Melanie Testa

Art Journaling: Exposed

In celebration of the new eMag Art Journaling Exposed, we have decided to have a blog hop and talk up our experience of creating artwork and working with Interweave to present this new and exciting magazine.

I wrote an article for a column called Background Check, because we all need to start somewhere. This article was a lot of fun to work on and the magazine itself is really quite exciting, I love this new medium, the spontineity and link-ablity of it. eMags allow for video embeds, links directly to artist web sites, they are really slick. It’s pretty amazing. The cast of characters who wrote alongside me are great. Please check out all of the links below and get your copy today.

In alphabetical order:

Melanie Testa

To purchase the eMag for your desktop computer, visit InterweaveStore.com:

PC download or MAC download.

And here is the link to purchase the eMag for the iPad on the iTunes Store

Sew Along, Podcast and fun.

Female Magazine Blouse

I have been having so much fun sewing. A few of you have said you would join me in a Sew Along. I have been looking for non-Japanese and FREE patterns.

Dixie DIY is a GREAT web site and she has several patterns to download. Here is the link to the free Nano Iro (Japanese) patterns I mentioned before. Check out this cool, pretty tank style blouse called Sorbetto. And if you feel you need your tank top to have sleeves (huh?), here is the additional sleeve pattern for that blouse. Look at what other people have done in making this blouse. And if you want to go all out and buy a pattern, buy it. I want to choose something simple and I want to surface design some aspect of it because that is my thing. Choose what works for you and lets have some fun.

Ricë and I recorded a podcast on clothing and garments. I think it is a lot of FUN!

http://player.wizzard.tv/player/o/i/x/133311445297/config/k-7aabc07deef835f2/uuid/null/episode/k-ee013dbe62de560f

Comment and let me know if you are up for a sew along!

This just in, we need to interrupt this regularly sch…

I think I am having a star crush right now.

Remember when the picture of Russell Crow, knitting, was circulating? Totally crush worthy.

I have a source who identified this box as a 5 series machine! LOL.

Where we began.

Earlier this week, I asked you to tell me how you began sewing. The comments are fabulous.

I honestly think I was destined to work with my hands, I have always had an aptitude for it. I can close my eyes and visualize how something should go together. At a very young age, I remember my mom cutting a skirt pattern out, and I caught the fact that the plaid would not match up at the side seam. Also around that time, my mom had a friend who was into sewing and helped me make a vest. I sewed beads and trims by hand to the front border. It was meticulous work that I take pride in having done to this day.

I am so glad I had Home Ec in high school, kids these days don’t even know about it! I am showing my age!

I also think it is funny that so many of us who sew will hold onto a restriction, like fear of zippers and buttons.

When I was given the serger I spoke of, I took lessons in how to use it. It is a scary machine, having 4 threads two of which stay on the top, two that meander through the inner workings of the machine. If one gets broken, it can be a tricky, fiddle-worthy event. The teacher looked at me and reminded me that I was working with a machine and that I was in control. That bit of advice has gone a really long way for me.

It helps that this Bernina 550 replicates buttonholes with advanced and simple controls! Ha.

Check this and this out. I think I may have to look into Alabama Chanin’s books! Do any of you own one of her books? Can you recommend one? This one? Alabama Studio Sewing + Design: A Guide to Hand-Sewing an Alabama Chanin Wardrobe

Texture and fun in the Brooklyn

Yeah, yum.

Tell me.

How did you start sewing?

I think I was maybe 20 years old when I decided to set up my mom’s sewing machine and started making bags. I remember feeling overwhelmed by the pattern I bought. Soon after this, I found a sewing teacher. She was a retired Home Economics professor. I took weekly lessons from her, she taught me to iron, cut, sew, she gave me a serger (a friend of hers needed to find a home for it, and I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time).

I was a sewing machine operator at a furniture manufacturer for a few years, that was dull but taught me some good sewing work habits, how to keep the cloth moving straight through the machine, how to hold my scissors for quick clips, how to cut squares to make pillows with welted corners.

