Art Shirts Article

There is an article about the six painted sleeveless blouses I made this summer in the October/November 2013 issue of Quilting Arts Magazine on page 62.  It hits newsstands tomorrow.

The article has info about why I made the blouses, as well as information about how you can make your own too. You can find out more about this issue of the magazine here.

Uni-T!

I'm trying something a little different. For the month of August, I'm the guest artist at Uni-T at the Natick Mall, in Natick, MA.

For sale at the store, are greeting cards and giclee prints of my work, as well as handprinted T-shirts, small paintings, and my book, Uncommon Cards.

There are 25 different greeting cards, which are cropped details of paintings. The color and detail is really nice, and I think they look awesome!

Also at the store are giclee prints of three paintings, in both matted and framed options. They're a good opportunity for someone who would like to buy one of my paintings, but don't have the resources to do so.

And, the only location to buy my handprinted T-shirts, besides online, is at Uni-T. Store visitors can see the detail of the monoprinting up close, and they can also try them on. Women's sizes small, medium, large and extra-large are available.

I'd like to thank store owner and fellow artist, Eujin Kim, for inviting me to exhibit at Uni-T for the month of August.

What to Wear at the Opening?

The Opening Reception for Art in the Park, at Elm Park in Worcester, MA
 is tonight from 5 - 8pm. There's always the question, what to wear at an Opening where you have work on exhibit. Since I made six sleeveless tops out of my own printed fabric a few months ago, the more specific question becomes, which shirt to wear?

I've decided to wear the top that is as similar as possible to Fence Holes Bandage 2.0, my piece in the show.

Fence Holes Bandage 2.0, is on exhibit at Art in the Park, from July 27 - October 13, 2013.

Introducing… T-shirts

Introducing… Fence Grids | Bodies my new series of t-shirts.

Fence Grids | Bodies explores the interplay of human shape and movement with my signature construction-fence-inspired hand-printed grids. Each t-shirt, intended for sale and wear, is monoprinted by hand on both sides, signed, and numbered in a limited edition.

The first series is black on white. Original monoprinted design on purchased cotton t-shirt, signed and numbered. Softly form-fitting, pre-washed, machine-washable. Women’s sizes S, M, L, XL.

For ordering information and additional pictures, please visit Fence Grids | Bodies page on my website.

Six Art Shirts

I had a lot of fun making six sleeveless cotton blouses for summer this past week. Three of the blouses are made out of drop cloths that caught the fabric paint that soaked through different pieces of art I've created over the years, and three of the shirts have my signature construction fences monoprinted on them.

Above is the front of one drop cloth blouse, and below the back. I love how asymmetrical they are, and how colorful!

Drop cloth blouse. Above is the front, and below the back.

Another drop cloth blouse. Above is the front, and below the back.

Part drop cloth, part monoprinted construction fence holes blouse, front and back.

Signature monoprinted construction fence blouse front. Note the polka dot outside zipper on the back below.

This is the first blouse I made, a cotton sleeveless blouse with a peplum, which I monoprinted after it was fully sewn. A little scary doing it that way, but it worked out great I think.

More details about this project will be available in the fall issue of a craft magazine who invited me to write an article about it. I'll post the info when the magazine comes out, so you can pick up a copy if you're interested in knowing more.

Drop Cloth Shirt

I made a new sleeveless cotton summer blouse out of a drop cloth. Most of the front of the blouse is from my new (almost completed) Fractured Fence Repaired series. The black squares are the extra paint that soaked onto the drop cloth when  handstamping Fractured Fence Repaired #2, which will be on exhibit at Danforth Art this summer, with rubber erasers.

The back is mostly from Fence Curtain 2.0, which was on exhibit at the Boston Center for the Arts last summer. It's fun to give the fabric a new use, and it'll be fun to wear the blouse out and about.

Last week I made a blouse with a peplum, that I monoprinted on after sewing it. This shirt was already painted and hand stamped before I cut the fabric out.

Up next I hope, is a similar blouse with the monoprint of a square gridded construction fence. I'm hoping it's not too much work matching up the grids after sewing the darts. If it's successful, I'll post a picture. If not...

Printing on Clothing

I’ve always wanted to be able to wear my art, as well as display it.

When my studio-mate, Merill Comeau, printed and painted a men’s dress shirt, and then tailored it to fit her, I was really inspired to make something for myself.

