Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Joanne's "Poetry In Motion" Duster Jacket

I mentioned at one point about having been commissioned by a friend to "upcycle" a jacket for her. She sent me the garment and it reminded me of a classy "smoking" jacket to wear around the house. Golden satin with a pointed lapel and little fake flap pockets with matching fabric covered buttons. I removed all the buttons, removed the flaps, and cut the collar off. Next I began draping fabrics and laces I might want to use over the shoulders. I actually sewed many of these down using a machine and pinned the yoyo's on, then stepped back to take a good hard look and decided this looked like a clown suit. Geez, what was I thinking? I was very unhappy with this.



I fretted and wrote friends for advice and meditated on it a bit then I took the seam ripper to it and started over. Once I muted the palette and took a different design approach it all came together wonderfully and I was very pleased. I used silk fabrics I had painted faux script on and used that as inspiration. Upon completion I called this "Poetry in Motion".

I gave the garment to Joanne at Art Unraveled and I think I saw some tears well up in her eyes which made me feel very good and relieved that she liked it so much.

I regret that I didn't get any pics of her wearing it and I had the opportunity. When we met Jennifer, Angie, Martha, and Fran for dinner she had it on and it was the perfect photo op but I didn't have my camera with me. Sigh. Anyway here are some snapshots I took before I packed it up and hopefully Joanne may post some pictures of it after she gets back home.





3 comments:

Jood said...

What a difference a day and a seam ripper make! It's lovely and you KNOW I love the script dyeing. Okay, Joanne...let's see this marvel on you! Jood

Joanne Huffman said...

It's fate. I just posted a picture of me in my beautiful duster on my blog a few minutes ago. I do love it so much, I think you may have seen tears welling up in my eyes.

Fran said...

It's even more amazing in person! Joanne loves it and you should be proud of what you did with it! :)