Synchronicity in research

Photo of Bacardi Cube (left) by saikofish; Photo of Bacardi Tower (right) by Bob B. Brown 

I love when I'm minding my own business, driven to pursue a thought, an idea along a path of research and a delicious synchronicity appears to urge me along.

It is a time of unbridled creativity here in the studio, and I find myself out of training to keep up. One the one hand, there are many, many practical orders that need filling, yet the creative spirit is running wild and I must daily give that spirit free reign to research, play, create as she sees fit.

I received two orders of fabric this morning and after picking up a few books-on-tape from the library, I was ready, scissors in hand to dive deeply into sewing and listening. Next thing I know, I'm under-stitching a facing while listening to the history of cancer. Did you know that there are paleontologist-pathologists? One in particular who found the oldest known proof of the existence of cancer after conducting autopsies on thousand-yr-old bodies atop a Peruvian tundra??

So I found myself, after a few hours of sewing and the completion of one petal top, needing a bit of a change. I felt very weak and realized it had a lot to do with the graphic description of early aggressive surgeries and radiation therapies gone wrong. Lord, humans are a wily set. I shifted to the computer and began work on a digital inspiration board for a new project I'm working on that will have its debut in December.

When I'm not listening to books, I like listening to music and have recently discovered Pandora (I know, I know...I also do not have an iPhone...). So HOW COOL is Pandora?!? I mean, they don't always have it spot on, but it's a pretty close. When I need to rock while sewing, I listen to a station made up of the following seeds: Violent Femmes, Hole and Ween. A random, quirky, edgy little mix and yet just as I returned to the station this afternoon, ready to get busy with my research, A Day in the Life by the Beatles came through the queue...it seemed an odd choice given what usually plays on this station, but a good song nonetheless.

As the orchestra began its ascent, I typed, "Miami Architecture" into google and the first thing that caught my attention was an image of the building on the right in the above photo. I clicked on the image and learned that the Bacardi Building tower was designed by Enrique Guitierrez and built in 1964, followed in 1973 by the Bacardi cube (building on left in above photo), which was designed by Ignacio Carrera-Justiz. Intrigued and excited by both buildings, I continued my research and came across this article by Robin Hill, an architectural photographer based in Miami. If you don't care to read the article - though you'll be missing a delightful bit of writing - I will leave you with this: as the strains of "A Day in the Life" reached their zenith, I read the following sentence in Hill's article:

If the Bacardi buildings were a song, they might be that famous Lennon and McCartney recording, "A Day in the Life" from the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

My father and I share an awe for experiences such as these, though this might be my first experience with a synchronized soundtrack.

While the Miami project remains semi-veiled, here are a few warm-up designs from a brainstorming session yesterday. The veils will be drawn as the days grow short.

It's August and we've "Gone Sewin"

This is what arrived prior to my first summer show and now that I'm home for a while, I have about half of this fabric left to play with. A sea change is coming, I can feel it. Tré Lilli is ready to evolve. Over the summer, we collected approximately twenty orders for made-to-order garments. We've held our first-ever Etsy sale and everything is moving along nicely. An incredibly outrageous collaboration is in the works for December...but...I'm not at liberty to divulge at the moment. What I can tell you is this: if you will be anywhere near Miami during the weekend of December 7th, we will see you there!


For now, it is important to move around and make some needed changes. I love working with all of these new materials and hope to create some garments to complement their personalities - cotton voile and cotton silk being two of my favorites. August is our dream-big time and I've got lots of time booked specifically for the studio. Come September, I hope to have new fabric designs ready to unveil. Until then, happy sewing, y'all.

Shooting star

Time to brag, or gush, since I claim no right to the following praise:

Miss Sarah, my high-school sewing student has completed the first draft of her portfolio for FIT (Fashion Institute of Technology, NYC) and will be attending a four-day class at the school in a week. She leaves for NYC soon and we met on Monday to go over the final details of her first-draft and to talk excitedly about the future (I did more listening than talking on this particular day).

Sarah has worked tirelessly and efficiently to achieve a great deal prior to her trip. She wanted to have something - something, indeed! - to show her professor this summer in order to get some concrete feedback before submitting her final portfolio for review.

