Hello friends,
Happy new week! Today I am sharing another fabric-based journal page inspired by the VINTAGE theme over on Art Journal Journey where this month’s lovely host is Wendy K.
This is another fabric I pulled out during the week of reorganising the stash! I love this one and had forgotten about it. It makes for a lovely black background for a change with all the bright vintage dress forms on it. I do love a black background with something really bright on it. I also love dress forms, or perhaps you call them tailor’s dummies or mannequins?
It started out the same way as the others by sticking it to the page with gel medium and leaving it to dry overnight. This is what it looked like before I got started on it. I trimmed the extra bits off and then got out my machine and did some stitching with white thread around the borders and some vertically down the pages.
Then I took a white and a gold pen and drew some outlines around all the dress forms and then wondered what else I could write on the page so I started to write down everything I’ve ever made by sewing. At one time, I used to make all my own clothes, everything from winter coats to summer dresses, trousers to swimwear, and soft furnishings like curtains and cushions. One of my favourite things to design and make was/is handbags, I enjoy the designing part of it especially and how to construct something that will function as a container.
I used the same gold pen to turn all the little fabric squares into little square gifts adding gold ribbons and bows and because of the quote that I used, I also drew pockets on all of the dress forms!
I wrote the quote out on some black card scraps using the same white pen, glued them in place and outlines them with the same white pen. The quote came from a book I was reading about the history of fashion. According to this book, this was the first time women’s clothing actually had pockets as part of the garment, the full quote reads:
“When pockets were first added to women’s clothing in 1913, a Paris reporter wrote, “It’s all over with men’s superiority over women.” Pockets are indeed indispensable, and they come in two types: patch and set-in” ? Claire B. Shaeffer, Sew Any Set-In Pocket
Prior to that there were additions to clothing like “tie-on pockets” which were very popular since about the 1600s and were a lot like bags. I saw there is an exhibition on at the moment at the V & A about bags – I’ve made a lot of bags and would have loved to see the exhibition but it’s in London. Anyway, you can find out how to make your own tie-on pockets on their website if you feel like taking a trip to the past.
So that’s my page for today, challenge details are below. Let me know what you think in the comments. As always, thanks for reading!
Ingredients
my handmade journal, watercolour paper, fabric, gel medium, glue, white pen, gold pen, sewing machine, white thread, black card scraps,
Challenges
Art Journal Journey – Vintage – September Challenge
SSS Monday Challenge – Touchy Feely (texture) Challenge
Blog Along with Effy – Day 27
Links to all the days of the September blog-along
Sept 1st – UFOs Tapestry Cushion and Harris Tweed TBD
Sept 2nd – Second on the Second – e-reader covers
Sept 3rd – There is no enjoyment like reading
Sept 4th – A Day in the Garden and UFO update
Sept 5th – Begin the Beguine
Sept 6th – She Sells Seashells on the Seashore
Sept 7th – Vintage Children Doing Vintage Things
Sept 8th – WOYWW Desk, Garden, Kitties, Kitchen and Blog Along One Week In
Sept 9th – August Reading List
Sept 10th – Sorry Not Sorry
Sept 11th – A Peek Inside The Fabric Stash
Sept 12th – Garden Catch-Up, Bees, Cats, Cat Mint
Sept 13th – Happy Roald Dahl Day!
Sept 14th – T Stands for Banana Bread
Sept 15th – WOYWW Arts & Crafts Storage
Sept 16th – The Cat Sat on Andy Warhol’s Mat
Sept 17th – Needles and Ribbons and Packets of Pins
Sept 18th – A Woman’s Work is Never Done
Sept 19th – Talk Like A Pirate – The RRRs of Recycling
Sept 20th – She Is an old soul with a vintage heart
Sept 21st – T Stands For Tweed, Model Kitty, and Decaf
Sept 22nd – I was ready for the roaring 20s
Sept 23rd – Hang the moon garland
Sept 24th – The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes
Sept 25th – Everything is Groovy Baby Yeah
Sept 26th – Things I learned from my Dad
Sept 27th – this post
This month I decided to join in with Effy Wild’s blog-along – 30 posts in 30 days same as we did in April this year. The idea is to blog every day if you can, but also to comment on other people’s blogs to keep the conversation going. There is a facebook group where you can link your posts and find other people’s to go visit and comment.
Oh goodness this is lovely!! I love what you did with the fabric.
I saw a thing floating around the web. I don’t know how true it is, Google isn’t
really helping much.
But it says that pockets were removed from women’s dresses to prove they
weren’t witches and that they weren’t carrying around ill-intentions and spells.
Somehow that doesn’t surprise me, if it is true.
That page is GORGEOUS! And who doesn’t love pockets??!!
Love that! Just perfect. xoxo
Another beautiful fabric!
Gorgeous journal page! Love the way you followed that prompt.
And thanks to the link to the V&A – I’ve been thinking about making myself a pocket to wear around home & garden when I’m wearing my comfy but pocket-less track pants.
But oooh! that frog bag from the exhibition! Soooo wonderful!
I really like what you did with the fabric. It is great fabric by itself, but definitely better with your additions. There’s much for interest for the eye. Thanks for sharing for Wendy’s challenge Elle. And happy new week. Hugs-Erika
Another fabulous fabric, they really are fabulous. thank you so much for your support on Art Journal Journey this month, much appreciated.
Hi Elle – I love this page – so bright with those dressforms against that black background to begin with but made so much more of with all the stitching and pen work you put in. Really fab!
Hope you are feeling a lot better.
Hugs, Neet xx