I took an all-day seminar in making fabric flowers called "cabochons" yesterday at the
Sewing Workshop. The instructor was
Candace Kling, who is the author of the book The Artful Ribbon. All I can say is, "WOW!" It was so cool. The purple flower shown above was the easiest one to make, surprisingly. It is made from wired ribbon that I got at this cool shop called
The Ribbonerie. Warning...don't go in there...you will be a lot poorer when you walk out.
Shopping for the materials for the class was an adventure in itself. I'm not a sew-er, so I was not familiar with where to buy fabrics. I visited
Fabrix, in my old neighborhood, on Clement Street. This is a good place for good deals on fabric, no frills, but the people who work there are nice. I got this lovely dark red silk fabric that I used to make the above rose.
I also got to visit
Satin Moon Fabrics, which is almost across the street from Fabrix. Satin Moon opened in that location in 1973, a year before I moved there. It's run by two sisters and they have absolutely gorgeous fabrics. The tiny store is packed with treasures.
This flower and the one above it are made from rick rack. I was never a fan of rick rack, I always thought it looked tacky, but you can make some cool little flowers from it.
This orange rose reminds me of
Arts and Crafts period paintings. This was made with expensive hand-dyed silk bias ribbon from
Britex, a downtown San Francisco institution where I could easily spend a million dollars.
Here's another cute little flower made from rick rack.
This green flower was made from bias cording. I learned about so many new things yesterday: tacky glue, fray stop, doll pates...it was mind boggling. The other students in the class were also very interesting. There was a man named Bill who makes costumes for the SF Opera and worked for Beach Blanket Babylon. He was a wealth of information. There was also a woman who owns a hat shop on Valencia. I was worried that my lack of sewing skills would be a problem, but it was all sewing by hand and gluing and stuff, so not a problem. I am psyched to delve further into this new world.
I took an all-day seminar in making fabric flowers called "cabochons" yesterday at the Sewing Workshop. The instructor was Candace Kling, who is the author of the book The Artful Ribbon. All I can say is, "WOW!" It was so cool. The purple flower shown above was the easiest one to make, surprisingly. It is made from wired ribbon that I got at this cool shop called The Ribbonerie. Warning...don't go in there...you will be a lot poorer when you walk out.
Shopping for the materials for the class was an adventure in itself. I'm not a sew-er, so I was not familiar with where to buy fabrics. I visited Fabrix, in my old neighborhood, on Clement Street. This is a good place for good deals on fabric, no frills, but the people who work there are nice. I got this lovely dark red silk fabric that I used to make the above rose.
I also got to visit Satin Moon Fabrics, which is almost across the street from Fabrix. Satin Moon opened in that location in 1973, a year before I moved there. It's run by two sisters and they have absolutely gorgeous fabrics. The tiny store is packed with treasures.
This flower and the one above it are made from rick rack. I was never a fan of rick rack, I always thought it looked tacky, but you can make some cool little flowers from it.
This orange rose reminds me of Arts and Crafts period paintings. This was made with expensive hand-dyed silk bias ribbon from Britex, a downtown San Francisco institution where I could easily spend a million dollars.
Here's another cute little flower made from rick rack.
This green flower was made from bias cording. I learned about so many new things yesterday: tacky glue, fray stop, doll pates...it was mind boggling. The other students in the class were also very interesting. There was a man named Bill who makes costumes for the SF Opera and worked for Beach Blanket Babylon. He was a wealth of information. There was also a woman who owns a hat shop on Valencia. I was worried that my lack of sewing skills would be a problem, but it was all sewing by hand and gluing and stuff, so not a problem. I am psyched to delve further into this new world.
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