Great gifts for Christmas!

It's that time of the year when I begin taking orders for MALVAR home
eco-friendly Christmas stockings!

Examples of some of the fabric combinations from 2009

MALVAR home eco-friendly stockings are one-off and sold only during the Christmas season. Each stocking is made from post-consumer wool remnants along with beautiful vintage fabric remnants from a men's tailor shop that closed down in Hollywood in the 1940's called "Stewart's." Each stocking is numbered and comes with a hangtag that describes its uniqueness.

MALVAR home stockings are made using traditional tailoring techniques with some hand-sewn details like blanket stitching and sometimes embroidery, while old buttons enhance the design.

This holiday, they come in three sizes: (size measurements are taken diagonally from the middle of the toe to the upper right corner of the top)

small - 11"

large - 14.5"

larger - 18" (new size for 2010)

This year the "Woof" and "Meow" designs are also available in the large size

Look for MALVAR home stockings at the following stores:

FOUND Gallery, Ann Arbor, MI @ http://www.foundgallery.com

Fox Ridge Gallery, Breckenridge, CO @ http://www.foxridgegallery.com

...and the "cherry on top": MALVAR home donates a portion of each stocking sale, after taxes, to local charitable organizations...

Thank you for your interest and for helping support this small effort in keeping remnants out of our landfills!

Our Sweet Goddaughter in her Berries Provincial Sundress

Objective when designing this dress: FUN
Result: SUCCESS!

berries!

I've been experimenting more with natural dyes lately...these are cotton plain weave fabrics that I dyed in blackberries (purple) and strawberries (pink with watermark or tie-dye). I'm not exactly sure what happened in regards to the imperfections, but I feel that they are "happy mistakes."

I ended up using the more consistently dyed parts of the fabrics to make our Goddaughter's birthday gift: Berries Provincial Sundress.

I appliqued the flowers and beaded their centres with tiny clear beads.

My hope is that she "plays in the dirt" in this dress!

Happy 3rd Birthday, Ruth!

I look forward to dyeing silk organza, using this berry dyeing technique, for my upcoming women's clothing line:

malvar = stewart

2010 Exhibit

This exhibit ran concurrently with the fashion show. Pieces are from the Y Collective 2009 show: COLLAPSE

Materials: silk organza with nuno felting and handspun wool yarn. The sleeves are shown as collapsed.

2010 Y Collective: SKIN

On Stage: 2010 SKIN

Both pieces on stage with the blue "veins" lighting through the farthingales "skeletal structure"...check out the video above!

Backstage: 2010 SKIN

My two pieces for The Y Collective 2010 SKIN
category: Vulnerable vs. Protective

Back detail

Grommets for the corset closure.
The organic feeling of the fabric worked nicely juxtaposed with
the metal grommets

Experimenting: dyeing with used tea bags

This year, for my Y Collective pieces, I decided to use all of the used tea bags that Will and I have been consuming for the last few weeks (yes, we drink a lot of tea). I've always wanted to experiment with dyeing some of the silks that I love to work with, but I don't like to use chemicals if I can help it - part of the "eco" in me.

Here are some of my dye swatches, using silk organza and cotton.

Thanks to some suggestions from my amazing fibre artist friend, Amanda, I played a bit with binding coins and chopsticks, using wire and rubberbands. I was quite pleased with the effect that the coins gave with the patina.

As a result...when constructed into one

of the bodices for one of my SKIN pieces.

On this piece, I layered dyed silk organza over dyed plain cotton weave to give the piece a more ethereal feeling; kinda like "cells in the body or just below our skin"

This bodice is part of my "protective" piece.

a younger me in my 'older designs'

Ye Ole Days

I've been going through some old photos of my previous lines...

from long long ago...

as if they are from a "galaxy far far away"...

My earliest women's line of clean lines and symmetry...

My most enjoyed men's jacket line, cut short by my accident...it remains fondly stored in my memory...

We all need outlets

My one creative outlet while finishing gradschool is being part of the Y Collective - a collaborative team of artists/designers based in MI



Here is a snippet of the EMU annual fashion show, featuring the Y Collective...theme: collapse.

Our pieces are mostly very conceptual.



My pieces are "tunic squared": the black and white pieces that come out together. I layered silk organza with nuno felting, using different wool fibres, and hung hand spun yarn (thanks to Amanda) with 'collapsing' asymmetric sleeves.



The lighting and video angles aren't 'great', but it gives you the idea.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXafH67XNd8&feature=player_embedded

Farewell to genius

The fashion industry was shocked yesterday by the tragic news of Alexander McQueen's suicide.

I personally felt a profound loss, as he was certainly one of my favourite contemporary designers; and I admired him for not only his creative genius, but also the 'humbleness of his spotlight appearances'. There are so many 'big' people in the limelight these days, so many from whom to choose as inspirations...some might even call them "heroes"...so it is all the more sorrowful to have lost an inspiration who set a positive example for the creative generations.

Long live the creative genius of Alexander McQueen and may he rest in peace!

Fantastic flat pattern designs - Japan

http://www.fashion-incubator.com/archive/pattern_puzzle_pattern_magic/