June 25th – Summer print fabrics and embellished cons
I hope your summer is off to a great start! I have been enjoying cycling up to the top of the Niagara Escarpment in the evenings – it smells sooooo good up there. Sunlight dappling through the foliage, so many wild flowers, lots of wildlife. I have had zero time to garden, but a bunch of seeds I planted last year have sprung up with unexpected flowers this year which has been a delightful surprise. Plus we have our little fire bowl set up. I just want to be outside all the time.
I spent some time last week brainstorming themes and ideas for the next six week’s worth of newsletters (and their accompanying blog posts – hint – you get more content and special offers through the newsletter! ?). And I love getting questions from you – they really help me decide on the tutorials and information I divvy up for each theme.
Today’s theme is embellishing on print fabrics!
This week’s inspo round up:
The prints I chose for this theme project!
I rarely work with print fabrics, so I am enjoying the ways this is stretching me. I am approaching these much more similarly to my client work than my “freestyle” work. When I come to my client beading, not only do I usually have inspo and some style directives from the client, I also have fabrics in front of me. Lace, netting, what have you. By contrast, when I show up to my freestyle beading, I usually base it on the colour and beads I want to use. I usually use sheer tulle, and I just play around and see what happens.
I walked all around the fabric supplier and my eye was drawn to these two prints. I liked the burnout quality of the both (always love sheer), and the colours in the watercolour one. I’m going to start with the watercolour one. I went to my stash (which fortunately was all spread out on the floor as I was putting together some surprise bags for some of my newsletter subscribers) and just let my eye fall on whatever I felt I wanted to pull out of the print. Here is what I chose:
I have a ton of client beading to complete this week, but since my embellished cons are almost done, I can work away on this in my extra moments. I’ll update you on the outcome ?
Embellished Converse All-Stars
It’s no secret: high-top chucks are my all time, life-long favourite shoes. Been rocking these babies for 30 years. As I mentioned on insta a while back, I won this pair in an online contest a few years ago, but when they arrived, they were a size too small. I decided to kit them out with a coral-look – I’ve been whittling away at them here and there over the last six weeks between client work and newsletter stuff. I am just about finished, I just have some little gaps to fill in. These are a size 6/6.5 womens, and I’ll be posting them for a giveaway later this week on Instagram. I’m excited to make another pair in my own size (high-tops, of course. And probably black). I’ll be doing an Etsy shop update soon, and I will be offering customized embellished cons there. Stay tuned if you are interested in very over-the-top shoes!