I've enjoyed working with Sarah because her vision is singular and she is so dedicated to the craft of garment design. It isn't only that she wants to design, but she wants to sew and have the ability to make her designs as well. This is such a breath of fresh air, given that sewing seems to be a lost art.

What has been most exciting for me is watching her process. Sarah has many influences that are edgy and will be well-received in New York, but it is really encouraging to see her translate these influences into designs that are then implemented into garment construction. She works fast and furious and there is a roughness to her work, but at the same time, she perseveres and completes everything she begins.

I have given her several homework assignments and every time we meet, she surprises me with her follow through. I taught her about paper-piecing and piecing in general and she utilized this technique to make some truly original harem pants that I'd love to show....Sarah wants that her images be kept under wraps until after she has submitted her portfolio.

Sarah adding some final touches to a sketch. In the fore-ground is a garment that she made from muslin - dyeing and manipulating the fabric so that it is hardly recognizable as such.

Twelve years ago, I was somewhere in Europe right about now and had just found out that I had been accepted to the Industrial Design screening class at the UW after having submitted my portfolio, essay and resume. I know just how Sarah feels and am really enjoying re-living this kind of excitement and work. It is truly wonderful to have a vision of what you want to do and to commit wholly to that vision. Keep dreaming, y'all, and keep working. Everyone should experience the light and energy of a shooting star at least once in life...

In the studio: let no scrap go unused

I've always been keen on recycling, reusing, re-purposing...reinventing...and I've always, always been a bit of a hoarder. A few months back, the bags of Tré Lilli scraps were beginning to trip me up as I moved from room to room and after a major brainstorming session, these colorful little necklaces were born.

I like them especially because for now, they chronicle the evolution of Tré Lilli fabric design. Having completed three art festivals in the last month, I managed to move several necklaces and customers enjoyed seeing similar color palettes in the necklaces and the garments for sale in my booth.

Always a fan of image research, I recently became obsessed with all things "Ballets Russes" and feel that the necklaces are an extension of that inspiration. The Ballets Russes, with Sergei Diaghilev as artistic director, became the kind of cultural phenomenon that reaches mythic proportions. At times the directors, choreographers, costumers and designers made incredible beauty from meager resources and this simplicity is what Tré Lilli aspires to, beginning with Ballets Russes necklaces. Furthermore, we are partial to one-of-a-kind creations and these necklaces are no exception.

Rags to Stitches...an evolution

Several months ago, I met with Chip Brantley, the director of DISCO (Desert Island Supply Company: "a creative writing program for kids in Birmingham, Alabama. Our mission is to give students in the Birmingham area more opportunities to write") and (my dear) Kimberly at ArtPlay to discuss a possible art track for participants in DISCO's summer program. Chip told me the students would be between the ages of 14 and 17 and that he'd really like to see a program that allowed the students to create many different types of things with their hands. I immediately put together a plan for the students to make a community quilt - hand-sewn - and for them to also create individual process books that they could bind themselves and keep as memory books of their summer experience. We decided to call the art track, "Rags to Stitches" and I was very pleased with myself.


As with everything in life, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is. We are currently in the third week of a six week program and we've adjusted our focus many times over. In the first week, it became very clear that threading needles is not what children want to spend their summer doing. While each student gave a great effort in the first week, the idea of continuing to hand sew for another five weeks brought an almost mutiny in the last hours of the first week. So last week I introduced the sewing machine and wow, what an amazing amount of energy was put forth!


-Edmund wanted to make a hat with a bill and chose a turquoise, yellow and teal cotton duck fabric for prototype number 1. 
-Kelsey and Jamecia both made cotton duck shoulder bags.
-Keke made a cell phone holder with strap for her jeans and a fabric bracelet reminiscent of a cuff.
-Mariam has fallen in love with the machine and the needle and has made several things by hand and with the machine. She made a patch honoring Allah by hand and a star and crescent moon (both stuffed) using the machine.
-Mari, our oldest student and truly the ring leader and happily (for me) the one they all look up to, started cutting up a black and white zebra print fabric to create embellishments for a jacket. He made a tie and one long sleeve and wants to find a white jacket to complete the look.


