Julie Yost sews wearable art that’s ‘to dye for’ - Post Bulletin | Rochester Minnesota news, weather, sports

Julie Yost wears her art on her sleeve.

A textile artist who sews intricate and beautiful garments sometimes using recycled and untraditional materials, Yost is also known for using different dying techniques.

“I was just 3 years old when my grandma made all of the bridesmaids’ dresses for my aunt’s wedding,” says Yost. “I remember being fascinated with the process and absolutely thrilled when she made a miniature version for my Barbie doll.”

When she turned 10, Yost’s grandmother began giving her sewing lessons. In fifth grade, Yost joined 4H and entered a dress she had sewn into her county fair.

She's been sewing ever since.

Between her grandmother’s lessons, her eighth-grade home economics class and a lot of her own hands-on trial and error education, Yost has learned a lot about sewing and creating clothing. A few classes and online tutorials have helped her learn different fabric-dying techniques.

“Creating clothing is a fabulous artistic outlet,” says Yost. “It’s quite satisfying to take a two-dimensional fiber and turn it into a 3-D garment. Adding a surface design to it through paint, dye or stitching enhances it even further.

“What makes my style of sewing unique is that I’m frequently working with materials that have already had one life, and now I’m trying to give them a second life,” says Yost. She recycles fabrics from curtains, bedspreads, and quilts to make clothing. “Vintage tablecloths with embroidery are great.”

Yost also uses materials that aren’t traditionally thought of as fabric to make her artistic clothing. “I’d say my favorite thing to work with recently is plastic wrappers and various types of bags — the things most people throw away,” says Yost. For example, Yost created a bomber jacket out of granola bags, another jacket out of used burlap coffee bean bags and a purse out of a clingy plastic covering a case of soda cans. She’s currently working on designing a raincoat made from recycled plastic.

When Yost designs a new piece of clothing, she starts by learning more about the material she’s using. She determines if it can be ironed or if it might melt, how stretchy it is and how thick it is. Then, she works to see how its unique properties might become positive features and how the weakness of the materials might be counteracted. After considering those functional qualities, she starts to work on the creative portion of the design.

“I think we as a society need to get away from fast fashion and the desire to buy lots of cheap clothing made by people, frequently women and young people, who are paid poorly and work in unsafe conditions,” says Yost. “Fast fashion also takes a tremendous toll on the environment. I’m trying to show how focusing on the opposite — slow sewing, frugality and conservation of resources by using ‘old’ materials — is not just the right thing for our world but can be thought-provoking and stylish at the same time. I also enjoy the challenge of making clothes out of materials that were destined for the landfill.”

Yost’s recycled clothing line is called Good Karma Clothes and is part of her Bold North Batiks & Dyes business. Besides her sewing, Yost also uses different fabric dying techniques to create her garments. One of the techniques she uses is called batik.

“Batik is an ancient technique of applying wax and dyes to fabric to create designs,” says Yost. “There’s something so interesting about the look of batik — the cracking, the colors, the drama. It’s easy to learn, yet it’s also challenging.” Yost learned more about batik dying during “Batik Bees” at Crossings Art and Community Education Center in Zumbrota, Minnesota. Now, she leads those same “Batik Bees.”

Using batik dying, Yost has recreated famous art pieces like Vincent van Gogh’s “The Starry Night” on fabric that she can then sew into clothing. In addition to batik dying, Yost also uses techniques like eco-printing that utilizes the tannins in plants from her yard and steam, ice-dying — where powdered dye mingles with melting ice to create random rivulets, cyanotype printing or sun printing and shibori techniques that create patterns by folding, tying, binding, clamping and stitching fabric before dying it.

“I’m very tactile; I’ve been a ‘toucher’ of fabrics all my life,” says Yost. “Somehow textiles of all types resonate with me. I want to touch them, manipulate them, turn them into things. I just see so much potential in textiles.”

Yost’s textile creations can be found at Gallery 24 and Threshold Arts in Rochester. She was recently awarded an Emerging Artist Grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council and is partnering with 125 Live to create a runway fashion show. In addition, Yost is a member of the Zumbro River Fiber Arts Guild.

While Yost’s sewn art is far from so-so and seems like something to "dye" for, its functionality might be what she is most grateful for. As she puts it, “Many artists don’t get the opportunity to wear their art while walking around town, that’s why I consider myself so lucky.”

See more of Julie Yost’s textile art on Instagram @consistentlydifferentdesigns or @BoldNorthBatiks.