Craftside

Cool over-sized stitching detail featured in the book Corsets: A Modern Guide

First, I want to share with you all the chance to save on Walter Foster art instruction books through this Living Social deal: for $5, you get $10 to spend at www.walterfoster.com. And you don't need to live in South Orange County - this deal can be purchased and used by anyone! Click here for details!

Next, I love runway shows and the amazing details designers like Alexander McQueen come up with, like this over-sized stitching detail featured in the book Corsets: A Modern Guide.

This top isn't my style but the scale of the detail could be incorporated into a casual garment. If you are like me and like beautiful fashion history books, check out:

Corsets: A Modern Guide

by

Velda Lauder

The ideal of beauty may have changed through the ages, but the hourglass figure has never gone out of fashion.  Recently all but extinct, corsets are back in fashion as never before.  Hundreds of beautiful color images catalog both classic and contemporary examples of the corsetiere's art.

 

Creating a vintage-inspired collage in paper and digitally from the book Essential Fashion Illustration: Digital

Today I have a "twofer" for you. The first part of today's post comes from the book Essential Fashion Illustration: Digital, which is where I took my inspiration for the second part. Check out this cool digital effect for turning a modern magazine image into a vintage-style collage.

Click on these pages from Essential Fashion Illustration: Digital to enlarge and read more about digital effects collaging.

This is the card I made using the masking concept, but I used a vintage-style cat glasses rubber stamp.

I stamped the cat glasses on a page from a book and then cut it out around the outside and the lens area.

I then found words from a magazine and a face to put them on "mask" like.

I really like working with magazine words and images. If you like to incorporate computer techniques or just be inspired by them, I bet you will like:

Essential Fashion Illustration: Digital

by

Loreto Binvigna Streeter 

Essential Fashion Illustration: Digital  is a complete, in-depth tutorial that guides you step-by-step through the digital techniques employed in fashion design and illustration, including vectorizing, adding color, and applying textures, transparencies, collages, and patterns. Through dozens of practical exercises, you'll enhance your skills using tools such as graphics tablets, scanners, cameras, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.

Born in 1983 in La Serena, Chile, Loreto Binvignat Streeter now lives and works in Barcelona, Spain. She works simultaneously on illustration and fashion. Visit her online at www.loretobinvignat.com.

 

 

How to embroider multicolored yarn "x" shapes on a knitted scarf from the book Knitting Scarves from Around the World

Today I have a fun little detail from the book Knitting Scarves from Around the World: Patterns in a Variety of Styles and Techniques to share with you. Check out how to stitch a multicolored "x" on a knit scarf. I bet this technique would work great to dress up just about anything you can stitch on!

Click on this page from Knitting Scarves from Around the World to enlarge and read the full tutorial on how to stitch a multi strand "x" on a knitted scarf.

 More about the book:

Knitting Scarves from Around the World:

Patterns in a Variety of Styles and Techniques

By

Kari Cornell

Photographers:

Sue Flanders

Janine Kosel

Here are 40 patterns for scarves from around the globe—including stylish traditional projects from Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, the British Isles, the Americas, and Asia. Pattern introductions provide a background of knitting techniques from that part of the world, including schematics and charts.

Kari Cornell is a book editor by day and an avid knitter by night. She is the editor of several collections of knitting stories and patterns, including For the Love of Knitting, Knitting Yarns and Spinning Tales, Retro Knits, and Modern Knits, Vintage Style. She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

 

Photographers Sue Flanders and Janine Kosel are authors of the book Norwegian Handknits.

 

Design of Dissent from the book Fashion Design Essentials

If you were a teen when Madonna hit the scene I bet rosaries might just hold a special place in your fashion memory bank. They do for me since probably the day after the Like a Virgin video played I was rockin' a rosary around my neck! When I spotted this necklace that looked like a rosary but had a skull at the base featured in the book Fashion Design Essentials: 100 Principles of Fashion Design I thought I might give one of mine a new look.

Click on this page from Fashion Design Essentials: 100 Principles of Fashion Design to read about how rebels have influenced fashion.

Here is my updated necklace:

I thought I'd use two of my favorite charms, a pair of scissors and a thimble. These beads hold such a special place in my heart with fond memories of the past and it's fun to bring them out and enjoy them again.

If you like to get inspired by other fashion designers then I bet you will love:

Fashion Design Essentials:

100 Principles of Fashion Design

by

Jay Calderin

Creative ideas are elevated by experience and expertise. This book sets forth a challenge to fashion designers—continue to expand your horizons, exercise your skills and experiment with strategies. The idea behind collecting and cataloging the essential principles of fashion design is to build a framework for artful examination that the designer can revisit regularly for inspiration and instruction.

Which is exactly what I did and loved it!

I bet you will too.

 

Indygo Junction Pattern Giveaway and how to mark a button location before stitching

First I want to say Happy Valentine's Day all of you beloved Craftside readers!

Yesterday I shared with you about the Vintage-Inspired, Modern Style Design Challenge and today I have a super special giveaway to share with you!

Indygo Junction has offered you Craftside readers the chance to win your choice of any Indygo Junction pattern!

Here is just a few. They have patterns for everything from cute dresses to fun accessories and ornaments!

Answer the question:

What sewing technique have you either recently mastered or is next on your list to try?

Leave your answer in today's comments by Midnight ET on Tuesday, February 21, 2012 and you will be in the running.

2 commenters will get to choose 1 each of the Indygo Junction patterns.

ANd for two more chances to win a free Indygo Junction pattern pop on over to this post at Recycled Crafts at Craft Gossip and leave a comment there!

And speaking of sewing techniques here is a great tutorial on how to mark the perfect placement of a button to a buttonhole from the book Singer® The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing - Revised and Updated Edition.

Click on this page from Singer® The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing - Revised and Updated Edition to enlarge and read how to mark the placement for a button so it lines up perfectly with a button hole.

Want more great sewing tips and techniques? Then grab yourself a copy of:

Singer® The Complete Photo Guide to Sewing - Revised and Updated Edition

This is the one reference every sewer needs. Its 352 pages and 1,200 photographs cover every aspect of fashion and décor sewing. Sewers from beginners to the skilled will turn to this book again and again!