Susan and Sabyl's studio

Two of my dearest partners in all things art are Susan and Sabyl.  They share an art studio near Broadway and 1st in Denver, where there are a bunch of funky boutique shops, tattoo parlors, and vintage stores. (Hello, Fancy Tiger, for all things fabric and knitting!). Someday I will do my top 5 (or 10) of places to go on Broadway.

Susan and I will have a booth at the Denver Modernism show at the Denver Western Stock show complex August 24th (PM) thru the 26th.  Susan's collage art includes 50's and 60's women's silhouettes that totally fits with the theme. I have some art that will work for the show, but I also have collected quite a few vintage items that will be for sale at the show. I have been collecting a lot of vintage aprons lately. I also have vintage suitcases that I am going to add legs to in order to make them tables. I will show them in a future post.

I have a vintage looking tablecloth (it is a reproduction) and since it is not actually vintage, I thought about making zippered card holder pouches or tote bags out of it.  I decided to wait until after the show, but by then I was motivated to make the pouches. I happen to have a very large stash of felted (recycled) sweaters in my studio.  I grabbed an Ikea bag full of sweaters (which means way more than I could possibly use in one sitting) and met up with S&S at the studio. They are so nice to let me take over a corner of the studio to work with them, which is way more fun than my basement studio at home.

Sabyl and an example of her work:

Susan and an example of her work:

 I did not bring my sewing machine and unfortunately the one at the studio was set up for free motion and we could not find the other feet for it. Since I could not sew the pouches, I made a cardboard template and worked on cutting them out of the felted sweaters. And, oh, a couple more. And doesn't this stripe look cute, let's do some striped ones. Then I was up to 30.  Crud.  Whenever I decide to make a bunch of anything, I usually am sick of them by number 8.  Hopefully since these are small (and unlined) I won't hit this barrier. Right now they look too darn cute.

Here is a picture of me with my cut out zippies. You can see my Ikea sweater bag on the floor.

I am going to embellish some of these with needle felting, but that will be a future post. Some, like the striped ones, or the ones that were cable-knit sweaters, will be sewn without additional embellishment.

Here's a picture of part of the vintage tablecloth I was going to make into pouches or tote bags. What do you think? Is it better to keep it whole, or do you think it would be more fun for it to be made into other things?