February 6, 2020

It's almost Valentine's Day and we're celebrating with a sale on all our In the Pink 100% silk organzas. We're also taking a nice long look at two recent projects Lee & Pearl friends made with their silk organzas — an heirloom doll dress and a gorgeous nuno felt scarf!

• Enjoy a week-long 20% off sale on all our In the Pink curated kits and by-the-yard 100% silk organza listings, starting now.

• Hooray for Huret — and do you know Nuno? Lee & Pearl friends are making amazing things with our silk organzas.

In every shade from peach to berry and rose to blush, we've got pink and pretty covered in our In the Pink collection of 100% silk organzas!

And as a holiday treat, starting today and running through Valentine's Day next week — Friday, February 14, 2020 — every one of these beautiful shades is on sale at 20% off.

CLICK HERE for our In The Pink Silk Organza Curated Five Half Yard Sampler — now 20% off through February 14, 2020.

CLICK HERE for our In The Pink Silk Organza by-the-yard listings — now 20% off through February 14, 2020.

Just look at all these scrumptious colors!

Got a case of the February blahs? Toss a few of these pretty fabrics into your stash and watch all your sewing and craft projects bloom—

CLICK HERE for our In The Pink Silk Organza Curated Sampler — now 20% off through February 14, 2020.

CLICK HERE for our In The Pink Silk Organza by-the-yard listings — now 20% off through February 14, 2020.

Mmmm. Sweet dreams, Lea...

Hooray for Huret — and Do You Know Nuno?

We love it when our friends send us pictures of the beautiful things they make with our patterns and fabrics (hint, hint).

Recently, two talented craftswomen sent us the following photos of the projects they made with silk organza from our shop — and we just had to share these amazing works of art.

First up, here's an heirloom pink silk dress that Anna W. made for her replica Huret doll, Adrienne:

Anna — that's artz_annie on Instagram and the designer behind DollClothesThroughTheAges — created the pattern for this dress herself, finishing every glowing silk tier with scallop edging on her sewing machine.

A light but crisp fabric, silk organza cuts cleanly, sews easily and barely frays. It's the perfect material for embroidery-style finishes like those scallops.

The doll is also Anna's creation. Her china head was fashioned by doll designer Ann Ghist, and her body put together with parts found on Dollspart. "Adrienne" is a replica of a china-head Huret doll, a type of French fashion doll that was extremely popular from the 1860s to the 1890s.

Here's Anna W. on the inspiration behind her lovely doll:

I've found myself very much immersed in the antique French Fashion doll world now that I own three reproductions. I initially became fascinated by them as a child because I wanted the antique French doll on the back of the Pleasant Company catalogs.

Thank you so much, Anna for sharing your inspiration and for finding such a lovely and unique use for our silk organza fabric!

And now for something completely different...

We recently fielded a request for silk organza to be used as a base for nuno felting.

Have you heard of nuno felting?

We're embarrassed to admit that we hadn't — though we love all things Japanese, and the word "nuno" is the Japanese word for fabric. So we jumped right on the web to have a look at this exciting new craft. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about nuno felting...

Nuno felting is a fabric felting technique... [that] bonds loose fibre, usually wool, into a sheer fabric such as silk gauze, creating a lightweight felt. The fibres can completely cover the background fabric, or they may be used as a decorative design that allows the backing fabric to show. ...

Nuno felt is an extremely versatile created fabric.... Because of the range of weights possible with the cloth, very fashionable and exciting garments can be made.

Exciting indeed: felted wool patterns applied to gauzy silk create a fabric that isn't stiff or heavy, but rather light, airy — even see-through!

We were eager to see the results of nuno felting on our silk organza, though we were a little nervous recommending the material as it is quite crisp. But fiber artist Linda P. from MO knew what she was doing...

Have a look at this extraordinary fiber art nuno felt scarf that Linda P. made using our silk organza as a base!

Our jaws dropped. Yours did too, right?

Here's what Linda P. had to say about the scarf, about our silk — and about her technique for softening the crisp silk organza into a gauzier, floatier state for this kind of project:

I could not wait to get started on your fabrics. I did soak in warm soap water, using cream rinse and vinegar, too. It really softened up the silk nicely. I did a nuno felting on the green organza (love it) and added pieces of silk fabric and wool. It's so airy. I can get four scarves out of a two-yard cut, or two or three wider scarves.

This one is called Monarch.

I used my cheap cream rinse Suave. About the amount you would add to your hair. I have another piece of fabric soaking to see if it will soften up even more. And I'm going to add a piece to the washing machine to see what that does. It's an experimental thing. Nothing can be ruined because it will be used in an art project no matter what!

Linda, thank you so much for sharing this amazing work, and the details of your craft. Though she does not create these works for sale (yet?), Linda shared with us that she has been asked to do fiber art workshops. I think we can all agree that such workshops would fill up quickly with lots of eager students. Go for it, Linda!

Linda's gorgeous scarf is all the inspiration we need to give this craft a try. But if you'd like to see even more nuno artworks, we've added a few to our Pinterest Silk Organza Inspirations board — check them out!

Then CLICK HERE to go to the Fabric & Trim Section of our Etsy store to see all our beautiful silk organza listings, including our 20% off In the Pink collections.

See you next time!

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