Summertime Projects

It's been a while since I posted on here, thought I'd just share a few photos of recent projects.

I made this floaty dress, awaiting a hot day, such as we got this last weekend, to try it out in the lake. There are lots of floating things attached to the fabric, to see how it moves in the water- circles of  foam cut out from a carry mat, and all pool balls covered in stretchy fabric.

I found these foam strips in a skip! They are the edges of interlocking foam floor tiles- for some reason they stamp the shape out of a square, which leaves these excess edges to just be thrown away

I sprayed the foam strips with spray paint to give them a slightly tropical look!

It's always fun to do a splashy photo!

I felt like I was a frog in a lily pad

Another project below, using lots of bargain fabric from Standfast and Barracks, all bought for 2 or 1 pounds a metre (it was further reduced when I went back for more!)

I've intended for a while to make the most of the fact I have a twin sister, to get some slightly eerie/mythical looking photos of strangely alike persons

I used the fabric one way out on one dress, and the other way out on the second- as it wasn't sure which way I liked best!

The light was fading, but I'm really pleased with how these have turned out- rather than detracting from it, I think the light has enhanced them!

Photos by the most talented Rebecca Richards!

http://rebeccadux.wixsite.com/rebeccarichards/blog

January Projects!

It's been a while since I've posted on here- but that doesn't mean there's been a lack of busy creativity!

I've continued my thousand mile walking challenge in this dress, and have now passed 700 miles! This photograph was taken at Claife Heights viewing station overlooking Lake Windermere. Regular updates at www.facebook.com/thousandmiledress

Before Christmas I visited Styal Cotton Mill with a lovely team who are working together on a dance piece called 'Cotton', inspired by the cotton industry, and Lancashire's historic mills. It was great to look around and see how all the different stages of cotton preparation, spinning and weaving result in the end product of cloth. 

I shall be designing and creating costumes for the piece, which has three dancers, plus an extra cast of ten students per show. It shall be an exercise of resourcefulness, as there is limited time to work on this- just one week in fact, and I can't wait to get started!

A quick costume shoot was done in the mill, using a costume already owned by the dancers- it's a great start to get a feel for how the costumes have been imagined so far- I shall take this idea away and develop it! 

Below are more details of the performance!

Harris Museum, Preston

Saturday 21 January

11.00am, 1.00pm & 3.00pm

Live Dance by AbouTime Dance Company

AbouTime Dance Company present Cotton, a new dance theatre work exploring cotton production, showing at 11.00am, 1.00pm and 3.00pm. It brings together a new company of professional dancers alongside students from Cardinal Newman College. Artistic lead, Jenny Reeves, invites audience members to offer feedback and ideas for future development.

Another project I am working on in my own time is this shiny shiny dress. The base is a bargain charity shop dress- costing a whole pound! I've used holographic strips of faux leather as the main feature, stitched onto strips of various other fabrics for extra strength and colour. 

I have plans to introduce more features to this dress- including multiple colours of net, and some crocheted pom-poms, courtesy of the crotchet force that is my sister,! 

Back to the Cotton dance piece- I have begun collecting shirts from charity shops- a great place to rummage and select from many options of clothing! And the bargains are a great help when working to a budget!

I've also collected some pieces of fabric to make aprons. I want to include lots of different textures and colours- so the factory workers appear to belong to the same world, yet have their own individulity.

Below I am dipping the shirts in a magical substance called potassium pomanganate- it could be a dangerous substance if used incorectly- but a few sprinkles dissolved in water have the very useful effect of  burning fabrics to varying degrees, depending on the strength, and how long you leave the fabric in it. It looks bright purple to begin with, but that washes out to leave a brownish colour behind. It is an excellent way of ageing fabrics- and as the image of the mill child at the bottom of this blog suggests, the workers would wear and wear their clothes, and so a lot of ageing could make the costumes more authentic.

Bottle caps and more

I've been attaching more caps to the sleeves this weekend! And I also started attaching floaty bits to this sad looking old dress.I'm sewing circles of foam into it so it can float on water for an interesting "lady of the lake" type design...this photo shoot might have to wait until next summer now as I've possibly missed the window for hot sunny days!

Bottle cap dress

More caps

More cap arranging on sleeves and hat base

Crown!

Enjoying arranging bottle caps into this crown- so many of them get chucked away and yet how pretty they can be

Dress shape cutting!

Beginning to make the base of the dress...

Bottle cap hat

I've started assembling the bottle caps into a crown- I've found that the unflattened caps look good threaded on wires- but the flattened ones are nice and decorative. I'm going to start being more choosy over which I flatten and which I don't, depending on the colours and patterns that I want to be most visible.

I melted holes in the fabric with a soldering iron in order to have something to cable tie through! It creates a really solid edge that won't fray or pull apart, so is much quicker than eyelets, and more durable than just cutting holes.

I'm building up layers in a colour spectrum- it looks really thick, which I like! I actually really like the effect just with the holes, so I might use the technique elsewhere on the costume where it will be more visible.

Poor Tom was the nearest person when I wanted to check how it looks on a human!

(This picture taken before the soldering holes were melted and flattened caps were arranged)

This is the shape I cut to make the hat- it was made by pinning a piece of fabric into shape over the cycle helmet that will form the base of the hat- then removing the fabric and equalising the left and right halves to make a symmetric shape. Then the shape was cut twice in the real fabric (to make the outside and the lining) and sewn together! 

Bottle cap assembly!

Thought I'd see what a bunch of them look like on wire...I like it!

Finishing the jacket

Further jacket pieces

A jazzy jacket begins

Bought a jacket to cover in colorful folded fabric pieces - some of which are leftover from my "seaside sunset" piece from several years ago. I'm enjoying the effect so far! :-)

African running

I've started making a dress for my friend to do the great north run in...the top half is very simple as it shall have the charity name printed on it...And needs to be light and airy for coolness while running! May get a bit more creative with the skirt! :-) she asked for African fabrics to represent her chosen charity, which works with a community in Africa to help improve standards of health, education and employment...the Funzi and Bodo trust