Tuesday night I made a sleeveless white cotton blouse with a peplum, and yesterday, I monoprinted a construction fence on it.

I’m very inspired to make some more tops, and I’m going to investigate making them for others.

Jeanne Repairs Jeans

I am having way too much fun repairing my husband's jeans.


A lot of new holes have appeared since my last post back in February. Instead of patching them from the front, I'm patching them from behind. Each of the three pairs being repaired have their own color of patching denim and thread, so they each have a different "look", if I can borrow the term from Project Runway.


So far this pair has mainly been repairs on the edges of the pockets, but I have a fair amount of the striped denim for when it's needed.

Repurposed, Recycled, Reconstructed, Upcycled, Redesigned, Tweaked Sweaters

I've started to repurpose, recycle, reconstruct, upcycle, redesign, and tweak, used sweaters. I'm not sure what the appropriate word is. Maybe all of them are?

Above is the first sweater, in process, without buttons (yet). Below is what it looked like before I started. It was a pullover, and now it's got new life as a cardigan. I know I should wait to post it with buttons, but I wanted to share my progress so far.



... and ...


Above is the front of the second sweater, and the back is below. I felted the black wool dots on the entire front, and the back top and bottom edges. I did the back this way because I can't felt the sleeves, and I wanted to make sure the design worked as a whole. I'm thinking about replacing the buttons.


Below is the sweater as it was before I started working on it.


You can read about how this project got started in my "Planning Ahead to Next Fall/Winter" post on March 2nd.

I have plus or minus 50 sweaters that I will be working on in the coming weeks, and I hope to be finished by the end of the summer. That includes giving them all a makeover, sewing all buttons on as needed, and adding my own label (which I need to design).

As I said on March 2nd, I don't know where or how I will sell them, or for how much. If you have any suggestions about where (besides etsy.com) and how, please send me an email at jeanne@jeannewilliamson.com. I would love to hear suggestions and get feedback.

Planning Ahead to Next Fall/Winter

For the past few years, I have decorated, re-designed, and given new life to, some of my wool sweaters. (If you click this link, scroll down to see the posts about my sweaters.) Some of my sweaters were too small and needed to be enlarged slightly. Some were pullovers that I made in to cardigans. Some were boring, and needed to be livened up.

Since I started doing this, many people have asked me when I was going to start selling sweaters to others, instead of only doing my own. Well, I have decided that I am going to work on tweaking used sweaters, and start selling them by next fall at the latest.

Now that I'm starting to work on this project, I need wool or wool blend sweaters. Many of them. A local used clothing store had an 80% off sale this weekend, so I visited three of their locations, as well as another used clothing store nearby one of them. I bought a total of 27 wool, wool blend, and cashmere sweaters, in various sizes, colors and patterns. I need to plan a few more trips to some more used clothing stores, to get more sweaters in a variety of sizes.

My next step is to look at each sweater, make a plan for what to do with it, and then find/buy rickrack, fringes, lace, buttons, and etc, and start cutting and sewing. This is going to be fun. I hope to take as many pictures about this project as I can, and share them here on my blog.

I don't know where or how I will sell them, nor for how much. If you have any suggestions about where (besides etsy.com) and how, please send me an email at jeanne@jeannewilliamson.com. I would love to hear suggestions and get feedback.

Inauguration Day!

How glorious that Inauguration Day is today, and we can finally say "President Obama."

Besides taking some time away from work today, to watch history in the making, I'm very interested in two art related things. One is I'm looking forward to hearing Elizabeth Alexander, who is today's inauguration poet. She will read a new poem, that from what I've heard, no one has heard or will hear, including President Obama, until the big moment.

Even though that President Obama is our forty-fourth president of the United States, there have only been three other inauguration poets before today. They are Robert Frost for John F. Kennedy, and Maya Angelou for the first, and Miller Williams for the second, of Bill Clinton's inaugurations.

The other thing I'm looking forward to, is seeing what Michelle Obama wears for all of the events. I love fashion, and I am very excited about our new First Lady's taste in clothing. When I was a little girl, my mother told me that Jackie Kennedy had good, timeless taste in clothing, and that I should try to consider that in my clothing choices. Looking back on Jackie, I think she was actually quite fashionable at the time, and it wasn't timeless, but she did have very good taste. Michelle Obama has great taste, and it feels like her choices are timeless, or at least at the moment it feels that way.

