A Thousand Flowers
- fabman556
- May 11, 2018
- 2 min read
A Fabric Connection
Sometimes when I see a piece of fabric, I feel a connection and need to acquire it. Especially when that fabric seems to be a close interpretation of fabric I've seen in an inspiration shirt I want to replicate. That's what happened with this week's fabric, which is the second fabric to come off the stash and into the closet in my 2018 Spring Lineup.
Millefiore Revisited
This fabric is a reprint from a previous Kaffe Fassett collection (about ten years ago) by Free Spirit which I noticed in a fabric.com email. Find the fabric in quite a few colors here: https://www.fabric.com/find?searchText=Paperweight The design is named "Paperweight," and the name comes from the millefiore paperweights (above) which inspired the design. The technique is also used in jewelry (below).
According to Wikipedia, "millefiori is a glasswork technique which produces distinctive decorative patterns on glassware. The term millefiori is a combination of the Italian words "mille" (thousand) and "fiori" (flowers). Since the late 1980's, the millefiori technique has been applied to polymer clay and other materials. As the polymer clay is quite pliable and does not need to be heated and reheated to fuse it, it is a much easier medium in which to produce millefiori patterns than glass." Crafters who use Sculpy polymer clay will be familar with this technique.
The inspiration shirt is from desigual and was quick to replicate, as it's all about a single fabric, not about multiple fabrics...no special fabric or pattern engineering required. Find my "Shirting the Issue" Pinterest board here to see my other inspiration shirts: https://www.pinterest.com/dancox556/shirting-the-issue/. Wonder which shirt will be next for interpretation? Stay tuned!
Until next time, keep those sewing machines humming, and remember to stop and smell some of those "thousand flowers" along the way.
DTFM
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