Sassy Feet! blog

And Wings to Fly...

I was in my favorite Mexican restaurant the other night, visiting with Steven, one of my favorite young men, when I noticed his fabulous winged shoes! I asked him about the embellishment on them, and he said he'd sewn and attached it himself. Now, Steven is very creative and terrific with a sewing machine, so I wasn't surprised. But I was impressed and I wanted to share the results with you.

Steven said he was inspired to create his embellishments when he saw a pair of Adidas on the web that had wings on them. Jeremy Scott has been doing winged Adidas since late 2008 and if you search online, you'll find them in several different finishes.  All of them, however, have the wings threaded on the outer-ankle side using shoe laces to attach them.

Steven tried a different tactic. He drew a wing, cut it out, then traced it wrong side up to get a reversed version to use on the other shoe.

To make his wings, he used three layers of fabric: heavy canvas on the bottom for stiffness, gray cotton in the middle and netting on top (so the gray would show through). He transferred the wing and feather lines onto the fabric, then used a dense zigzag stitch to create the outlines and hold the fabric layers together. After stitching, he trimmed away the excess fabric.

To attach the wings to his canvas shoes, Steven used fabric glue under the large oval area and under the tip of the third feather from the top. The idea was to give the wing some room to stand up and out.  Finally, he did invisible free-motion stitching inside the oval area to provide a more secure bond than the glue alone would afford.

Steven has worn and washed these shoes many times, so he apologizes if the wings are no longer pristine.  If you're ever in Morro Bay, CA, stop by Taco Temple and say hi to him -- he's a host and sometime waiter, and a darling man!

One of the things I like about Steven's wings is that they are more Mercury-like than Jeremy Scott's, especially in their placement. Wings are in on shoes this year; Vivian Westwood has some and so does Matt Bernson.

I love the idea of winged shoes -- I'm going to have to come up with my own version and stop by Taco Temple to show Steven!

Slightly Unconventional

Margot and I both like to test, adventure, and expand what we do artistically (especially with DIY artisan projects).  Margot was the one who realized one day that women's OTHER favorite accessory, the purse, is made from the exact same materials as shoes, thus opening up purses to the same sort of fabulous things we'd been doing to shoes! This was a most excellent revelation.

Not only do the Lumiere paints we use on shoes work wonderfully on leather and manmade leather, but fabric as well. To mean, this means T-shirts! I have taken it upon myself to explore this fully, and I want to share some of the results.

Here's is a cityscape relief using our Glitter It! paint in Shamrock. (I blocked out the buildings using masking tape.) I did the wording in Metallic Olive Green using a toothpick.

Here's a fun flourish I put on the front of a T using several different Lumiere colors with Glitter It! paint:

 This one is a mendhi-inspired design in Pewter (which was slightly affected by the camera flash so it looks almost glittery):

 A chubby swallow flies through cherry blossoms down the front of this V-necked T:

And finally, a splattered Pearlescent Turquoise and Super Copper design with Neopaque Black filigree flowers:

Painting T-shirts requires a little more paint than painting on leather as the cloth absorbs some of the paint, which real and faux leather do not. But there's no prep work needed and just a 2-3 minute ironing (with the shirt turned inside-out) will "seal the deal," so to speak.

SUPER-HELPFUL DIY HINT: Painting or stenciling on clothes is the perfect way to cover up stains that refuse to be washed out! DItto those annoying bleach marks that come from out of nowhere to land on your favorite clothes!

http://fc05.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2009/348/3/7/Coppered_Turquoise_with_Vines_by_Killbot_Beauty.jpg

And Their Boots Were Hung by the Chimney...

By rights, this should be Destiny's post, since she did most of the work on this project, but I thought I'd surprise her by writing it for her. Several months ago the folks at Jacquard Products, who make the Lumiere paint we love to use, asked us if we'd like to be part of a Christmas project for their website. They were asking several textile artists to create (and paint, of course) fabric Christmas stockings.

They asked Destiny and me if we'd like to do a Christmas stocking from an actual boot. Heck yes, we said, then went rummaging around in our spare-shoe-and-boot stash for a good "before" candidate. We found a boot with a nice curving shape and some lines that would lend themselves to color blocking.

Destiny came up the with idea for painting a "Night Before Christmas" scene and I suggested we have dangly lace at the top, use flatback crystals for stars dotting the night sky, and add a suble swathe of Glitter It! paint behind Santa's sleigh.

Here's the result, and here's a link to the Jacquard site where you can read all about how we did it and print out a pdf of the instructions, too.  Great job, Destiny!!!