Making and Creativity

Check this out.
Make and meaning  explores issues pertaining to the crafting world, but many of these issues are relevant on a wider scale to people who make all kinds of things. 
I am SO lucky to be able to sew for a living- but while I'm sewing window treatments all day, my mind is exploding with all the zillion ideas for other textile journeys that I never have enough time to take.
I wish I knew why I feel so consumed by these ideas.  They never stop even though I make such slow progress in making them become reality. 
Soon I hope I'll begin mixing into this blog some of these ideas, projects, and dreams, because these are what fill up my inner life while I'm busy working.
Working as I do, fabricating custom products on a wholesale basis to the trade only, I appear to be in a creative business, but since I'm making what someone else has envisioned, it doesn't feel very creative much of the time.  Although there are projects on which I have more design input than on other projects, still, I am not the principal "imaginer" in most cases.
My dream, as far as window treatments go, is to be able to design and sell fabulous treatments that people will want to own as art pieces, and will go to the trouble of decorating around!
I think this must become a goal for me.

Two little cuties

Here are two little cuties before heading out to their desitinations.  I was in a hurry to get a picture before they were picked up,  so I didn't have time to dress them, which is why they were a little disheveled as they sat for their photos.  The returns need fixing, and I wanted to raise the striped shade but forgot; also I can see one tassel on the hobbled shade needs adjusting.  And the gathers on that funny little topper desperately need attention.
 

Dressing is such an important part of window treatments!  Here in the studio we usually don't see the treatment at its best because there's not much point in fully dressing it when it's just going to be wrapped up and put in a truck anyhow.  We dress enough to make sure everything is cool, then the installer or decorator re-dresses at the installation.

Window treatments look so much better in their homes than they do here, on speaker stands!

Osborne & Little shades

Osborne and Little is one of my favorite fabric vendors.  I am lucky enough to live near one of their warehouses, and when they have a sale, it is irresistable!
I picked up a few fabrics for myself at the last warehouse sale, and I'm thinking I should get a good photo of the sofa and chair I had upholstered with O & L fabrics and show them off.
Meantime, here is one of the 3 shades just finished.

Scraps

One of the best perks of owning a workroom is- all the scraps that are left from cutting.
Here are two sides of a width of fabric after the shade was cut from the center.
There were 3 shades, but for this one shade the cut just happened to go through the centers of the flowers, leaving a row of half-flowers on each side.  How cool is that?
What if I re-joined them with a sunny orange band, a scrap from some drapery banding; and maybe bordered with another drapery cutoff, or perhaps with some of my ubiquitous ancient Waverly star fabric?
Table runner?
Something from nothing!

Through a sheer, darkly

The only way you'll ever see what's on the other side of this shade is for you to come here and see it in person!  If it gets into a photo it's only by accident.  This section is the real work area, where reside all the spools of welt, buckram, zipper tape, shirring tapes, threads, velcro, and all that other stuff.  Current projects being sewed, scraps and threads thereof, pieces of things people bring me to look at, or take apart, or hold onto til they come back, or stuff, or fix, or whatever; all kinds of junk; they all sit back in this area.   I wish I could hide most of the workroom behind shades like this.  This is the silk sheer with jute rope, twill tape banding, and linen sheer lining, from yesterday.  It looks spectacular.

I think I'll just leave at this for today- I have more pictures of today's work but I think I'll save them til the projects are done.  

Tonight on the Olympic broadcast is Apolo Ohno and Shawn White- I brought hand-sewing work home with me to do in front of the TV. 

Another Sheer Shade challenge

Here is a sheer shade challenge for which I needed to find a fabrication method.
The face fabric is a silk sheer with jute rope woven in horizontally.
The lining is a loosely woven yet stiff linen sheer.
In the first photo you can see both fabrics laying next to the tabled shade which is being prepared.
Around the sides and bottom is a twill tape 1 3/16" wide to be folded in half and wrapped around to the back.
First I used fusible adhesive webbing to fuse the edges of the 3 sides- it is narrower than the twill tape and won't show.  I wanted to do this to keep the edges from fraying.
Then I laid the tape on the back and fused it, then wrapped to the front and fused again, mitering the corners as I went.
From the front I topstitched close to the edge.
The rings are sewn on by hand, into the jute rope so no stitches show from the front.
I wrapped the weight bar with the twill tape- it just exactly made it around the weight rod and I whip-stitched it shut, then sewed it to the shade at the rings, so the rings are mostly bearing the weight.
The last picture shows the shade from the wrong side, the rod sewn to the rings.  It might need more securing but I'll wait til it's hanging to determine whether or not that will be necessary.
That's as far as I've gotten- it's now ready to be stapled and strung- and I'll add those pictures later.
I love sheer shade challenges!  They're my favorite shades to make, and nearly every one presents a unique challenge.  Finding the solution is my favorite part of my work.
Ta-da!

Weird fabric karma

 

Can you believe that all these fabrics, which together create a beautiful palette, are for SEVEN different customers?

And that they are all for shades, and that they are all being worked on together as a group?

This is one of the weird things that happens in this studio all the time.