Claire Kennedy Design

Mother's Day

When I was growing up, I adopted several mothers.  Each one of them were very special.

The first one was my aunt.  She was one of the four of my famous "Glam Aunts" - I nicknamed them - from left to right, my father, Elizabeth Taylor (for her beauty and ability to know what to do with it), my grandmother, Marilyn Monroe (for her incredible beauty), and Lauren Bacall (cause she was so smart and savvy).

 
Aren't they glamorous!

Here are 3 of them with my grandmother and father...the oldest died early of lung cancer.  But you can tell they are a handsome group, but not only that they were/are bright and charming and always a lot of fun. 

The one on the far right lived in the same town, and bought me my first Bernina.  As a little tyke, I had a knack for doing patterns for Barbie (she never changed sizes), and making her one ball gown after another - I never got tired of making beautiful things for her.

Then when I was first married, I took a sewing course from a local well-known designer/seamstress.  It was pretty obvious after that first class I not only loved sewing but was very good at it.  My aunt saw that immediately and was instrumental in making sure I got a great sewing machine.  My sewing improved incredibly after that first Bernina (which I still have today).

The next mother I adopted was my sewing teacher, who became my mentor.  I studied under her for almost 10 years, then did piece work for her when I first started my business.  As I started building my own clients, I would use her for consulting to get me through some technical situations. She not only taught me the techniques for getting through those difficult fittings, but taught me how to discover them and learn them on my own.  What a gift!  She saw me through so much and taught me so much.  I still have her "workbook" and was in the process of making a tape of her classes, which I can lay my hands on one day.  To this day I do not have a photo of her, which breaks my heart.  But she is still in my heart.

The third adopted mom, was a wonderfully exciting gal. 

 

I knew her as a tyke, but we really didn't get to know each other till later in her life.  We would go to lunch frequently and talk about our loves and life in general.  We had such a similar beliefs.  She really helped me a lot in my love life (after divorce) to believe that I was actually desirable, fun and would end up with someone really excellent.  I did.  And fortunately she got to meet him before she died, and gave her unequivocal blessing.  

Even though all three of these women are gone, they gave me so much...my aunt (and her "glam aunt" sisters) gave me the genes of artistry and the ability to dream and be creative about it with a Bernina to boot.  My teacher gave me my art and craft, and Mother MM gave me my dreams...again after I lost them.

Happy Mother's Day to all of them!

Meeting deadlines and a respite

My business is set on deadlines.  They're harrowing and sometimes hard to meet, but I gotta meet them or I don't get paid.  That's an amazing motivator!!!

But after I have met them, I have a respite - for a short time, and piddle around my studio just creating and thinking of things to create.

Some of you may know that I'm also an underwater photographer, and get to travel to wonderful far away places.  One of the things you know when you dive is that you don't do it 24/7.  You have to have rests in between.  The reason is a bunch of physics gobbledygook, which I will not bore you with her (thank heavens!), but it does leave time for other activities, some of which are beach combing, and one of my favorite things is to pick up sea glass.

Sea glass is glass that has been tossed around in the ocean, reef, and/or shore long enough that it has been softened and frosted look to it.  I had picked up some pieces and wanted to make a necklace from them a couple of years ago.

So got some diamond drill bits and some coolant lube to drill in (when drilling hard stuff like glass, you need to do it in a liquid so that your drill bit doesn't get too hot or the glass too hot.

And voila....

This is really effective on my turtlenecks, which are a staple in my winter wardrobe.

Then...I did a pair of earrings.  I really love 'em!

But here's the bonus!

 

This is a semi-precious or just a plain mineral that I found in Santa Fe which I was told was called rosasite or rosalite - it doesn't match, but I don't really care....the color and size was perfect for buttons.  All I needed was two holes for thread and some great buttons.

 

These were another set of semi-precious mineral called gaspeite but it's perfect for this silk!

Once a sarong, now something else...

This fabric was once a hand-woven sarong in Indonesia....

 

but back in the states...it's now a blouse. And yes this is the BWOF 1/2008 #107 .

You can see there's something a little extra on this other than this marvelous green stripe - and for those of you who don't like green, don't get sick - there's something else here too.

 

I used a decorative technique called stenciling on this as test to hone my skills for a class I'm doing in December (if you're in the area, we have a few spots left, and you 're more than welcomed to sign up....here are more details).  

I used all sorts of interesting things to get the look I wanted.

 

The first thing I discovered is that you can get your paint too thin and but hardly ever too thick - with thick paint you just get another look.

I also experimented with masking - to make it look like the stripe was going over the background design...this was fun and it gave the look I wanted, but I didn't like it for the shirt I was doing.

So I just went ahead and keep the design one or maybe two stencils, and used some shadowing, overlay and slight "dusting" of color and some a little heavier.

The overall look - came out very well, and I was really pleased.  I used a gold color here, with more of a patina-ed look.  This worked well with this bright yellow and green and maybe with some red bow, I could look like a tree ornament!!!!

 

There's one caveat for working with hand woven or home woven fabrics.  They are notoriously delicate, which makes them that much more charming, but sometimes you must be very careful.  I serged the seam on this, but used my standard pressure when pulling it out from the machine, and poof, all the serging came out along with the seam. 

 

So do use beautiful hand woven fabrics, but do remember they are much more delicate than the fabric we are so used to buying in stores.  Don't mess with the garment too much and certainly don't use a pattern or something you will have to do a lot of fittings on.  Get those seams finished as quickly as possible and you'll be OK.