Phewy on Ann Coulter (someone that I think very un-highly of), who had some very not nice things to say about Michelle Obama's way of dress during the campaign. I love how she dresses and I'm going to enjoy four, and hopefully eight, years of watching Michelle Obama's clothing choices. Hooray for smart and authentic women who like nice, practical, affordable clothes, and hooray also for pearls (real or fake).

For everyone reading this, have a wonderful day today!

Another Sweater

I couldn't help myself. I have an old Ann Taylor sweater from the sales rack 8-10 years ago, that's very comfortable, with a nice zipper closure, but I felt that it was a little boring. I've been trying to think of how I could tweak it to make it more funky, and I couldn't come up with anything. Then, all of the sudden I realized that it would be fun to give it a collar and some patch pockets.


In the attic was an old sweater that may have been my husbands (?) that I had already cut up for some other project. It has a nice black/white/grey knitted herringbone type of a pattern, that I thought would work well with this sweater. I cut four few strips that were 1.5" tall and sewed them on to make the "collar". Then I added the two patch pockets in the front, because it needed some balance.

The collar is reminiscent of the peter pan collars from yesteryear, which I have always been fond of. Now the sweater is funkier, and I'll enjoy wearing it as though it was brand new. Total dollar cost = nothing. Total time = 20 minutes.

You can see other sweaters I've tweaked by clicking here.

Tweaked Sweaters part 3

I finished making my purple sweater into a cardigan from a pullover. Once again, cut the sweater front right down the middle to open it up, and I used very large black rick rack as the button holes, and black velvet covered buttons. I also decided to fold the upper part of the "collar" back, and embellish it with a small rick rack that has white and gray embroidery on it. I really like how it turned out. Not bad for an old, unworn sweater from the sale rack at Marshalls. I wore it to a 50th birthday party yesterday, and it was really comfortable. Yeah.


Other sweaters I've recently tweaked can be seen here, and here. There are some others I did a few years ago, which I will post ASAP.

Tweaked Sweaters part 2

This is a Banana Republic pullover sweater, from the sale rack many many years ago, that I just tweaked from a pullover into a cardigan. Above is the buttoned up view, and below unbuttoned. (Please note that this is a black and gray wool sweater, not the black with blue/purple. The light in my studio wasn't very good when I photographed it.)


I'm tweaking my sweaters because I find wearing pullovers too warm at this stage of my life. Being able to unbutton at a moments notice is important these days.


I needle felted white wool fleece squares for the button holes, on a strip of black wool fabric, so it has a nice contrasting graphic element. Then I stitched it to one side of the opened sweater. Detail pictures above and below. (The other side of the opened sweater has plan black fabric attached.)


I tweaked a few other sweaters a few weeks ago. You can see them here. I have another one I'm about to sew buttons on, and will post soon. A few years ago I tweaked 4 or 5 others, and will try to take pictures and post ASAP.

I discovered a blog called "Wardrobe Refashion", and on it is a post by someone else who has also "revamped" her sweater from a turtleneck to a cardigan. It's fun seeing what others are doing to their clothing.

Tweaking Sweaters

I have some pullover sweaters that I like, but since I'm at that point in my life when I'm either cold, or suddenly warm, I now hesitate to wear them since they can't opened (or removed) quickly and easily. This past weekend, I decided that tweaking two of these sweaters is better than having them sit on the shelf, so I took the chance, and made them in to cardigans.

The sweater above is the result of my cutting an opening in the front of this simple blue-ish pullover. It came with the fun little round wool bead-like things on the edge of the neck, arms and bottom. I wanted to play on that, and also add some black to make the sweater more bold, at least in the front.

I used my needle felting machine and felted some different colored circles on the black wool, and then attached it to the sweater. I then made a trip to my local sewing store where I found some fun buttons to funk this sweater up some more.


This is the sweater opened up. Success!



Next I was on to a black wool and angora blend turtleneck sweater, that came with pink yarn stitched in to it as a decoration. I love this sweater. I was extremely nervous about cutting it but since I find myself too warm when I wear it, I held my breath and got started.


I wanted it to button, but I didn't want to sew button holes. I already had this very large scale black rick-rack, so I decided to put it to good use. I attached it to a thin strip of black wool, and then sewed it to the sweater, so it could act as my button holes. I got black velvet covered buttons at the sewing store, and sewed them so they would button through every other zig-zag apart from the rick-rack. Above is a close-up buttoned closed, and below partially opened.


