Rose Antique and Burgundy Kimono
Silk and Satin Kimono Dress ' ROSE ANTIQUE' with coordinated hand Silk Painted top front and lower patchworks
Extra large size up to 44" bust (loose on dummy) created over burgundy polyester satin long shirt/nightshirt to form lining. Existing collar and button welt are utilised on the outside, while patchworks are created exactly to fit over shirt shape. Colours chosen to coordinate with burgundy satin which has a pink rose print. Sleeves have been extended some inches, with darker purple Ahimsa silk borders left over from a previously logwood-dyed silk. Heart shaped buttons are new, wood and painted.
Top Silk Painting: Comfrey dyed Habotai silk with hand painted Roses over pale soya wax resist, Celtic Triskels and red motifs from one of the prints. The cream silk looks antique in tone laid over the darker burgundy.
Lower Hem Silk Painting: Hawthorn dyed Ahimsa silk with bundle dyed texture of Sycamore leaves, then hand painted over with leaf outlines and roses, with painted motifs copied from a coordinate. [links to silk painting] More below...
COLLAR: Utilised from lining shirt. The outside of the shirt becomes the inside lining of Kimono. BACK: Burgundy colour scheme echoed in intricate centre print on voile.
Side Views
The two different silk painting pieces created to coordinate with all chosen fabrics for patchwork.
Sleeves are extended from underlying burgundy shirt to create 'kimono' style. Dark purple remnant of a silk painting forms wide extended border. Lined with colour coordinating viscose in lilac cloud print.
The original outline of the shirt tail slits is followed.
SLEEVES - Lining is viscose which extends to outer sleeve to form a border with dark purple, logwood-dyed, Ahimsa painted silk patchwork.
FRONT BUTTONING - Upper - Middle - Lower BUTTONS - Heart shaped painted wood.
HEM BOTTOM LAYER - Original curved slit outlines followed of underlying burgundy shirt (as lining)
Techniques used in Silk Painting preparations
SOYA WAX RESIST: My own photos were used, all enlarged to similar size, to make paper stencil cut-outs, for comfrey-soy-waxed-roses. Rose petal areas were roughly painted in hot soya wax. When wax was well set, the silk was placed in a cold comfrey dye bath, which showed cracking of wax after immersion, so I squeezed the roses slightly around a centre point, which produced the cracks as lines from the centre of pale rose shapes.
STEAM PRINTED PETALS and seeds are imprinted by bundle-steam method. Result is a few colour imprints of colour in areas between the roses. Rose petals shapes were lost by the cracking effect, so they were painted finally with a more stylized curly petals. Triangle was cut out where something was stained. This was utilised as neck area on kimono construction. CONCLUSION: This technique would be good on darker backgrounds, to be tried!
Sycamore Roses Steam Printed Leaves and Painted Roses on Ahimsa Silk
Sycamore leaf steamed bundle print produced a brown texture, interesting by itself; however for this garment, I added more over painting to match with patchwork fabric designs. The red outlines weren't needed; a blurred background to bring out the leaf areas would have sufficed.