I’m sitting in my living room drinking coffee and eating leftovers from our Zachary’s Pizza gathering last night. Oh, the sweetness. A good friend of ours, Dan, was in town. We met in Berkely at this pizza joint that has become so popular, we had to wait for about an hour and a half to get a table. Luckily, they served beer, so we were content with that and the company. Dan and Steve go way back. A lover of life and dreams, that one. It was good to see him.

This morning I found a site to share, Reprodepot Fabrics. They have really cute vintage, retro and Japanese imported fabrics. They carry patterns, buttons, patches and sewing accessories as well. I was surprised to see that the prices aren’t too bad either. Great stuff… check it out.

I’ve stumbled across something I am rapidly growing to love; using fabrics as art. I’ve always loved painting with layers to add depth and visual texture, and now I am appreciating the vast amount of interest that a piece of fabric can bring. Obviously, I’ve explored using my trunk full of mismatched fabrics to sew something… a quilt maybe? Quilts are beautiful and useful but it wouldn’t show the raw beauty that already exists. Having plenty of “cut-off” jean shorts in my life, I knew that if I was to throw fabric in the washing machine without hemming the raw edge, it would fray. Great. So I tried it. I cut a bunch of my fabric in strips of all sizes and washed them. What came out was incredible. Everything tangled together and made this great mass of strings and thread. I wanted to just hang it on the wall from there, but decided to take it a couple steps further. I took a piece of pine (10″x30″x1″) and painted it black. Then wrapped the pieces of fabric around it until it created something more interesting. I uploaded the finished result under my portfolio page. Scroll down to “Fabric” and take a look. Next, I’m going to sew the pieces together first before wrapping them. I’m thinking this will create a more uniform look, without sacrificing the imperfect quality of the fabric. It’s all a mess and I love it.