, one of my absolutist favorite fabrics to work with. Stay tuned in a couple weeks, you will meet my two classes, and we will see what the creative works of art they come up with. Thanks for visiting!