Ruffles and Flounces with Her Majesty Margo

Let me start by saying that if you have any interest in felting, fibers, Textile collage or texture and you get the opportunity to take a workshop with Margo Duke JUMP AT THE CHANCE!!!!   She has earned her Title of Her Majesty!!  Her work is stunning and innovative and luxurious and she loves to share all of her tips and tricks as she is secure in the Knowledge that no one can collage fibers and fabrics exactly like another person.  She is a total delight.  Ruffles and Flounces was my fourth workshop with Margo and this class was held at the fabulous space and shop for Altered art and Fabulous batik fabric, Artistic Artifacts.

Whenever we gather with Margo, she brings out her glorious samples and inevitably we all get caught up in asking how and what and exclaiming and drooling over each piece.  This little tease of a trunk show is well worth the cost of the workshop, but wait there is more!!!  Then we see garments and my friend Chris is asked to model the garments so we can see the fit of each!! Then the pieces are passed around and finally they are counted to make sure they have not sprouted little furry feet.  ( just kidding about the last bit)

I took several photos fo a couple of her samples . These pieces are done with wool roving and collaged with silk fabrics, lace doilies, yarns and other fibers.  All of the work that you will see here are achieved using water, a bit of soap and woman power.  No stitches were taken to create these pieces!!!!

The Texture is totally breathtaking!!  The little red berry like bits are called wool nepps.  They are a bi- product of not good shearing.  The bits from bad shearing practice are called second cuts, by spinners.  This happens when the shearer does not get as close to the skin and therefore the longest fiber form the animal and has to return to make a Second Cut to even out the sheep's wool appearance.  this second cut ends up as lost part of the best part of the fleece, at least it was till some bright person figured out how to make these Nepps.  They can be dyed any color and they give wonderful texture , as you can see!

The first garment that Chris modeled was this wonderful vest.

Margo explained how she makes her collaged felt two sided so the garments can have interest on the inside as well as the outside.  FABULOUS!!

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The next garment was a wonderful soft colored jacket.  

This back view gives a great idea of how collaged Margo's pieces are- remember this is all done with water, a bit of soap and lots of hand  manipulation.  Then the pieces of felt collage are stitched together to make the garment.

( Click on any of these pictures to see enlargements and more detail)

I started out my project with a piece of green silk gauze with pink roses on it and a piece of tan cotton gauze that had red and blue floral print.  These remnants were topped by a large piece of chartreuse green pre-felt.  you can see the pre-felt in the picture above along the bottom edge.  I then layered the green pre-felt with hand dyed vintage cotton doilies, silk hankies, silk fibers and silk gauze  fabrics, sari silk ribbons and fun yarns.  Some of the silk gauze was rolled into 3-d rose shapes.  You can see the rose shapes in the center left of the above picture and in the middle of the picture below.

These two pictures were taken before the piece was wet down with soapy water and rolled and rolled and rolled some more!!!

This is a picture of the fully felted and fulled collage!  It shrank by 30%.  Along the bottom edge you can see the silk ruffle that was created by capturing one edge of a long piece of silk gauze ( cut from a thrift store skirt) .  As the wool shrinks that has penetrated the silk fabric, the silk gets carried along with the wool, resulting in wonderful ruffles and flounces.

  At the top of this picture you can see the felted in cotton doily- look at the wonderful texture- I do so love it!!!  The base of the silk roses have been captured by the wool and drawn in more tightly and are secured.

The br
ight blue areas in this picture show the pleating that I accomplished by hand pleating the fabric when wet and then covering with a very wispy bit of wool roving before the rolling process.

Here you can also see a good view of the ruffled silk from the pink skirt.

Here is a shot of the almost finished collage piece.  Just below the green pre-flet area you can see a piece of bright blue silk with a beaded motif on it.  This bit was cut from a silk beaded blouse, again from a thrift store.

now here is the same area once the felting and fulling is complete.  the beading is there along with the wonderfully puckered blue silk fabric.  So fabrics that have been beaded and sequined can be used to add yet another element to the felted collaged piece.  No needle and thread required!!!

Here you can see the back of half of the piece,  the half with the green silk gauze.  You can see how the green pre-felt fibers have penetrated the silk gauze.

This is the other side of the back , the half with the tan floral cotton gauze.  I love all of that texture!!!!

As you can probably tell I am more than a bit excited about  the possibilities for all of these wonderful

techniques!!  You will definitely be seeing more of this type of work here very very soon!!

So if you ever see classes, workshops or lectures offered by Her Majesty Margo Duke, DO NOT HESITATE TO SIGN UP AND DIVE IN!!!