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