Zentangle

Been a while since I blogged, huh? Normally my summers are filled with sewing, but I've been much busier this year than before. Sadly, it's sewing that's had to be put on the back burner. I've done a bit of mending, and a bit of alteration work (apparently men's dress pants are not designed to fit a female figure. Who'd've guessed?), but nothing worth blogging about.

Luckily though, I'm about to embark on a brand new project just in time for the end of summer, so here we go!

I don't know if anyone is familiar with the concept of Zentangle® art? Basically, you draw a bunch of lines then fill in each section with a different pattern, typically in Sharpie or pen. Like this:

(Not sure what's up with the weird shadow in the corner ...)

I learned about it from my 7th grade art teacher, but apparently it's an actual elaborate thing, as I discovered while preparing this blog post. Here's some official jargon:

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Anyway, I was thinking about Zentangle etc. and how interesting it would be to create a similar concept with fashion - say, a skirt:

(It's a very rough sketch. Bear with me)

I really enjoy little detail work type projects - I find that sewing on beads and ribbons and tiny embroidery stitches is very relaxing, much in the same way of the original Zentangle concept. And, I'm always looking for excuses to branch out in embellishments, so this seemed like a perfect design!

I'm thinking I'll make a fairly simple circle skirt (or slightly less than circle skirt, depending on how the fabric cutting goes ...). At JoAnn's the other day I picked up some white cotton canvas type fabric:

I'm really not sure what it is, exactly. I hesitate to call it canvas, because it's much softer than I associate with that. It's not super thick, but it has some nice body, which hopefully will walk the line between thin enough to sew through and thick enough to hold its shape. Fingers crossed on that! Oh, and it's 100% cotton, which is always fun and exciting. Even if it's not a historical project, I still like keeping to natural fibers. Call me old-fashioned, but they're so much simpler to work with.

I also bought lots and lots of exciting black embellishments, from buttons to beads to studs to sequins. I was running all up and down the store, picking up everything that caught my eye!

In the stash I have some black lace, and I just got some new cheesecloth that might make an appearance (anyone sensing a theme here?). I don't have any super particular design ideas yet, but I figure they'll work themselves out as we go along.

The goal is to have this finished in about two weeks, three at the absolute most. I'm really excited to get back to sewing, and fiddly hand sewing on a relatively simple garment sounds like just the thing to finish off my summer!

As for this blog, hopefully I'll have more to post about come fall ... there will definitely be an elaborate Halloween costume, and I'm sure I'll be doing lots of fangirling over the 1950s what with an upcoming theatrical endeavor ... but more on that later. :) 

~ Emma