Glaciology translates literally as a “study of ice”.

Bubbles trapped under a sheet of ice on the sidewalk; a lucky “grab shot” with the phone.  Layers of glowing ice piled on the lake shore; captured on a winter walk, looking for hints of spring.  I was drawn to these two facets of the winter landscape and the depth of color found in these images of “clear” ice.  With a classic dress in mind, I digitally combined the two photos, creating a fabric print that complimented those lines, drawing the eye and echoing the hourglass shape.  It was digitally printed on silk, suggesting the shimmer of the ice itself.

I finally got a lovely photo of this dress (thanks to my great photographer aka husband) and I can tell you all about it.  I had two events to attend at the beginning of October, a wedding and a gallery fundraiser, which was the perfect excuse to make a fantastic dress.  I think this one is pretty fantastic.  I wrote the artist statement above because I just entered it in a fiber art exhibition which required a 100 word artist statement (those are hard to write).  It’s a juried show, so we will hear more on that later.

The fabric is my own design and printed by the lovely people at Spoonflower.  The pattern is a vintage reproduction with a few modifications.  It started with two photos of ice.  The bubbles were from an Instagram shot Andy grabbed with his iPhone when we were walking the dog one morning.  A microthin layer of ice on a puddle on the sidewalk.  The other photo was ice piled up on the shore at Lake Superior.

I played a lot with them, slightly adjusting the colors to make them blend together and adding a lot of filters to give them a watercolor-like texture rather than a “photoreal billboard” kind of effect.  You can see that more in the detail shot:

I have made a dress from this pattern before, so I knew how it fit me and could plan out where I wanted the design to be placed.  I chose the silk/cotton fabric from Spoonflower, which comes in a 40″ width.  I taped out 40×36 inch rectangles (1 yd of fabric) on my dining room floor and laid out my pattern  to decide what pieces I could put together and how they needed to lay on the fabric in order to get things on grain or cut on the fold.  I drew lots of diagrams and did lots of measuring and then set about designing 3 unique yards of fabric, fitting the digital design to each pattern piece.  (You can tell I am a total geek at this point, when I admit that I had so much fun doing this part.)

A week or so later, I had the fabric in my hands.  The silk/cotton is amazing.  It feels nice and it is beautiful to sew with.  At first glance I felt like it was a little shiny, but it so works with the dress, I was completely won over.  I found a bemberg rayon lining fabric (I couldn’t bear to line a silk dress with polyester!) and lined the whole dress.  Because I didn’t want to distract with obvious lines of stitching at the zipper and hem, I hand stitched them both.  Thanks to a Threads Magazine tutorial, I put in my first hand-picked zipper.  I am a total fan of hand-picked zippers now. I may never go back.

What else is there to say?  I have another design in mind which I think is going to involve weathered paint in a parking lot and a little playing with perspective.  If I only had more hours in the day!