Remember me?  Last seen throwing up hands in despair and turning to work on the lining?

Well, I’m still in a state of moderate despair, but at least I’ve figured out some of the things that were bugging me:

• Applique fabric too “busy”.  I was using the same fabric as the body of the garment, for convenience, but it really needs to be a bit plainer, or at least different from the body fabric.  It just looks funny.
• Applique fabric  too heavy.  Leaves are light and airy.
• Too many leaves – they compete with the curve and add heaviness to the design.

I’m still playing around and percolating – this weekend I plan to dye bits of many different fabrics (chiffon, organza, china silk, charmeuse) and layer, paint, silkscreen, etc. the bits until I arrive at a format I like.  I may also play around a bit with polymer clay, though that is a bit less likely.

I have also been hard at work on the lining.  I have thread-traced nearly all the pattern pieces, and am preparing to baste and sew.  My goal is to get the lining mostly in before going up to see Sharon on Saturday afternoon.  That is a tall order, but as I’m taking this afternoon off work, that should give me time to get a good stab at it.

The house offer fell through;  the bank had eight offers and invited us to give our “highest and best” offer (i.e. more money).  We weren’t willing to increase our offer and felt it was likely that someone else would bid higher, plus we weren’t comfortable with some of the contingencies, so we’re dropping out.  A lot of stress and hurry for nothing! but, there will be other houses, and we’ll find something eventually.

Finally, because every blog post should have a pretty picture, here is one of the ideas I’ve been percolating: a cluster of three leaves at the shoulder, with one leaf drifting down.  The colored swirls indicate where I’m thinking of using some embroidery to suggest movement.

cluster of leaves

I’m not wedded to this design either, but I like it better than the others so far.

Of course, in the end, I may just throw up my hands completely and send in the garment without any further embellishment.  I don’t think that would be a tragedy, either.

I spent some time this morning fiddling around with leaves.  No matter how I arranged them, the piece felt dull and static.  Very discouraging.

Then it occurred to me: maple leaves don’t look like that when they fall!  I had been using the same maple-leaf pattern that I wove into the leaves – which had to be symmetric because of the threading.  But these pieces are going to be cut and appliqued – I could do whatever I liked with them!

Off to Google Search, where I found several asymmetric, interesting pictures of falling leaves.  Using those as an inspiration, I created a bunch of different maple-leaf shapes.  The result was this arrangement:

drifting maple leaves, all different shapes

I still have some design work to do, but this feels MUCH better than the previous version:

one possible configuration of leaves

I like this a lot, and will probably try executing it in applique tonight or tomorrow.

I played around with leaves today, cutting a wide assortment of sizes and colors.  Here is just one of the many configurations I tried:

one possible configuration of leaves

This is still not right: the big purple leaf in the center is too big, central, and contrast-y; it instantly draws the eye and fixes it there.  The curve still feels a bit static, and the sizes/colors don’t fully satisfy me.  But I think it’s better than what I had earlier.  I will play around more tomorrow morning and see if I get any further.  I may also play around with twisting and curling the leaves around a soft wire frame, to make them more three-dimensional.  There are lots of options, and I feel like I’ve only just begun to explore.

In the end, I think I will wind up making a bunch of small leaf appliques and then arranging them in place; it’s really going to be hard to get things right with rough-cut simulations.

I did, incidentally, test what happens if you continue the leaves further down.  As I had suspected, it’s too much: it just looks busy.

too many leaves

Today I also did most of the handwork needed for the outer shell of Autumn Splendor: I’ve re-understitched the facings, trimmed the seams and given them a hard press, adjusted the neckline, and re-hung the sleeves.  All that’s left is to remove the basting (no trivial task, since every seamline has three hand-basted lines in it!), apply the leaves, and hem the outer shell.  Then it will be on to the lining!