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Wearing the Night Sky
(click images to to enlarge)
Outline the story …
Every year on my birthday there is a meteor shower that is right at its peak so I've always liked looking at the stars, though it's hard to find a place dark and open enough to fully enjoy them. With a clear starry night as my inspiration, I wanted to show a wide open sky above the silhouette of a forest and all the beautiful stars sparkling above it. I even included several actual constellations among the embroidered stars, including two zodiac signs, Orion and Cassiopeia. To be able to show more sky I went with a very full skirt with lots of poof when worn over a petticoat. I decided to use thrifted materials and knew immediately that I’d found a perfect match when I came across this dark blue, velvet curtain, everything but the thread is thrifted or recycled, even the embroidery hoop I used.
The piece I'm entering is the skirt.
Outline the construction…
Because I was using thrifted fabric I had to be careful when cutting out my pattern pieces, but I ended up having just enough with a little creative placement. And speaking of my pattern; this was a pattern I drafted myself just for this project, I wanted the fullness of a circle skirt but with more structure so it is constructed out of six outer panels, six lining panels and a waistband. This was my first time sewing a piece of clothing that isn’t a costume so there were a few techniques that I was trying out for the first time here, such as machine finished buttonholes, actually doing a lining, rolled hems, and finishing my seams with a zigzag stitch. The skirt I sewed on my machine, but all the embroidery and beading was done by hand in varying shades of grey, white and silver. The most time-consuming part was probably the forest below the sky, I tried a few methods but in the end I decided to use a mix of acrylic craft paint and hair conditioner to dye the trees onto the skirt. I used a small brush over the paint as I went to keep it soft and flexible since acrylics usually dry hard.
Beautiful use of the thrifted fabric and the constellations are lovely. A gorgeously wearable piece of art.