Flight of Fancy Jacket and Over Vest
Penny Muncaster-Jewell

I used the Over & Under Pattern from Design & Sew Patterns (Lois Ericson) This used the Hoffman challenge fabric from a couple ofyears ago. Many of the techniques were from Judy Murrah’s Jazz It Up book. The crane design is by Kim Healey and she created it from the Hoffman fabric. I used it on the outside of the Jacket and on the Collar of the vest. (The one on the back is Fancy- not sure who the others are!) The same crane (outline only) was used for the lining.

One of the challenges with this was working out how to use the rather large ginko leaf buttons that I fell in love with from RAMA butoons. A friend suggested that rather than create really large buttonholes, use a tube that would run in and out of the piping to go over the buttons. This turned out to be very effective! A bonus was that they disappear when not buttoned! Unfortunately O can only wear this very infrequently because of the heat in Houston.

 

“Zed is for Zebra”
Penny Muncaster-Jewell

The title is because this is how the English say zebra! This jacket started out as McCall’s 8155, but I attended a workshop by Diane Ericson and she encouraged the students to think asymmetrical and out of the box. So I cut out her jacket with excess material and then went to the bathroom and hacked at it with a pair of scissors! Luckily I managed not to cut herself. The starting point for this was the zebra batik on the back that I found at the International Quilt Festival in Houston (from Indonesian Batiks.) I collected several zebra fabrics and then added the red to add some zing! A friend gave me the Batik zebras on the front. I traced this and created the embroidery that is used on the silk charmeuse lining!

The Dress is McCalls 2114. This is a great dress for embellishing. I took the Zebra embroidery and added embroidered fringing to it and placed it along the hemline. I modified the dress pattern slightly to line this.

The bag was made using Mary McCoy’s Everything Bag pattern (no longer available.) This is a great bag to add embellishments to the side pockets.

The Forest Princess
Penny Muncaster-Jewell

Inspired by the poem “Trees” by Joyce Kilmer, I captured the feeling of the tree in this form-fitting halter neck gown, reversible leaf cape and crown. The fabric for the bark dress was an impulse purchase in the New York fabric district, where I could not work out why I was buying this. Of course, a couple of years later it was the perfect item in my stash. I just can’t believe I remembered I had it!

There are approx 1600 individually embroidered leaves in the cape. I digitized the leaves myself. There are 8 different leaves and sizes. Approximately 16 miles of thread were used to create the leaves. There are more than 20 different fabrics in the cape including several of my hand-dyed silks. After working out how many leaves were required for the cape and some input from my hubby!, I had to re-engineer how to make the cape. i original though of using bridal illusion and stitching the leaves to that, but that did not work due to the weight of the leaves.

The leaves were embroidered so that they were reversible. They were cut out and then rejoined to create the base fabric for the cape and dress top.

The cape reverses from a spring/summer look to a wonderful rich array of Autumn colors. This dress has won several awards and has appeared in several international shows, including Australia and Holland at the International Patchwork and Quilt Expo.

 

The Silver Birch Bride
Penny Muncaster-Jewell

The silver birch bride waits for her secret midnight wedding under the silvery full moon. Her beautiful cape is made from approximately 1400 leaves. Each leaf was digitized and embroidered individually, cut out then rejoined to make the base fabric. The leaves were stitched in a variety of sizes, fabrics, and different colors of Sulky metallic thread. The fabrics used were various shades of crystallite organza (white, gold, silver, and grey), my own hand-dyed blue silk, silver lame and even some hologram material for additional glitz. Additional free-floating leaves were added so that as the garment is worn the leaves will rustle like a tree in a gentle breeze. The cape was finished off with a collar composed of a circle of embroidered leaves.

The dress fabric was selected because it resembled the bark of a silver birch tree. The dress bodice was fitted by creating a free format design of leaves with a graceful low-cut back and sensuous curved line of free falling leaves to create a sense of movement to the dress. Additional leaves were then individually stitched to the dramatically draped train. The tiara was made from additional leaves to complete her elegant bridal ensemble. No patterns were used for the outfit, which is an original design created by draping on a dress form.

Some of the leaves were digitized using a unique stitch I developed for computerized embroidery based on the mossing stitch developed by Ken Smith, an Australian Free Motion Embroiderer. I used the Brother PE-Design software to digitize the leaves. These filled leaves took over 30 minutes to stitch out one leaf. Overall nearly 1600 individual leaves were embroidered and used in the ensemble. The leaves used 103 small spools of Sulky metallic and 10 large spools of Sulky silver, which is over 16 miles of thread! 28 yards of fabric was used for the leaves. Each leaf is composed of two layers of fabric. Sulky invisible thread was used to create the cape’s base fabric and to attach the leaves to the cape, dress and tiara.