Moved

You can find my new place at this link.  Come over and visit, new art and design ideas. Patterns, and classes.

Fashion Friday

A sneak peak of my new black and white collection

I am doing a trade show next week, it is quite different from a retail show.  It is for handmade/micro businesses.  There has been several articles about how trade shows and the big fashion week shows will soon need to rethink their concept.  Large shows  are extremely expensive, and so tends to represent huge corporate type business and most of the items are massed produced  in other countries.  It was quite disheartening trying a big show and the boys  and I are  setting a simple hand crafted booth next to a big company with a full construction crew putting up a mini department store.  In today’s economy I think the smaller shows will be much more important.  Online sources will be important, but I do feel that buyers do like to see products in person, especially for buying new work.  The BMAC and ACRE type shows seem much more important in this economy as well.  I think people are looking for unique items,  really appreciate the craftsmanship that goes into making items on a small scale, and can meet a speak with the people who are doing the work.  These shows are doing a good job of scaling down a bit and offering incentives to help artisans participate.

I titled this Fashion Friday, and I do feel this relates to discussions in the past about what we want to wear and making and wearing unique/creative fashions and sourcing products  made with more thought to social justice and environmental issues.  It is all about trying to find a balance for me, I use new and reclaimed materials and do some smaller trade shows to get meet the buyers and will be selling on line soon.

This is my last post for this blog everything will be on the new format Tuesday.

http://angeliaarmstrongdesign.com

Looking to the Future

 

 

It has been a long couple of years for me, with all that has happened-the studio fire and closing my retail store.  Now all the legal  issues are almost over and I can finally see some light.  I have had to redesign and restructure my business plan and everything that goes with it.  Z has been working on my new blog/website design and it is about ready. We have designed all the print materials.  It will be great having everything tied together.   We will be launching it next week, just in time for the BMAC show in Baltimore.   The rest of this week will be super busy, but I am excited for the new start.  Anyway I always get my best ideas at the last minute.

Fashion Friday

There has been a lot of fashion talk around here lately.  I have been working with the girls in my teen sewing workshop, they are learning a lot about sewing, for most this is the first complete garment they have made.  We are working on a fun tunic, with mixed fabric sections-it has an apron like feel.

Also this week there has been a great discussion of fashion over 50 with Julia Moulden and she has a new book “Ripe” about the topic.  So this has been at the other end of the spectrum from my teens.  But it all works for me.  I love working with the the students and talking about their style ideas and projects. I also think People of any age want to look good but also be comfortable.  But for me it also has to be creatively unique.  Even when I am 80 I will still be looking at and learning about  all the fashion and style out there, it is what I do.

Here are some items I made a while back.  Part of the silk painting I spoke about in my last post.

                                                         

Summer Styles

For many years I painted silk.  I read about the technique when it was just starting to become popular.  I had always love surface design so, with the limited resources at the time (before internet) taught myself how to do it.  It was a great learning process.  I still love working in that medium, but there came a time when I just couldn’t make any more scarves and need to make some products that could be more easily reproduced for my wholesale line.

I also love combining different fabrics for the texture it creates.  I am working on some new larger wraps, with ties and buttons, that can be worn in many different ways.  Here is one of the summer looks. Silk Dupioni and organza, with jersey knit ties-from re-purposed tee shirts.

What do you think?

I like how it can be made into a hood type wrap and how the extra ties drape all around when not in use.

Bags and Tiles and Fiber Classes

Tiles and Hispter Bags Ready to Ship, a photo by Angelia*A on Flickr.

It is really busy here right now, one more order to ship and teen sewing class to start Thursday. Tonight I am going to try to get out to the Suffolk Art League member show opening, at the Suffolk Art Gallery If you are local try to come out, always a great show with many local artst’s work to see.

Friday Fashion

It is so busy here for the beginning of summer, and no vacation in site.  I a preparing for the BMAC  wholesale show in Baltimore and that means many things.  Besides all the products(they have added a retail day) I have to always tweak my booth display and.. finding/creating something to wear.  That is the thing when you work in a fashion and home accessories, people always expect you to wear some of your own designs.  So I am in the middle of sewing new and remaking old items for my summer wardrobe.  I find summer the trickiest season for clothing.  It is really too hot to be covered but there are things that need to be covered.

Here sre some of my current inspirations.

The first two are from Ocelot clothing, had dyed naturals, in California.  Knits area always great for travel and I love the colors.

The cool casualness of linen in the summer works so well.  These are from Crea Concept a French designer.

I hope I can get some photos of my pieces as soon as they are done.   So many skirts so little time.  What do you find interesting with summer fashion this year?

Print and Other Media

It has been a long time since I bought a book or magazine.  I have a large collection and since online resources are so plentiful,  I did not feel like I needed to get any more resource materials.  It was also a problem with what was available, in design products especially.  All the new books for a while, were not that interesting, or were overly simplistic for my needs.   Recently I have noticed some new items out there and I may have give up some of my old collection and save up for a couple of new things.

This book “Decorate” looks lovely, I had a chance to see a copy at Anthropologie, and I have been a follower of Holly and Decor8 since the beginning.

 

I first read about Lotta Jansdotter in Selvedge Magazine several years ago.  She has many other books, some in Japanese, but I am always interested in studio spaces so “Open Spaces” looks intriguing.

 

And this last book is just me, texture, stitching, collage,  “Drawn to Stitch:  Line Drawing, and Mark Making in Textile Art.”