What's Out There: Personal Style
At Kayla Kennington’s presentation, she talked about getting inspired and creating our own unique style. That always seems a bit overwhelming. Like someone handing you a blank piece of paper and a pen and saying, “Here, be creative.” My mind turns as blank as the page.
So how to have a personal style? Make your clothes work for you! Think of what you like to do and what you’re comfortable in. What is your favorite outfit like, and how can you copy those elements in other garments? A blogger wrote that she only ever wears dresses (and hates pockets), so that’s almost all she makes—dresses with no pockets. That’s her style. Unimaginable. My workplace is way too cold for drafty dresses, and how anyone can survive a day without pockets is a mystery to me. My style is layers and pants—with pockets. Find what works best for you.
Where do those unique design elements come from? Kayla talked about experimenting, and not worrying about getting a perfect item completed immediately. Audition elements and fabrics. Spend some time working with a technique you think you want to use. Even if you don’t use the bit you made, something will be learned and the sample can probably be used on something else.
Practice seeing opportunities! Think about things around you in terms of your clothes. Go to interesting places. See an exhibit at the museum. If you see a work of art that you like, think about why it’s so appealing. Colors? Subject matter? Texture of the paint? Think of ways to interpret the color or feeling or designs or texture in a piece of clothing. An 18th century frilly dress may be too much for 2017, but a smaller version of the ruching on a sleeve or neckline might be just right. It gets easier every time you try it. I find a lot of inspiration in my garden. The curlicue of a fern frond would make a neat edge design on a collar or a hemline. A long row of red tulips might make me think of red piping.
Try new skills! A while back I learned to crochet. I also learned that while I’m pretty good at it, it isn’t my favorite thing. So while there won’t likely be any afghans, knowing crochet made those little button loops easy to make, as well as the occasional flower. Three or four flowers in different sized yarns make really cute pins to personalize my RTW wool coat.
Use old skills in new ways! We all enjoyed making those Sharpie Scarves with Sharpie pens and rubbing alcohol to make the ink bleed like a watercolor painting. It’s a delightful technique on silk, but it works on many other fabrics surprisingly well. I ordered some fabric online that I thought had a lot of teal and royal blue in it with accents of black on a white background. I opened the box and it looks more streaky grey and black on a white background. Yeah, there’s some blue, but mostly it just looks grey, not what I wanted at all. My Tropical Sharpie pack had two nice blues in it, and they made a world of difference. My plan is to trace out the pieces I need to cut so I only have to color a little bit and not the whole yardage. I’d never have thought of “fixing” the print that way if we hadn’t done those scarves.
Get ideas from others! Show and tell at our neighborhood groups is a great way to see what everyone else is doing and get ideas. Online there are blogs and groups. Pattern Review is pretty widely known. Have you heard of Artisan Square? Both sites have some great challenges to join and it’s a great way to get thinking about how to make patterns your own.
Happy Sewing!
Leigh Wheeler
