TCD Loose Threads Archive - November 2008

• TCD Students and Faculty at Kansas City Career Day 2008
• TCD Students Participate in Cedars Home for Children Fundraiser
• Schoolhouse Quilts Gallery Talk and Reception Launch New Hillestad Exhibition
• Industry expert speaks with TCD majors
• Prof. Wendy Weiss attends International Dye Conference in Korea
• TCD Faculty at 2008 International Textile & Apparel Association Conference

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TCD Students and Faculty at Kansas City Career Day 2008

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TCD Students Participate in Cedars Home for Children Fundraiser

TCD Freshman Kate Andreasen with her prize-winning handbag titled Louise

For the fourth consecutive year the organizers of the annual Power of the Purse fundraiser for Cedars Home for Children Foundation invited TCD students to submit originally designed purses for their benefit auction. This year's submissions were from TCD freshman Kate Andreasen and senior Abby Gross. The gala auction event took place at the Bryan Medical Plaza Conference Center on November 13.

Kate's purse, titled Louise, was created from teal and brown fabric and lined in teal. Katie used a wide, dark brown ribbon to create both an accent bow and the strap. Katie said this of her bag: "It symbolizes elegance, my inspirations, and most of all my passion for sewing."

Abby's purse, Rays of Royalty, was inspired by 15th century court dress. In addition to the rich purple fabric of the bag, Abby added gold chains to its bottom as a nod to current design trends. The handle is composed of intertwining gold hoops at the top of the purse.

 

Abby Gross displays her winning purse at the Cedars Home Benefit Auction

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Schoolhouse Quilts Gallery Talk and Reception Launch New Hillestad Exhibition

Carolyn Ducey, IQSC & Museum Curator of Collections, speaking on new Schoolhouse quilts exhibition in the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery

Textiles, Clothing & Design's Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery was the setting for a lunchtime talk by International Quilt Study Center & Museum's Curator of Collections, Carolyn Ducey, on Friday November 14. The presentation coincided with the opening day of Schoolhouse Quilts: Old and New, a special exhibition organized to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the College of Education and Human Sciences. Bringing together quilts from the IQSC's renowned collection with quilts by Clinton Elementary School students, the show demonstrates the ways that different visual narratives are constructed to embody the experiences of individuals and communities.

Ducey interwove historical facts about the rise of quiltmaking traditions with insightful commentary on the specific quilts on exhibit in the gallery through November 25. She underscored the popularity of schoolhouse patterns in particular, evoking as they do the world of the one room schoolhouse and the condition of the novice schoolteacher of yore who often found herself in an isolated rural community with not much more to occupy her than the four walls of her schoolhouse and the students charged to her to educate. It's easy to understand how this pattern became one of the iconic images in American quilts.

 

Hanging alongside the collection quilts are works by groups of students from neighboring Clinton Elementary School. The quilts grew out of workshop events held in the department and at Clinton School in 2007 in conjunction with the exhibition Give and Take, a show that featured works by well known quilt world teachers and their students. Inspired by the dialogue represented in those pairings, the students engaged with TCD faculty, graduate students, and Friends of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery volunteers to explore surface design techniques as well as patchwork and applique strategies. Especially valuable during the process of giving visual form to the students' ideas was Sylvia Cox, an IQSC volunteer and current TCD major who took on the task of turning the student's tops into the quilts that grace the gallery walls. Now, over a year later, the inventive and joyful outcomes of those explorations join the graphically bold selections from the IQSC collection in a spirited salute to American education past and present.

Members of the CEHS and TCD communities as well as the general public joined Clinton Elementary School Art Scpecialist Lucy McHugh at the formal opening of the exhibition on Friday evening November 14. A dessert buffet hosted by the Friends of the Robert Hillestad Textiles Gallery greeted guests to the department who had the opportunity to view a complimentary showing of Clinton school students' preliminary drawings in the TCD corridor display cases.

 

 

 

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Industry expert speaks with TCD majors

 

TCD Journalism major Holly Jones reports that visiting industry expert Teresa Barkley McLaughlin's October 13 visit to TXCD 212 Product Development I offered the students a unique opportunity to learn about a side of the industry that may be less glamorous and recognized, but no less important than the flashier runway dimension. Barkley McLaughlin is an accomplished pattern maker who currently lives in New York City where she is the head pattern maker for Shoshanna, a successful high-end fashion line. According to Barkley McLaughlin, Shoshanna's employees pride themselves on the fact that they make beautiful, detail-oriented garments for women of all ages and, perhaps most importantly, they are passionate about what they do.

