Dear Ma (Dress 115)

Dear Mum,
I've always taken your art for granted. Growing up amongst beautiful things and amazing creative people. How lucky was I? Thanks.
A couple of years back you did an exhibition in Queensland where you made engraved ice columns (three) at intervals of two or so hours, so that there was always a highly detailed column, a column that had melted a fair bit and had little or no detail, and a column that had melted down until it was beginning to fall off the pole that held each doughnut-shaped 'brick' together. The columns melted into a giant glass boat, which in turn filled until two holes near the top of the boat, from whence water spilled into two bowls on the floor, each filled with various spices.
The spices just looked so stunning, and since my great-aunt sent us spices from Israel our kitchen smells heavenly, no wonder I can't get it off my mind!
Jersey T-shirt with soft printed spices.
All my love,
IP

Dear Half-Way Mark (Dresses 102-111)

Dear Half-Way Mark,
You're killing me.
Honestly!




I) flat metal cutlery on a mesh strap. dress is white linen (like tablecloths at a nice restaurant)
also comes in chequered red and white and with a white napkin under the cutlery.



II) flat copper studs on a red dress, or black? opaque crepe.











III) wire reinforced hood in greyblue crepe on a grey crepe dress










IV) as inspired by PonyRider Bedspread







V) orange peeling. cottown with wire reinforcement and ribbon 'zest'









VI) linen and handmade matching buttons








VII) white opaque crepe with mesh windows








VIII) White cotton with fine ribbon over a reinforced hole .









IX) reinforced mesh shoulders and mesh panel








X) brown opaque crepe around the neck, covered in a crepe halter, cotton underlay under the major part of the dress printed with the message scroll.


All my love,
IP.

Dear Valentine's Day (Dress 73)

Dear Valentines Day,

In my attempt to make you an exercize in affection and not a work out for my bank account last year I made about one hundred paper roses and covered the house I was housesitting with my boyfriend (at the time). I went Massively overboard, ah; the follies of youth!
I still love making paper roses, and last night, wonderng how they would look in reinforced fabric, I came up with this:
(creme brown lattice, with green mesh inbetween, dark brown ribbon for the 'rosebush' and burgundy rose at the top left. I'll ink the drawing and colour it later Dress 71 has been inked! go check it out.)
All my love,

Dear Tiny Blue Hummingbird (Dress 52)

Dear Tiny Blue Hummingbird,
You hovered outside the window that one morning in Israel when I needed something beautiful to cheer me up. And then again in my dreams last night- you, the young kingfisher who got stuck in my parent's studio one day and who took a remarkably long time to be coerced outside, my great-aunt's grey parrot (surprisingly vicious) and Charlie, the paranoid cockatoo, who I fell in love with, but could not keep (he hated men, and pecked at the feet of any available)

(Dress specs: cotton with a hand-painted tree, comes with 30 fabric leaves (two sided), ten blue fabric flowers, and a hummingbird brooch.)
All my love,

Dear John Gould(Dress 13)

Dearest John Gould,

I first experienced your research into birds when friends of the family, emptying out a warehouse they'd just bought, came upon a tattered, watermarked copy of your 'Birds of Australia' (I'm not sure which volume)

(Image credit: National Library of Australia Archives.)

The pages were stuck together and yellowed with age, but I remember gazing with some awe at the faded drawings (meticulous and strangely pretty- your wife's hand.). Today's dress would be printed with a pattern borrowed from those same meticulous drawings: perhaps a tawny frogmouth?

-Black heavy cotton, with a printed fine mesh back/capelet/ruff (all one piece.)-

All my love,

P.S. Sorry for the dreadful image res. I'm at the bf's house, will re-post later.