Silk, Monet, Dior, Silk and more Silk...

As "Pearl" types this, "Lee" is passing the Texas state line and heading into Arkansas on her way back to Northern Virginia. We've had a great week together — a working vacation after Lee drove our recent estate purchase of amazing Korean silks down to the workroom in Texas.

We spent most of the week working with these materials, studying the weaves and textures and getting the bolts weighed, measured, tested and tagged in preparation for our COMING SOON fabric sales.

If this sounds like a kid-in-a-candy-store way to spend a week — it was! This is a remarkable collection. It includes figured China silks, lightweight shantungs and a small but choice selection of beautiful brocades and figured satins. There's even a grouping of 15 inch hand loom-width silks that feel like butter and drape like water. If those materials have a traditional name, we do not know it yet. Right now we're going with, "Wow."

At the center of this collection is an awe-inspiring color variety of Korean nobang silk organzas.

Choosing a name for each wonderful color was fun — though as you can see, it was also no small task. Even through the gray-and-beige years, the Korean manufacturers blessedly continued to produce a full range of scrumptious colors. It was hard not to stop and make something beautiful out of every bolt before entering it into the catalog.

Of course, we did take time to make a few beautiful things for our dolls. And here's the biggest lesson we learned — if you've never worked with 100% silk organza before, you're going to be in for a lovely surprise!

This stuff is EASY to cut and sew.

Working with silk organza is like working with a crisp quilting cotton. It is nothing like working with polyester organza, which is a devilish material that slips and slides everywhere. Real silk organza lies exactly where you want it to lie, cuts and pins easily, runs through the sewing machine like a dream, steams gently into soft billowing folds — or presses absolutely flat like paper (and stays that way until you press it out again).

Here's the top from our Pattern 1031: Classic Wrap Dress and Peplum Top for 18 Inch Dolls, made out of a rich chestnut duotone organza.

Our American Girl® #61 Joanna is wearing this translucent pleated blouse over a black unitard made using our Pattern 1051: Ballet Basics and a denim skirt from our Pattern 1041: Slim Skirts for 18 Inch Dolls.

Here's our American Girl® Lea Clark™ wearing an all-silk version of our current FREE PATTERN for mailing list subscribers — Pattern 1038: The Gift Bow Front Dress for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls.

We made the bow front and sleeves out of raspberry pink organza, and the body of the dress out of a crimson figured China silk.

If you aren't already a mailing list member, be sure to click the link below to get your copy of this lovely pattern for dolls. You are going to want it as soon as these silks become available!

CLICK HERE to sign up for the Lee & Pearl mailing list and get Pattern 1038: The Gift Bow Front Dress as our 2019 exclusive gift to members!

Finally, here's our American Girl Melody in a super-chic, haute couture ensemble made entirely out of silk!

We chose a smoky green silk organza for Melody's Pattern 2064: Posh Accessories 1960s Flower Pot Hat. Silk organza is the perfect fabric for this retro style — nothing forms rounded brim edges and soft millinery pleats quite as beautifully!

We made Melody's dress using the slip pattern from our Pattern 1943: Molly Waves Goodbye 1940s Suit for 18 Inch Dolls, and a very light and crisp citrine green silk shantung with a barely visible slub. This fabric has a beautiful sheen, turning the simple slip into an elegant vintage-style sheath dress. We raised the hem slightly (about 3/8") to match the coat, but otherwise made no real changes to the pattern.

Finally, we were inspired by the current high-fashion trend for translucent organza coats and jackets (check out all the beautiful examples on our Silk Organza Inspirations Pinterest board) to turn our Pattern 1025 Lab Coat for 18 Inch, 16 Inch and 14 1/2 Inch Dolls into a shimmering, bubblegum pink haute couture confection.

Making this garment out of translucent silk instead of cotton required a few small changes to the pattern directions. As you can see, the seam allowances are visible inside — in fact, they form a design element in the finished garment. So instead of finishing the 1/4" seams with a serger, we used enclosed 1/8" French seams and rolled hems instead.

These tiny seams are quite easy to sew with silk organza. The fabric cuts cleanly, stitches neatly and hardly ever ravels, allowing you to trim and turn perfect 1/8" seams and rolled hems. And here's a tip to make turning those hems even easier: run a line of stitches 1/8" from the fabric edge, being sure to use matching thread, then pinch and press right along those stitches. Finish by trimming, turning and pressing again.

We hand stitched the hem in place, using a slip stitch — though you practically don't need to sew these hems in place at all. This fabric presses almost as neatly as paper, and once pressed into a knife edge, silk organza tends to stay that way.

