Driftwood Jewelry

Traditional jewelry just isn't looking right to my eye lately, so I got the idea to combine beach finds with stitching to make jewelry. I experimented with drilling pieces of clamshell with my Dremel and a diamond tip drill bit. When I got the holes close enough to do some stitching the shell broke ... so I decided to switch to driftwood. First I added a little paint in colors reminiscent of weathered post beach clubs (that I never belonged to), and then a bit of embroidery floss and wire. Really fun, I'm going to make more. 

Watercolor Silk Print

Whenever I find something made from silk that's under $2.00, I buy it. For this piece I cut the back out of a silk blouse and tacked it over the bottom of a shoe box. I gathered up a few colors of Dye-na-Flow (a concentrated liquid color designed for silk painting), a spray bottle filled with water, some cups for color mixing and extra water. 

First I sprayed the fabric with water to dampen it. Then I watered down the Dye-na-Flow a bit and started painting. When I finished the area I was working on I removed the tacks and repositioned the silk so that I had a new blank area for painting. The finished piece is 24" x 24". I'm thinking of using this piece as the front of a boxy top and leaving the back natural silk.  

Tiny Repurposed Embroidery

I've been really interested in embroidery lately, but not the traditional kind. I decided to start small -- this tiny embroidery is less than 1 inch square. The base is a pair of white linen pants. I've used little scraps of paper and cloth that ended up on my studio floor and built up the layers until I was satisfied. Fun! More to come ...