Rose Painted Circles skirt -

Yeah! This skirt turned out just as I wished.  It is full, long and perfectly gathered. 

It sways when I walk. It swirls when the wind blows. It is graceful. It is Spring!

The top is my favorite knit pattern. A boat neck knit with 3/4 sleeves, I can cut it out and sew it together in l hour tops!

OK, so now I have 3 black, a purple, royal blue, rose, turquoise, yellow in addition to the new white one. Yes, this is a series....

When first beginning any project, I am tentative. How much water should I mix with the paint? Should the fabric be damp or dry? What kind of brush or foam tool will make the marks I want?

It all is a mystery until I get going and just relax into it.

And this is how it becomes what I am looking for. The paint, Pebeo transparent fabric paint, is mixed half paint and half distilled water.  The brush is a size 10 beautiful watercolor brush. The fabric is dry with a slight misting of water over it. And the best part is the drip, drip fling! of paint all over that pristine whiteness.

And here are seven panels of painted, heat set and cured pieces just waiting for me. I love this so much, I let it sit on my kitchen table for a whole week for my frequent admiring glance. I think every artist experiences this at times. The work, the worry, the play, the constant striving to understand tools and the whole process of making something work. There are times when the work needs to be put aside, forgotten, dismissed, let go for some inner work to be done. And then, on impulse one goes back to the tools, the ideas, the hopes and dreams and tries again to find that this time it works. It's like seeing an old friend after a time of separation. At first we are shy, but soon the love resurfaces and the interaction flows smoothly again.

Here is the gathering foot in action. I've been aggressive in my stitch length settings and the tension is tight! The fabric is gathering up so close together, each strip is making the most perfect layer. I'm loving every minute at my machine. This skirt took about 7 hours to put together, but boy, it was worth it.

The muslin I used for this project was only 36 inches wide and each strip was cut to 6 inches in width. I had to sew a lot of strips together for each tier of the skirt.

I like to count the number of strips needed for each tier as I go along and this skirt just mushroomed!

The bottom tier, number 7, used 11 panels of 6 inch wide fabric. At 36 inches in width that makes the final hem a whopping 396 inches!

Now that is truly a skirt to twirl around and around in on a sunny, Spring south Florida day!

And, wearing a skirt like this makes doing all the insurance claims work, referrals and check writing go just a little bit easier. Happy clothes make happy people.

Note to self: find out why what I see in my post as a draft has very little to do with the final post I see on my blog. I line comments up with my photos, but it sure doesn't  post out in the nice logical order I've created.   grrrr.