A Color Story

My Process varies when making Wearable Art, depending on my fabrics and also what narrative I'm looking to create.  For this color story, it all began with fabric that I designed for a pair of pants.   

By using my studio window as a light box, I traced designs onto turquoise fabric from a slice of fabric placed under the turquoise cotton.  

I needed additional movement within the design and used a variegated embroidery floss to stitch diagonal lines across the pants using large running stitches.    Once the pants were embroidered, I knew these needed a special top.  

After pulling fabrics from my stash to audition, I settled on four supporting fabrics.

Those colors and designs laid on a table in my studio for a few days and I would visit them every so often, looking at them, and letting whatever was going to happen develop.  Patience...   And now, just this morning, after reviewing digital images on my Mac, I found an image that drove me into boxes and bags of 'saved stuff'.  What treasures I found!   Among them were the absolute pieces that will imbue this color story.

The photo below of a collage block was one I did in Rosalie Dace's class in Durban, South Africa.  Many of the fabrics were given to me during that class by South African quilters, some twenty plus years ago.   Note the selvage from a piece of DaGama fabric "An African Story".  I like that!

Beyond the collage block, I found bits of fabrics used in that block and especially love the high contrast face in black and taupe.   Black and white will also enliven the story.

Other bits I found are those black and white fabrics sewn into various geometric shapes: squares, rectangles, quadrangles and all of which will go into the top.  You can see how these fabrics relate and definitely will support the design in the pants.  

Stay tuned for more on the process of making this ensemble into My Color Story.