Indian doodles and dress-making

Indian doodles and designs

I love the vibrant, highly saturated colours that are so special to Rajasthan. Here are some bits of art-work and a couple of stitch-samples from the Diploma course, based on Indian motifs. Designing and making the dress that I mentioned in my previous post seemed like a great opportunity to to explore these Indian themes further.

Machine-embroidered Indian design

Machine-embroidered Indian design

Indian block-print

Indian block-print

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Counter-change design in felt

Counter-change design in felt

 

 

I had reached the doom-and-disaster phase of the project (does everyone get that I wonder???) when luckily my fellow Diploma students and I had one of our get-togethers. Settled in the sun in Elaine’s garden, I had the full focus of three ‘helpers’ to re-pin, adapt, cut and re-tweak the prototype. There was also great encouragement not to abandon the project. I think we ended up with something that looks less like a hospital gown and more like a dress!

 

Dyed viscose silk velvet

Dyed viscose silk velvet

On that basis I unpicked the prototype and made a new pattern, and dyed the viscose silk velvet to make the finished piece. Here’s the dyed fabric. I love viscose silk velvet because of the way it drapes, and catches the light as it moves. It soaks up dye in great thirsty gulps, which means you can achieve a really highly saturated colour. 3 metres of heavy fabric would be difficult to dye evenly by hand, so I did it in the washing-machine using Dylon machine-dye. Strangely, Dylon don’t seem to have a deep mid-red, so I used a tub of Orange and a tub of pinky-red. Luckily my theory worked, and it came out a deep mid-red colour. Designs for the neck and hem are based on the doodles below, which are a kind of embellished Taj-Mahal motif. Underneath that are some stitch samples for the dress (Janet trained us well!) Now the dress is half-made-up and I’ve started the machine-stitching on soluble fabric round the neck. I hope it works out OK. Eek! Watch this space!

Gold ink project cover

Gold ink project cover

Indian doodles - detail

Indian doodles – detail

Dress designs

Dress design

Machine embroidered stitch sample. Soluble fabric and viscose silk velvet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 thoughts on “Indian doodles and dress-making

  1. Penny

    Jane
    Very many congratulations on your recent medal success – very well deserved.
    I love the blog, keep writing and I’ll keep readings.
    On the brink of completing my diploma, hopefully some freedom from the restrictions of C & G lurks around the corner.
    Best wishes, Penny

    Reply
    1. Jane Post author

      Penny,
      Good to hear from you – thanks for the encouragement. I’m glad to hear that your Diploma is coming along – ten out of ten for persistence! I’m planning to come up to see the Diploma show on the 14th, so hopefully I’ll see you then.
      All the best,
      Jane.

      Reply

Your comments welcome here

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *