The idea of pink leaves appealed to me, so I dyed some velvet in three shades of pink and pressed out some leaves and tiny flowers. Not a ton this time, as I'm not sure how long the fascination with pink leaves will last.
The hot pink leaves are a bit of a novelty. I may end up liking them, but I may have a "What was I thinking!?!" moment. The jury is still out...
Luckily my leaf and flower cutting obsession is waning a bit, and I'm eager to move on to other things.
The urge to make leaves didn't leave, so I decided to experiment further with dyeing. I wanted some Spring leaves with lots of variation, so I mixed up little amounts of strong dye and painted it onto the velvet. It looked like this -
I let it sit for a bit - rinsed it - then tossed it in a yellow dye bath - the whole time anticipating a piece of velvet that would yield fresh and dramatic looking leaves. Alas, it was not to be - not this time, anyway. When I removed the velvet from the yellow dye bath, all the lovely variation had pretty much blended together and the end effect proved to be anything but dramatic. Below are some of the leaves -
On the up side, they are Spring-y looking - a sort of fresh bright limey sort of green - and I had a great time pressing them and cutting them out. I could cut and cut and cut for hours and be happy as a clam.
I also made a pile of tiny velvet flowers. I'm thinking they might work well as accents to larger flowers on some sort of headpiece.
I'm totally loving the nifty carrier in which all these leaves and flowers are piled. A couple of weeks ago a neighbor put out a couple of round wooden cheese boxes - free to any passer-by - and I totally scored. They're nice and big and are such a great way to keep things relatively organized and easy to transport (one even has a lid). Very handy for me, as I tend to work in multiple rooms of the house. My "studio" is literally the size of a large closet, and rather than be super organized and neat as a pin, I choose to move around...
I may be jumping the gun a tad, but I'm beginning to sense Fall approaching - which sent me off in a different direction color wise. I'm not naturally drawn to fall colors, but for whatever reason, I decided to experiment a little with them. I've noticed when making leaves, a bit of color variation goes a long way in terms visual interest, so I randomly applied color to some velvet - and then got down to making some leaves...
Stacks of them.
Again, I find mindless repetitive work deeply comforting. I know it drives some people crazy, but I seem to take to it like a fish to water. This skill high tolerance for repetitive tasks served me very well when I made plants for museum dioramas. I have cut leaves for days, have painted veins on leaves for days, etc. and somehow I came out on the other end relatively sane.
Anyway, as far as the dye experiment went, I'm pretty satisfied. I ended up getting some good color variation. I think the next time I dye randomly, I'll try applying colors in smaller patches so that there will be even more of a range on each leaf.
Since I have been posting pictures of flowers I have made, I have gotten quite a few inquiries about the availability/existence of some sort of tutorial. Now I can say, "Yes, there is a tutorial available. You can go to my "Silk Rose Tutorial" page and purchase your very own downloadable copy."
I have to say, I have a new found respect for people who put together tutorials on a regular basis. I didn't quite realize what a big job it was until I started work on this one - especially the computer/tech part of it. Whoo boy, did I fight some battles. I almost gave up, but somehow managed to finish. What a sense of relief. Yay! Nineteen pages of flower making fun are now available!
Now that the tutorial is finished I can get back to making flowers - and other things. So many ideas brewing...
Don't know why exactly, but I got the urge to make a small army of gardenias.
I have a vague impressionistic vision of a floating gardenia head piece - don't have a clear idea of how to pull it off. I suspect the finished product will morph into something quite different from my initial idea.
I had a great time making these little guys. I have a high tolerance for mindless-repetitive-assembly-line type work. There is something very satisfying about plugging into music or an audio book and just cranking out multiples of whatever it is that needs to be made... Plus, I enjoy the visual impact of a whole group of same-ness.
Last month I took DeAnna's Millinery Bouquet Workshop, and this is what I made -
For the workshop we had to bring flowers that we had made, and then we learned how to assemble them into a fascinator, headband, or other headpiece. It was tons of fun - I learned a lot, got inspired, and it was great to see several familiar faces and meet a new one. Absolutely love taking classes...
Katie (who has taken two of my flower making workshops) brought in some California poppies that she made at home. They were sooo lovely - she absolutely nailed the color. (Wish I had gotten a picture, but I was in student mode and didn't think to bring my camera.) It got me to thinking about how much I'd like to make poppies - and about how fabulous a wild flower headpiece would be.
Some more pics of le petit chapeau avec la grande fleur -
The tiny hat part is made of straw on which I attached a large silk flower, a small velvet flower, and some (horse hair?) trim. DeAnna provided all the materials except for the flowers. We got to choose from an abundant and well curated selection of trims, different materials to make the hat bases, findings, etc. It was such a treat to "shop" in her studio.
Here's a detail shot of the velvet flower. I have found black flowers to be stubbornly unphotogenic, but really pretty fabulous in person.
One of these days, I may splash out for a proper model. Until then, the foam skull will have to do...
I've been making silk roses lately - and experimenting with the methods of color application. Usually I use an airbrush, but I've been wanting some bolder results. So, I dug out a regular old brush and started painting.
I've also been experimenting with leaf making - using some wonderful molds reproduced from vintage millinery molds. They're such a joy to work with. I can't wait to start adding leaves to my flowers. So far, no leaves have actually been attached to flowers as I have a kind of a weird creative quirk - It is really difficult for me to dive wholeheartedly into production unless I have everything needed for a project on hand. As soon as the findings for various headpieces arrive, then (hopefully) I'll be able to produce a finished piece.
Silk is so much fun to work with. It accepts color easily and is very responsive to heat. I'm on the fence, though, as to what I feel about the flowers I've made. To me, they look a little too much like your run-of-the-mill fake flower that can be bought in a craft store. Maybe I'll feel differently when they're made into headpieces...
Just for comparison - a flower done with an airbrush. Definitely much less dramatic...
I took a bit of a break from working recently. It wasn't entirely planned or intentional, but now I'm getting back into the swing of things. I'm amazed at how looong everything takes. I expect to pick up the pace soon. For right now, just working again feels pretty good. I find that if I don't have hard deadlines, I usually don't accomplish much. So, one of my goals this year is to go out and get some deadlines.
Here's a peek at some unfinished flowers I've been working on. I'm pretty sure they're destined to become hairbands -
I'm experimenting a bit with color - making it more saturated, and for the flower below, I applied color to the outside of the petals instead of the inside. I think I'll try a few more... maybe, just maybe even go a bit more bold with color...
During the next few days I'll be listing some of my cotton rose accessories in my shop. I've also kinda, sorta opened a BigCartel shop. I'm hoping to expand it in the near future. It's kind of bare bones now, but I wanted to test the waters a bit before taking the plunge.
I have so many bits and pieces of flowers floating about the house right now. I have my fingers crossed they'll somehow start to coalesce into actual wearable pieces...
A few weeks ago, I took up crochet to fill in the sort of weird limbo time that I experience between quitting work and eating dinner/hardcore disc watching.
Well, it hasn't worked out quite that smoothly - Longer daylight hours = longer working hours = less weird limbo time. I actually really like the longer daylight hours, but it means I have had to work the crochet time in to an alternate chunk of time.
My big discovery - crochet as a sleeping aid/farewell-to-the-day ritual. Instead of reading before going to sleep, I listen to a book on tape and crochet for a bit before turning out the light. Getting drowsy while actually doing something is a very strange sensation.
But I'm making progress - and I'm determined to finish this project. I told myself I couldn't move on to any other "fun" projects until this one was finished. There are so many colors and textures I want to work with, so I'm eager to move on - why-oh-why is my attention span so short?
