Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Doritos-I Need Fabric!

First off, thanks all for the kind comments on Doritos. Alas, I have no suitable fabric. In my mind it is made of bright, spicy, hot salsa colors, two, maybe three of them....I MUST go shopping. It fits The Princess perfectly and I REALLY want to make the real thing for her.

Several of you have asked what I do with the muslins. I keep them. They hang on a little hanger in the sewing room closet and it really surprises me how much I refer to them. I go back and measure hem lengths, the chest, the shape of an armhole, all sorts of things. Just looking at one of them will spark an idea every now and then.

Anonymous mentioned making the bodice triangle into a collar. I had thought of that. When I was playing around with it, it seemed to need the button to make it zingy. Since I know The Princess so well, if she had a loose collar with a button on it, she would try to eat the button. That's why I decided on the applique instead.

I really like this little design. My head is full of nonsense like this. There are so many sketches lying around here, drawn on napkins stuffed in my purse, crammed in the desk drawer at school.....

Here's one I finally just had to play with. I had it in my little mind to do a folk-arty type flower on the front panel of a basic dress. Since I can't draw (as you all have witnessed so many times), I cut a piece of muslin about the size of the panel I had in mind and grabbed the scissors and this big basket of scraps:





Three minutes later the nice basket of scraps looked like this:




I wish I could tell you that this is all of the cotton scrap yardage I have, but it wouldn't be true. There's probably over 800 different cotton fabrics in various yardage amounts from 1/4 yard to 2 yards hanging out in large totes in the closet. I've been quilting and collecting 100% cotton for a long time.

At any rate, even though I can't draw a lick I can certainly wield a pair of scissors. It wasn't long before what I had in my little head turned into this:




I cut all those pieces freehand, so each one is a little wonky. I'm a little wonky, too; maybe that's why I like this.

After trying this out on muslin I went into the cabinet and came out with this, a little lavender and cream dot:




It has named itself. Flower Power, of course. Comments? I just love it when yall give me some input!

6 comments:

Erin said...

Would be a cute wall hanging for princesses and babies

Jen said...

On color for the dress -- I think a print with chili peppers on it would be very cute -- and the triangles all the solid colors in the print.

On the "collar" applique -- I too think it should encompass the whole shoulder. It just looks a little thin.

On the applique vs. button -- I love this idea! I think it should echo the doritos, though -- maybe a flower with pointed petals instead of rounded ones? Or maybe the rounded ones make a nice contrast -- or even a little sun with triangles. The yellow of a sun would look good against the inevitable bright reds and greens of the chili pepper print.

I LOVE giving you input! Thanks for asking! I feel like a designer at a meeting!

P.S. I'm not into folk art at all; not sure why but I have to say that the flower design is very cute.

Jen said...

P. S. S. How about something like this:

http://www.sewthankful.com/OleChilisOnWhiteC8389.html

Anonymous said...

on the folk art flower dress you could also have the round circles going around the hem of the skirt. . .with a narrow border of the stem fabric above and below them. ;-)

Anonymous said...

Here's some more spicy fabric. . .
http://www.robertkaufman.com/fabrics/salsa_picante/

Anonymous said...

These fabrics sure are cute too:
http://www.robertkaufman.com/fabrics/fruit_basket/

http://www.robertkaufman.com/fabrics/over_the_rainbow/