A Little Retro Design

When I knew I was going to be in the Artfest Kingston it spurred me on to make something a little new but at the same time traditional.

When I first moved to Kingston I painted on unbleached cotton garments (vests, dresses) and sold them in the market, my knits were in Cornerstone and I wasn’t allowed to sell them within a 50 mile radius. I had so much fun learning to stencil and paint on fabric, then I took it to cotton knits and did lots of pullovers, they sold well. This was before I did a lot of jackets and made my own buttons.

The two I did recently were not from my usual cotton but a softer non Mercerize (though the over dye in the black did pose a few problems). I washed the garments then pulled out my colours and stencil designs and this is the result.

I have a dress of cotton/linen which made years ago which I have worn and washed and worn and washed and the Morning Glory design is still as strong as it was when I first finished it.

It was fun playing with the colours again, then making  buttons along he same design.

Pink cotton with Morning Glory motif.

Back and sleeve detail.

I just did my first jacket of cream Mercerized cotton with coloured accents. It was lovely working with the client and I liked what we put together. This is an all purpose jacket to go with my client’s Summer skirts and tops. We chose the colours carefully and I repeated them in the buttons.

The back detailing includes coloured godets and some little ‘blips’ that my client saw on another cardi and liked, they completed the back neck detailing.