Teresa Barkley McLaughlin's long list of successes is very impressive. She has worked for many notable figures in the fashion world, including Bari Jay, Marc Jacobs and Perry Ellis. Her profound love of pattern making has made her career not as much a 9-to-5 job as a dream that she's made real through trial and error, slowly working her way to the top of her field.

Barkley McLaughlin's other love is quilts and quiltmaking, and she holds the rare distinction of having one of her quilts included among studio quilts in the collection of the International Quilt Study Center & Museum. Her visit to the department came as part of a sort of pilgrimage to Lincoln and the IQSC, which opened in April of this year. (Report by Holly Jones.)

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Prof. Wendy Weiss attends International Dye Conference in Korea

 

Outdoor runway show dress rehearsal at Int'l Natural Dye Conference in Daegue City, Korea. Photo: W. Weiss

Natural dye specialists from around the globe converged in Daegue, S. Korea at the end of September to present their current research and program details to an international audience at the International Symposium and Exhibition of Natural Dyes (ISEND). ISEND is one of the top natural dye conferences in the world, and TCD's Professor Wendy Weiss was on hand to share in the convivial spirit of exchange and communication that characterizes this colloquium.

Participants in this conference represent diverse interests. There are representatives of producer groups from economically challenged areas of the globe, whose lifestyles are endangered by encroaching industrial development, by logging and mining, and by widespread poverty. There are individuals whose passion for natural dye stems from an ecological imperative mixed with an aesthetic appreciation for the inherent qualities of color. Weiss remarked, "In this time of radical global change, it was truly exciting to share ideas with a group of like-minded, committed professionals."

 

Indigo-dyed fold samples alongside clamp-dyed samples blowing in the wind as they dry at the ISEND workshops. Photo: W. Weiss.

Prof. Weiss reported that conference presentations fell into four morning sessions with 37 papers and 34 posters presented, and a concluding roundtable discussion. Afternoons provided time for hands-on workshops with outdoor demonstrations of natural dye procedures using printing, painting and immersion techniques with a multitude of colorants. An exhibition of 130 artworks, two runway shows, and a vendor hall complemented the programs.

Among the important topics addressed during the course of the conference were certification, nomenclature, eco-friendly disclosure, quality requirements and standards for natural dyes. These and other issues facing proponents of natural dyes reflected their goal to position themselves and their movement as vital, and sustainable, players in the global marketplace.

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TCD Faculty at 2008 International Textile & Apparel Association Conference

Dr. Nancy Miller presenting on "Networking Among Apparel Store Owners in Small U.S. Communities" at ITAA 2008

TCD was well represented at this year's International Textile & Apparel Association conference held November 5 - 9 at the Hyatt Woodfield Hotel & Conference Center in Schaumburg, Illinois. The conference theme was "Evolving Patterns" and it brought together hundreds of academics and industry representatives from around the globe. TCD faculty attending included Drs. Crews, Trout, Miller, Vigna, Kean and McLeod, Senior Lecturer Carol Easley, and department chair Michael James.

Nancy Miller and Diane Vigna, along with Iowa State University faculty member Terry Besser, were awarded the Best Paper for the Merchandising Track Award for "Networking Among Apparel Store Owners in Small U.S. Communities," the outgrowth of research that they've been conducting among entrepreneurs in rural communities, focused on the value and impact of cooperative and collaborative interfaces between small business owners. Also presenting at the conference were Dr. Barbara Trout, whose paper "Images of Willa Cather: Minimalist or Fashion Enthusiast" was part of the Historic and Cultural: Function to Fashion session; Dr. Harriet McLeod, whose poster "A Textiles and Clothing Student Organization's Recycling Effort: A Clothing Swap" was part of the Professional Development subcategory in Thursday's poster session; and Carol Easley, who participated in Friday's poster session with "On-Demand Presentations: A Face-to-Face Lecture Alternative."

Sabrina Stapp's The Mother corset, as shown in the Evolving Patterns exhibition catalogue

TCD graduate and undergraduate students and recent alums were well represented in the 2008 ITAA Evolving Patterns Design Exhibition. Tracy Rosenbaum's Josephine was represented in the undergraduate category as was Lisa Kalt's Desired Maria, juried into the Target Market category. Former graduate student Sabrina Stapp was represented by two of her corset designs, The Executive and The Mother, both executed for her final thesis project under the mentorship of Dr. Trout, who served as faculty sponsor for each of these students' ITAA submissions.

Next year's ITAA conference will take place at the Hyatt Regency Bellevue in Bellevue, WA, from October 28 through 31, 2009.

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