A mission to put these fabric swatches to use sent me looking for some color inspiration. I love color, but utilizing many in small amounts I knew would be a challenge for me. But children’s movies always seem to do it so well, so I took to the screen and watched “The Point”.
“The Point” will be known to Harry Nilsson fans, probably more so than children of the time. Set to and adapted from Harry Nilssons 6th album, the movie provides a fun story and great colorful visuals for the songs and where they leave off. The setting is a place where everything is pointed, including the people, until the protagonist, Oblio, is born without a point. We follow the young Oblio through his banishment from town on his journey to find “the point of it all”. Illustrated by Gary Lund and animated Jimmy Murakami, I loved the handmade look of it— trippy drawings colored in with marker and lots of white space kept. A quick watch… very silly and loads of inspiration! This scene will give you a good sense of what I’m talking about!
Basic shapes and bright colors on a white background got me thinking how to translate that to a garment, and utilize the tiny bits of color from the swatch books. I was reminded of the Rosie Assoulin sweater, shown below, for it’s fabulous use of lots colors in small amounts.
I made a white topper tank to be my backdrop for the animating colors. Using a reverse applique method to achieve an effect similar to the sweater, I cut out mini circular windows to expose the little swatches beneath. It was pretty tricky to get those small circles to fold back in true reverse applique fashion (as shown in this video), so I ended up fully cutting them out exposing a raw edge. This topper is still a work in progress! I plan to give those raw edged circles a hand finished blanket stitch in black embroidery floss— this will help with the longevity of the garment and further tie in its inspiration, a black outline, for a colorful image on a white background.
I had fun with this one — and it provided me with a great soundtrack :-)
You are so on point with this!
Enjoying what you’re doing here.
Plus, The Point and soundtrack one of my top favs.