Wedding Lane, Old Dehli

Heather MacCrimmon's Project Runway

I've always loved Project Runway, the reality show that searches for the next fab fashion designer ("One day you're in, the next you're out").  If you don't know it, each week presents a new competitive sewing challenge where the contestants have, let's say, 5 hours to shop for fabric and make 3 outfits that can be worn to a ball by Serina Williams (or some such).   When I saw an article about costume designer Heather MacCrimmon I couldn't help but think what a great PR challenge this would be.....namely, she takes the fantasy drawings of children too young to be influenced by the fashion industry and turns them into real clothes.  How utterly adorable!  Check it out....

Artist and model: Anne Marie Perlewitz, age 7

 Artist: Ella Ottersbach (photograph by M. Luder)

You are awesome Heather!!  (read the full article here).  I'm thinking I should fire up the old sewing machine and make the William Morris outfits my aunt Anne designed for me last year!

Yup!  It is fashion week in NYC again....

More on Molas....

Mola are the iconic craft of Panama, made by the Kuna Indian women as part of their traditional dress.  An authentic mola takes two weeks to six months to make and starts its life as part of a paired set that make the front and back panel of a dress top.  They originated in the 19th century as fabrics became more widely available from colonizers and they are inspired by the traditional body painting of the Kuna.  Mola are constructed with a reverse applique technique and one of the criteria by which the quality and value of a mola is judged is how many cut-away layers were used in the construction.  Other qualities to look for include: originally used as a dress, not just made for tourists; fineness of stitches and evenness and width of cutouts; complexity of embroidery and stitched designs; and overall artistry of color and design.

I found a wonderful shop in the Casco Viejo section of Panama that sold antique mola that had already been made into pillows.  I am on the road again and left the shop info at home but will add the specific details here at a later date (it was around the corner from the renowned ice cream shop). 

  (all click to enlarge)

 

 

 

Toronto's giant thimble

 

(photo by Peggy Hilliard)

When I saw this out of a taxi window today I knew I must be in a fashion district!  Wish there was time to explore the fabric and button shops....

What's knot to like?

incredible colors...women knotting Anatolian carpets in Goreme, Turkey

 a silk wonder...

 

tea break

 

the young Turks selling in the showroom...

O Pioneer! William Morris Lace

 

 I went through my lace curtain phase in the 1990s but this new design from Cooper's Cottage Lace might just make me reconsider!  It would look right at home in my Morris Chrysanthemum dining room.  Great stuff Dan!

Acorn inspiration?

A fifteenth century fabric in the Basilica museum....the inspiration for Acorn (1879)?  Did Morris ever visit Assissi on his travels through Italy?  Tony?

Some Lovely Linen, V & A Collection I

An embroidered hanging made in 1896 at the Haslemere Peasant Industries workshop in Surrey, an artisans collaborative started by Godfrey Blount in 1894.  Haslemere Peasant Industries served as a marketing organization for local craftspeople and supported a London shop for the sale of work. This panel, one of the "Peasant Tapestries", is made using applique of linen on linen with the edging in linen thread.  It was designed by Godfrey Blount.

 A stenciled linen panel, characterized by soft colors and stylized motifs, designed and executed by George Walton in 1898.  Panels such as this were used as wall decorations.  This one, measuring about 2.5 by 6 feet was up over a door in the V&A.

 The central courtyard of the Victoria & Albert Museum, William Morris's home away from home.....

Have you ever walked through spider silk?

Along a sidewalk?  In the woods?  In your garden shed?  It feels a bit sticky, is translucent.  Now imagine that thread is still sticky but is gold----it is from a Nephila madagascariensis, a female Golden Orb spider from Madagascar.  And imagine you had dozens of people collecting a million of these spiders from around the city and countryside over the course of four years.  And then another few dozen spider-techs "milking" the spider silk for a few hours before releasing her, the spider, back into the wild.  And then you took hundreds of individual silk strands and twisted them to make a single thread.  And then you wove those golden threads into a cultural tapestry 11 feet by 4 feet in dimension......

Wouldn't you then have something of singular and mystical beauty!?!

You can see this one of a kind shawl at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City-----and watch a video about its story here.

From the MNH website:  "This unique textile was created drawing on the legacy of a French missionary, Jacob Paul Camboué, who worked with spiders in Madagascar in the 1880s and 1890s. Camboué worked to collect and weave spider silk but with limited success, and no surviving textile is now known to exist. Previously, the only known spider-silk textile of note was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and it was subsequently lost."

Which brings us to the second episode of my fabulous new TV show, America's Most Wanted: Arts and Craft Edition......in case you missed the first episode, click here.

Aboriginal Batik from Central Australia

These photos are from a gorgeous book, Across the Desert: Aboriginal Batik from Central Australia by Judith Ryan, that I bought last year in Melbourne.  If you have any interest in batik or aboriginal art it would be a beautiful addition to your library.

Artist from Utopia applying wax to silk with a canting.

Peggy Napurrurla Poulson, Warlpiri, Yarla Jukurrpa (Bush yam Dreaming) 1986 Batik on cotton

 

Tjunkaya Tapaya, Pitjantjatjara, Raiki wara 1994 batik on silk

Yipati Kuyata, Pitjantjatjara, Raiki wara, 1989, batik on silk organza

Imiyari (Yilpi) Adamson, Pitjantjatjara, Raiki wara, c. 1988, batik on silk

Emily Kam Kngwarray, Anmatyerr, Kam (Pencil yam seed), 1988, batik on silk

 Ada Bird Petyarr, Anmatyerr, Arnkerrth then Ngangkar (Mountain devil lizard and traditional healer), 1991, batik on silk 
 

Lena Skinner Ngal, Anmetyerr, Untitled 2007, batik on silk

Tjunkaya Tapaya, Pitjantjatjara, Raiki wara, 2007, batik on silk.

A Raiki is a "long cloth"