Then I found a job as a sample cutter for a women’s fashion house. I loved that job! It was a fast paced job and I drank up techniques, approaches and ideas. I worked with some fabulous pattern makers, sample sewers and people. I watched as my boss came back from fittings, kept an eye on her as she would add volumes, shift darts, lengthen, shorten and fix garments. It was a very interesting job.

During this time I began quilting, put the sewing away, even told myself sewing clothing was too fussy and difficult. Normally, I sew clothing in the summer time. Skirts, dresses, reconstructions. I don’t know that I have the skills to sew a silk blazer, but I do know how to set a sleeve. So here I am, living in NYC, near some of the best fabric stores in the worlds and the clothing sewing bug has bit me hard.

If you would like to do a sew along with me, I have been looking for free and interesting patterns for you. Can you handle that? Japanese sewing patterns for women, men and children!

I will reveal the entire blouse soon.

So, tell me about you. How did you get into sewing? Did you always quilt?

And take my survey and sign up for my book giveaway!

Almost every pattern

A few of you have said you would like to have a sew along, well? I think I have found a book (for myself). Remember you can sew anything you want along with us. If you want to tackle a Japanese Pattern, I bet it will be easier in a group, we could help each other decipher the directions. Cheryl, RooBeeDoo and Jeannie? Are you still in? It is fine to back out, no worries.

Me and my gal went into the city and bumbled around the Fashion District. I have never been to Mood, and oh, no. Yes. See? I just want at the knits and linen floor again. This pattern book has several pieces I would like to make and I see surface design possibilities everywhere. I wish I could read enough to figure out the publishers web site or find the authors blog.

And don’t forget to take my survey and enter your name to win a signed copy of my book.

I wonder what it would be like to go to the fashion district with the camcorder…

Survey Says!

Hi there-Please take a few minutes to fill out my online workshop survey. Ten questions, nothing fancy.

As incentive for responding, I will give away, at random, up to three signed copies of my book. The number of copies given away will depend on the number of responses tallied. So please, take the survey, leave a comment to enter your name in the giveaway and then email, facebook or otherwise contact your friends and art buddies so that they too will take the survey and perhaps win a copy of my book. Your enthusiasm and input will be (and is) greatly appreciated.

A New Day, A New Week.

I opened my mail last week to find this CD, sent by Meg Cox. The woman who heads the band is also a breast cancer survivor and although this is not the type of music I gravitate to, this album is really good. It is uplifting, danceable and has been on rotation since its arrival. Great stuff.

You also see some woodblocks from Colouricious in this last photo.

I have been on a mission. I am defining (redefining?) what clothing needs to be and how I might participate in the making of it. This will be a dress. A boro style dress, made just for me, using scrap, recycled bits of cloth, oak gall dyed organza and an indian sari. In my mind, clothing needs to fit well and be machine washable. It could also be pretty, inspiring, well made, and interesting.

I have always wanted to dress differently. I ‘see’ clothing that is not available on the market. It is time to start actualizing what I see.

From Messy to Clean and Back

I don’t know how it works for you but at Casa Melly, the studio gets messy as all get out, I can’t stand it anymore, I can’t clean while in the middle of project. Then, just when it is driving me batty, I clean it up, spic and span.

While my studio was clean and approachable, I opened a journal to find gentle little drawings that I did while walking the High Line. I drew this last fall, while I was going through radiation treatment, I had gotten to the cancer care center too early and so took a walk on the High Line. The great thing about New York City is that New Yorkers are not generally, morning people, but I am. So I sat down next to some pretty flowers and drew. I drew in pencil and painted when I got home. I used pen later still. My journal pages are completed over time, not in one sitting or in one place. I don’t think this page is complete even still.

I asked a friend to make me a set of tiny sanding blocks and this is what she came up with. It turns out, when I paint with acrylics on pine board that I love debride, sand and deconstruct the surface of my work. What better way to get in small places than with tiny little sanding blocks? Super cute, right?