Thursday 13 May 2010

Busy Busy Busy!!

Flower Garden Belt 1


I know, I know, I missed Share the Handmade Love on Wednesday! It's been madness around here. Ever since I got back to my ship it's been non-stop! I've been learning the ropes of working with the Nickelodeon costume characters and doing their slimy laundry (don't ask!) and after only 48 hours on the ship I had my hand up SpongeBob's butt!! I had to fix a snap, ok?!

The Nickelodeon stuff is a lot of fun actually. We have Meet & Greets and breakfasts and live shows. One (with the slime) is a full gameshow in our theatre which the kids love. There's a lot of laundry, but not more than I can handle and it's interesting to look after a different type of costume. That's a new special skill on my resume!!

In other news this week I got my first custom order! I'm very excited to be making a belt for the daughter of my new friend Deezie. They liked the belts in my Etsy store but they were all too big for her daughter, so I'm making her a custom one based on my Rock Belt
(see it here). In honour of the occasion, here's one of my other belts!

Flower Garden Belt 2

I wanted to create another belt like my Rock Belt and originally wanted to make something a bit more feminine and floral. I used an old pair of jeans that one of my dancers had left for me and was thinking I would embroider on the denim outside with flowers, vines and butterflies. I tried sketching out some ideas but nothing looked right to me. I then discovered as I cut the waistband off the jeans, that the inside of this pair was lined with a white fabric printed with a floral pattern! I decided to follow this pattern and let the design develop organically, excuse the pun!! I started by hand embroidering over the flower shapes in the print with colours I consider to be floral – more pretty and subdued than vibrant, but bright nonetheless. I considered sewing butterflies and other gardeny items on to the belt but it didn’t feel right. I went for the simple approach and just used the original flowers as the focus. I added green vines to anchor the flowers to something, instead of leaving them floating on the belt. I added green beads to represent leaves and green buttons to continue the natural theme.

This a very feminine piece and will look good with outfits in pastel or pale colours – maybe for a wedding or a garden party?!

Flower Garden Belt 3


This belt is currently available in my
Etsy Store here

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