Dolores Pocket Skirt Summer Stash Bust & Tate Modern exhibition

Wow! What a crazy two weeks. First let me introduce you to a new skirt pattern that will be available for PDF pattern in the not-too-distant future called the Dolores Pocket Skirt. It's from the lovely Beth at Ready Ruthie who asked for pattern testers for the Dolores. I was excited at the prospect of being a pattern tester and the basic requirements of having sewn PDF patterns before and being close to the skirt sizes and to be able to feedback your experiences in the space of a month were the only requirements. I happily received an e-mail with links to the PDF soon after I e-mailed Beth.

At the same time as agreeing to pattern test Beth's skirt I decided that the final art-piece for my 'Cutting into Colour' Matisse collage course at the Tate Modern would come in the form of an appliquéd garment - killing two birds with one pair of scissors! Oh, and I also used ALL stash fabrics, so I have stuck to my self-imposed fabric buying ban for the Summer Stash Bust 2014!

Onto the skirt.... You have seen little peeks of the decoration in my previous post, so here is the full skirt.

The skirt was quite intuitive to sew together and I think when it is publicly available as a PDF pattern it would be a great basic wardrobe staple to add to anybody's pattern stash.

The only thing I need to practise for my next version is the slight angles on the waistband which I haven't really managed to achieve very crisply.

Overall I am pretty happy with the applique and hand embroidery on my abstract decoration inspired by my work based on Matisse's cut-outs. I used bonda-web to adhere the fabric shapes then sewed a machine zig-zag and also some simple hand-stitching around the blue shapes.

Machine and hand-embroidered applique decoration

I also hand-stitched the pockets for decoration and to ensure the lining doesn't peak out either.

hand-stitched pocket detailing

I finished the Dolores Pocket Skirt in time to wear to the Private View of the collage course 'Cutting into Colour' at the Tate Modern inspired by Matisse's Cut-Outs. I can now say I have exhibited my work at the Tate!...OK, it was 'only' in the Cloires Gallery in the basement of Tate Modern. But still... it's the TATE!

The final evening of the course entailed us creating an exhibition space to showcase our work. We all brought nibbles and refreshments and were allowed to invite friends and family (unfortunately my f&f were otherwise engaged so could not make it). It was a fun evening and I enjoyed wearing my Dolores / Matisse skirt as part of my exhibition. Below are photographs of my exhibition space and a picture of me in front of the group inspired lire-size collage.

My Matisse inspired Dolores Pocket Skirt in front of the group Matisse inspired collage.

The Private View exhibition for the Cutting into Colour art course at the Tate Modern 13th July 2014

My art exhibition at the Private View. I created a free-standing mount to display my 3D paper sculptures.

I was pretty happy with the fact that I 'almost' finished a whole sketchbook of Matisse inspired collages in 5 weeks!