Tomorrow we will go to the thrift store across from Woodrow Hall in Woodlawn (where we meet each day) to pick out items to up-cycle.


The summer program continues to evolve but one thing is for certain: when we have our showcase at the end of the camp, these kids will have a variety of amazing creations to show. And unlike a group quilt, they will be able to take their creations home and share them with their friends and family.

Adult quilting class in Woodlawn

Sharon's nine-patch quilt blocks laid out with sashing

I was extremely lucky to be able to participate in ArtReach, a program co-sponsored by ArtPlay and Woodlawn's YWCA this past spring. I was asked to run a six-month adult machine-quilting class and ended up with two extremely dedicated students. Joyce is in her sixties: a tall, elegant and soft-spoken woman with a smile that drops her age by several decades when it shines. She joined our group because she hadn't sewn since her middle school home-ec class and wanted to see what she remembered.

Sharon, a recent convert to Islam, spoke to me a great deal about muslim garments and her interest in learning to sew them for herself. She had never sat down at a sewing machine before and was quite nervous to run the machine for the first couple of sessions.

I met with these women for six weeks and by the end of our time together, both had enough nine-patch quilt blocks to make a small lap quilt. For Joyce, the machine was as easy to pick back up as a bicycle (though she'd prefer the machine to a bike ride) and she was able to make her nine-patch blocks with little to no direction from me. The rare time that the machine came un-threaded, she would ask me gently to re-thread it since she always forgot her reading glasses.

Sharon was the opposite of Joyce in many ways. She wasn't able to sew a straight line to save her life, but her determination was constant and she persisted with a graveness that I tried to lighten with jokes. She would ignore me most of the time and sit with her seam ripper, sighing heavily when she'd have to pick out the same seam for the third time. But she did it and she kept going and she made the blocks you see above, almost completing a quilt top in a few short sessions.

I enjoyed these sessions because often both women would fall into contemplative silences that were quite different from hand-sewing sessions that I have directed. Each woman, at her machine, composed her blocks and continued her work non-stop so that the brief 1.5 hr sessions were over before we realized it. I taught these women with great pride, having learned the techniques myself, only a handful of months beforehand. I really do love passing these skills on to others as quickly as possible, and both Sharon and Joyce would love to continue once a regular place can be found for us to work.

Our simple work station - a couple of yards of fabric acts as ironing board

Joyce ironing the seams of her nine-patch quilt blocks

Sharon and Joyce at their machines

Joyce's quilt blocks with a bit of red fabric to denote sashing. She composed these blocks with such care, it was really a joy to watch her piecing the colors from our donated fabric.

Joyce's blocks without sashing 

Ultimately, Joyce chose a colorful fabric as her sashing in our last class. She was looking forward to getting out her mother's old sewing machine to put the rest of the quilt together. Both Joyce and Sharon were interested in hand-quilting rather than machine-quilting.

Joyce sits proudly with her laid out quilt top

A celebration

On Saturday, May 19th, Tré Lilli officially celebrated its 2nd birthday. We've put on a few fashion shows since 2010, but the show during "Paris, Mais Oui" was certainly the best yet. We had a lot of help and inspiration: styling and prep and model acquisition thanks to Molly Green's fabulous summer interns Jackie and Mubina. A huge thank you to Brittany Hartwell for supplying clothes to accompany the Tré Lilli garments and for her support and her fabulous hair styling skills.

One of the best parts of the day was reconnecting with fans of Tré Lilli who have been along for the ride. This has been a journey of love, light, learning and always exploration and we're so incredibly lucky to have the support of members of the community. We're continuing to learn and grow. More photos from the day and the fashion shows will be available soon. For now, here's a taste of what the day offered...

A portion of the 20+ foot mural painted by Tres Taylor for Paris, Mais Oui

The magic behind the scenes

Waiting for the show to begin

Paris, Mais Oui was a group show of Tres
Taylor's paintings, Stephen Rostand's photography
and Lillis Taylor's fashion.