Along with making beautiful garments, silk organza is also used as the fabric base for a wide range of embellishment techniques. Beading, flower making, tambour embroidery, painting and dyeing — ethereal-yet-sturdy silk organza pops up everywhere in haute couture videos and high-end craft books and classes.

Of course, we had to try out a few of these beautiful techniques ourselves.

First, we pulled out our collection of Tsukineko fabric inks and a container of ordinary shaving cream and set to work applying a metallic marbled pattern to some brilliant orange silk.

We featured this fun and easy marbling technique in a previous newsletter, and included a FREE tutorial booklet as a PDF download. Be sure to check it out—

CLICK HERE TO GO TO OUR FABRIC MARBLING NEWSLETTER AND GET THE FREE TUTORIAL BOOKLET

Here's a great opportunity for any Lee & Pearl friends in the Northern Virginia / DC metro area —

Our craftmeister "Lee" (Rebecca Menes) will be teaching a hands-on class in this technique at NOVA Labs Makerspace in Reston, VA on Sunday, August 25, 2019.

Attendees will be provided with the inks and fabrics (as well as the shaving cream and other tools) so all you need to bring is an apron and a desire to make something beautiful!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP FOR OUR FABRIC MARBLING CLASS AT NOVA LABS MAKERSPACE IN RESTON, VA

Next up, we tested an assortment of rubber stamps and stamp inks (Tsukineko Brilliance Dew Drops and Ranger® Distress Inks) on a variety of organza swatches.

Here's something we learned: on the lighter organzas, the more subtle, translucent Distress Inks work best, blending beautifully into the background colors, while on the darker organzas — like the dark navy above — an all-over pattern in the metallic Dew Drops could pass for doll-scale brocade!

We'll be testing more inks, paints and dyes in the future as this is clearly a terrific craft arena for the silks in our collection.

Silk organza is also the perfect base material for bead embroidery. Pearl enjoyed making these samples — a looped edge treatment, hem treatment and scattered star motifs — from size 11/0 and 8/0 seed beads, bugle beads and a few sparkly sequins. This is another craft area we're looking forward to exploring in the future. Wouldn't you love to make outfits for dolls with beautiful designs like these?

Finally, here's a statement-accessory flower for humans made out of a somewhat softer, looser-weave silk organza from the collection. We *only* have four bolts of this material, but each bolt is in a different soft, floral shade — perfect for ballet and bridal accessories!

Over the week, we did tear ourselves away from our own silk collection to visit a few remarkable museum collections currently on view in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

First up, we saw the heartbreakingly lovely Monet: the Late Years exhibit at the Kimbell Museum in Fort Worth.

This exhibit features an eye-popping collection of Monet's glorious, glowing, almost expressionist water lily and Giverny garden paintings. It will be at the Kimbell through September 15, 2019, and it is a must-view exhibit if you are anywhere in the area.

After Monet at the Kimbell, we made a pilgrimage into Dallas to view the Dior: From Paris to the World exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Art.

Starting with Dior and his famous Bar Jacket (above) and continuing through each successive designer at the helm of this iconic fashion house (Yves Saint Laurent, Marc Bohan, Gianfranco Ferré, John Galliano, Raf Simons and Maria Grazia Chiuri) this is another must-not-miss museum exhibit.

Lee and I played "which outfit would you wear" in each room — and racked up quite an imaginary couturier bill. We'll also be fighting over several ensembles, including this gorgeous red number from 1952...

And this Aventure ensemble from '48...

And this Holt Renfrew exclusive from '53...

Lee decided this glowing green taffeta party dress was right up her alley...

While Pearl gravitated to the sophisticated flair of this late '80s Gianfranco Ferré ensemble...

We both loved this Maasai-inspired gown from the John Galliano era — and that glorious silk organza skirt, of course...

Want to make a skirt like that yourself? Stay tuned... we have SEVEN BOLTS of vivid orange silk organza in our collection.

And look, here's some Dior atelier beadwork — on a silk organza base, of course!

In the Office of Dreams display (below), several of the studio toiles (design mock-ups) are made out of silk organza. When we say that this stuff is as easy to work with as muslin, we're not kidding!

Finally, we'll leave you with some photos from a favorite (and unexpected) room in the exhibit. This room featured color-coordinated inspiration boxes, with TINY DOLL-SCALE VERSIONS of iconic outfits in each box! OMG — aren't these amazing?

Of course we wanted every single one of these tiny dresses...

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See you next time!