Godzilla Pillow #8: Harajuku Girl

[purejuice]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/purejuice/tags/harajuku/

This is seafoam colored spangled fake chiffon from JoAnn's, and seafoam/lavender cotton plaid also from JoAnn's. The plaid was destined for a different Godzilla pillow until I realized the other night it would be perfect for this one.

I want to make a ruched seafoam chiffon pillow cover and was wondering what to put underneath.

I decided, in keeping with one of the themes of the Godzilla room of fine femme handicrafts, to smock the plaid to make a pillow cover to go under the ruched chiffon.

It works perfectly as the spangles reflect a pink light which is exactly the shade of pink in the plaid.

I'll be using Dryad Handicrafts Pamphlet #131 for smocking instructions, and will attempt some honeycomb, Van Dyke and feather effects as well as simpler ones.

The ruched chiffon cover is a direct steal from Donna Karan's bedding design of last year. (The link is to my original ideas about the design of each pillow and it's funny how much the actual fabrication is different, and better, I think. Simpler, stronger, which I learned from the Y[o]ukoes.)

This particular pillow was inspired by the fabrics available at JoAnn's and not by any particular denizen of Fruits, the book of Japanese street fashion by Shoichi Aoki, which inspired most of the pillow designs.

In the background, you can see the mockup of Godzilla Pillow #6: Wa.

I also want to note here the need, in any kind of studio I build or make for myself, of a whole area devoted just to laying stuff out to look at it and live with it and tweak it. I had to lay these two materials out together for 48 hours to see if they actually worked together, but they're on my cutting surface. Ideally I'd like to be cutting stuff I've already tweaked and planned while looking at stuff I'm still playing with -- if I'm looking at this now, I'm not cutting nine-patch strips for the Irish chain doll quilt or felt flowers for Tadashi's boutonniere.

I need to think about how the fabric stores display fabric (on mannequins, and on tiers of rolls) and or how quilters lay their materials out for collaging (floor, quilting wall).