I'm lucky enough to know a lot of talented, interesting people. One of them,
MsPixy--burlesque hostess, performer, and producer extraordinaire--commissioned me to make her a scale halter top for GenCon. After a couple meetings, we settled on a bronze/gold number with a fake leather back.
I started working on this in June after teaching at Bead&Button, but here are some photos of my creative process so far.
I try to keep all of my ongoing projects in little plastic bins. It's a small attempt at staying organized.
With scale projects, I always start by linking together many pairs of scales. I get the quick feeling of accomplishment with every pair I link, and it makes the scale mail process more efficient.
Patterns... I don't know why for the first several pieces of clothing I didn't make any patterns. I guess the struggle of putting on and taking off bits of scale mail was exciting to me. In any case, when working on a piece for someone else, that's not possible. Thankfully, Pixy had some muslin and cut out some pieces like a sewing ninja at our meeting. Here are the shoulders:
I love watching a piece come to life.
I'll be posting daily updates until the piece is finished. Stay tuned tomorrow for images of the front of the piece!
Vanessa
Handmade jewelry
Chainmail jewelry
