What can I say............we had a great time the past couple days with the oh so talented Kaari Meng!! Yes we did. Wednesday evening we started with Kaari's Deconstructed Jewelry class..Kaari first gave us a little background on how she started out in New York.....designing and majoring in Jewelry! Kaari also told us she was one of the first jewelry artist for Anthropologie and designed jewelry for 5 years with that company. So interesting to see how these talented people start out and grow their business into what Kaari's is today " French General". We all got started with the color palette we wanted and then picked beads and started to create..
Kaari is such an excellent and easy going teacher. She makes you feel comfortable and will help in anyway.....here she is guiding us to pick the right beads that will make your jewelry piece beautiful! The beads were all so pretty you just had a difficult time picking out just the right ones so it was helpful for her guide you.......her knowledge and expertise is unbelievable!
I hope CIndy or some of the girls got photos of some of the necklaces......or they may be popping up on instagrams or facebook by now!( I think in this photo Amy may have hers on) I will take one of mine and show later.
Our second class was Boro/Sashiko Stitching. Since Kaari has fabric in her line of products she gave us some insight on how she goes about designing fabric..... lets just say its quite a process from the start to finish, and really interesting. Kaari goes to France every summer and finds bits and pieces of fabric that is tattered, old, discolored and beautiful all at the same time. Like the photo above she was explaining how this piece of fabric was used with just a small design portioned and scanned, shrunk and then color enhanced to make a repeat for fabric designs. She then makes several color choices to send to the fabric company and they can love it or not.......I know I have missed some of the process in between but it is so interesting to see how these designers come up with these designs to make their collection special. When you see each designers fabric you usually know who it is just by looking at the designs and colors. Kaari's line of fabrics is with Fabric Cut and Moda! I think she told us her newest line will be out in February.
Cindy is picking out her selection of fabric swatches.......
After you pick out several pieces you then lay it onto your main piece that is sandwiched in between some batting. This is mine all pinned down ready to start stitching.
Stitching away and enjoying the process..........the new Paper Crown Quilting Bee Group!!!!!
After you finish with the stitching of the patches onto the fabric then you go back with this beautiful thread and start the Sashiko Stitching.........creative, fun, relaxing and what a fun way to spend a thursday morning......I had to leave early so I did not get any more photos of the stitiching class. I am sure Cindy did and those will be posted soon on the Paper Crown blog. Before I left I got a few more photos.
Thank You Kaari for making Oklahoma one of your teaching stops in this busy time of year. We truly feel honored to have you come and teach . You are one talented lady and we hope you will return soon to teach us Okies more of your wonderful classes!
If anyone has photos of your finished jewelry piece or stitiching bags let us know and we can post them on either of the blogs or let us know if you have them on your instagram or facebook!
Happy weekend............I'm off to a special wedding!