Venice Button Jumper

This little jumper was created from our Venice Chemise and Capri pattern (more details on how that was done next time).  

The dark olive corduroy and vintage-look buttons are nice for fall and school and cooler weather fun times.

  To begin, I sewed up one side seam of the skirt, placed the long skirt piece on my work surface, dumped out the buttons and started playing. 

I tried wavy lines of buttons, pointy lines of buttons, shapes and random button scatterings. 

After each new attempt I would walk away and come back as though viewing it for the first time.  (My design instructor called this "sampling".)  Sometimes I'd leave a design for a few hours.  Being able to view your design from a distance is helpful, as well, as this is generally how it will be viewed by others.  Because the buttons were just laying on the fabric and were not attached, the best I could do was kind of a side view from across the room.

I tried lots of designs before settling on the button "flowers" on the skirt.

I glued them down with a washable fabric glue and began the task of sewing each button to the jumper.

Since I was using 5 different color buttons, I chose the same 5 colors for thread.

Never matching the thread color to the button color I began stitching.  Sometimes I used two colors of thread on one button.  I stitched the buttons on differently, as well. 

Sometimes with an "x".

Or two bars.

Or one bar.

Keep in mind that buttons have two right sides.  The right side and the other right side.

The point was to be creative and have fun.

So today we re-purposed a pattern and found a use for a lot of random buttons.  Not a bad way to spend an afternoon.



Click here for Venice 

Inspiration

What inspires you?

Whether we work in fabric, paper or yarn - ideas for the next project are all around us. 

Finding inspiration in nature is one of the most readily available and easiest for me.  Flowers, leaves, bugs or the colors of a sunrise all push me to study further.  I also find inspiration in magazines.  I go through my favorites tearing out pages of anything that interests me.  Sometimes it's just the colors on the page that make my heart be faster.

This is a page from my sketchbook that was inspired by a magazine ad. 

One of my artist friends always carry a camera with her and has created some amazing artwork inspired by buildings and the sun reflecting off the windows.  Another artist friend  has done some wonderful pieces inspired by bridges. 

Each artist's view of the world is unique.  No one sees flowers or leaves the way you do or can interpret their beauty in their work the same way you do.

So tell me, what inspires you?