05 April 2009

127. Style 1001

After feeling overwhelmed by too many possibilities, I decided to let the 16 shirts guide me. I laid them all out on the floor and spent a few moments pondering the graphics and messages on each shirt, and saw some groupings emerge:

This set was first. The black shirt had a little motif on the front:

And on the back, it reads, "There's a fire in me/ A passion so hot/ That if you tapped it/ You'd get burned":

Then some decisions became clear about putting these shirts together, into a new garment:
  • The graphic on the back of the black shirt is very, very literal. I preferred the subtlety and size of the coordinating print on the front chest pocket area of the shirt.
  • The yellow was too, too much. I wanted to ground the color. Seemed to make sense combined with the fire/ hot theme of the black shirt.
  • With the intensity of the yellow, I wanted to keep the shirt sleeveless or short-sleeved to minimize the punch of color.
  • In order to keep this "local", I thought about the challenge many Austinites have in wanting to dress in layers when it gets above 90 degrees for at least 6 months of the year. I went back through my sketchpad to find a sketch of a garment idea that could give the illusion of layering without someone actually putting on two shirts.
A contrast yoke, using the black shirt's smaller motif was the solution. I cut out a muslin from one of the scrap shirts from my husband, measured and cut carefully, and used that as the pattern piece for cutting the motif from the black shirt:

Except that, when I laid the pattern piece on top of the black t-shirt, I found that the black shirt didn't have enough fabric to cut out the yoke as it was. I turned the motif upside down and had more fabric to work with, but it didn't look right. So I cut the top of the yoke piece straight.

Now onto the yellow shirt. I used the back of the largest one, a size 2XL, so that I would have the most available fabric for gathering around the yoke. And it still wasn't quite as much as I wanted! But I like how it turned out:


In this photo you are just looking at the front of the shirt -- no back is attached yet. There's a bit more shimmying and negotiating of the fabric to be done. But I think this is the last you'll see of the top before it is complete. :)

Back I go into the workroom......

13 comments:

  1. Wow, love that top! So creative - now I'm very eager to see where you go with the whole collection!

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  2. seriously, it's amazing...I love it.

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  3. looking fantastic. Love that bib style top.

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  4. Oh, Sales Kickoff 2008, I hardly knew ye.

    Love the inset. This is a fantastic start!!

    I'm also enjoying reading about your creative process.

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  5. Personally I would rather wear a black shirt with a yellow insert, just because of my skin tone, but aside from that I think your shirt is beautiful.

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  6. Loving watching your process unfold. And it looks great so far!

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  7. I feel your pain... sort of... cheering you on!

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  8. This is great! Loving what you're doing, from a fellow stitcher~

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  9. So cute. I love the bib look. I really need to get on to the pants now...

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  10. Agh! Love! The colors, the yoke, it's all awesome! And so inspiring.

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  11. How cute is that!!! I love it love it love it. Kick kick kick - Hellen Manning, Licensed Joyologist

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  12. Even as half a shirt, it's adorable! I am in love.

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