Both of these sweaters came from Marshalls, my favorite clothing store, a few years ago and cost under $20 each. The buttons added to my expense, but not much.

Since this project worked out so well, I'm going to see what other sweaters I have in my closet, that could use funking up or be transitioned from pullover to cardigan.

(Note: The black sweater is jet black, but I had to lighten the photo to show what I did.)

Motorcycle Art, and Lace

My neighbor got a new motorcycle, and I love the design painted on it! He's had it for a few weeks, but I only recently got to take pictures of it. When I was taking them, his brother (proudly) told me the design was spray painted through lace, which I knew immediately when I first saw it. (Hence my interest.) And, the fact that it's black and white, how could I not like it?!


Here's a detail of the front. and back. Pardon me for not knowing the names of the parts. I know absolutely nothing about motorcycles.


Lace must be making a comeback. There was a lot of it in the New York Times Women's Fashion Fall 2008 magazine recently. I'm not sure how long this link will work, but features called "Veiled Threads," and "Black Widow" are some examples of lace in today's fashion. (For both links, click on "Images Index" near the upper right side of the page to see a good example of what's in the magazine. If the links don't work, click on "The Images" near the top left, right under the banner.)

I especially liked an Alexander McQueen dress they showed, that has black lace peacocks mirroring each other, over a white strapless dress. In looking for the picture, I found that Alexander McQueen has MANY beautiful lace dresses for Fall 08. Check it out. Very inspirational.

Clothing - Make or Buy?

When I was in high school in the early 1970's, I made my own pants, skirts, and bathing suits. After college, in the late 1970's and early 80's, I made my own pants, skirts, coats, and I also made my own wedding dress. When my son was born in 1985, and until he was three, I made his overalls, and most of his coats. Part of why I did this was because it was cheaper than buying them, and part because I could make clothing that was unique.

When asked why I don't make my own clothes anymore, I explain that clothing prices are cheaper than they were back then. It was with great interest that I read an article about this topic in today's New York Times "Flexing Your Buying Power - Dress for Less and Less," by Eric Wilson. Mr. Wilson's article compares clothing prices from the 1990's to now, but from my observations, prices are cheaper than two or three decades ago, not only one.

These days, I prefer to buy clothing at my favorite discount clothing, or used clothing, stores. Then I may decide to decorate or adapt my purchase. It's almost impossible to make a shirt, skirt or pair of pants for less than $20 in fabric (not including the time spent), but it's easy to buy them for that price or less. Hence my recent blog posts like this and this. A little ribbon, ball fringe, netting, and/or thread, can go a long way to individualize purchased clothing, and it's very inexpensive and fun to do.

Creativity at a Basketball game

Last night I went to the Boston Celtics/Minnesota Timberwolves basketball game. I always look for good art or design where ever I go. No offense to (my home team) the Boston Celtics but, the best design at the game was the Minnesota Timberwolves' uniforms. I loved the green triangles on the tops around the neck, around the waist and one leg. Because it was an away game for the Timberwolves, they wore black uniforms. Great contrast with the green triangles on the black. I also loved the typeface they used for the numbers of the players. Very creative!

Shopping a Project Runway winner

When I was in Houston, Texas last week, I went to visit Lot 8 Boutique, a clothing store owned by Project Runway's Season Two winner, Chloe Dao. I LOVE looking at how fabric is used in fashion, and it was well worth visiting Lot 8.

I tried on two things while there. One was a really funky jacket that had a lot of fabric that poofed out at the pockets, and was pulled in tightly at the waist thanks to a elastic form-fitting belt. I liked it a lot, and it looked good on me, but it was short sleeved, and I wasn't sure I'd have that many occasions to wear it since I live in New England where we have a short short-sleeve season.

I also tried on a black silk/cotton/cashmere sweater that had a double drawstring tie, that created accordian pleats along the front edge and collar. The pleats vary, depending how tight you pull the drawstrings. It was fun, it looked good, and it seemed like something that I would wear for years, so I decided to splurge and buy it. This photo is a closeup of the front, enhanced a little by photoship to show off the pleats. It was hard to show the pleats on a black sweater without a little tweaking. Now the photo looks like a watercolor, but at least the pleats are visible.