Pattern making (of a different sort)

I found this wonderful book on drafting your own patterns and thought it might 
be fun to try this method of dressmaking construction... (I've decided the just-cut-
and-adapt-later method is rather wasteful).



And this is what I made...



I asked my big girl for a description of her 'perfect dress', took exhaustive 
measurements and then drafted my pattern. I made a mock-up in calico, which 
ended up being the lining.



It's not perfect but all in all I think it's okay. She loves it too and has already worn 
it out and about (which surely with any teenager is the real barometer of whether 
it's 'passed the grade'?!) ;)



Now she wants me to make her a dress from Belinda's and Susie's beautiful fabrics...
but she'll have to wait for a bit. We're off to the mountains for a break. I'm so 
looking forward to pure crochet time :) Oh, and I'm really looking forward to reading 
the new Haruki Murakami book too...


Have a lovely week!

Fabric Fail

I let myself be distracted by some screen printing over the weekend.



I decided to make my Atomic design less labour-intensive (I always block 
printed it before) and had a screen burned. 





I've been itching to try it out for ages. Unfortunately, I rushed the job.



Note to self: a bit of patience is worth it in the end ;) 


I'm now thinking a bit of over-embroidery upcycling might save the day :)

Inspiration: Mr Dries VN

I've been crocheting madly here but my mind has been drifting to thoughts 
of fabric. I'm itching to start screen printing again and have been dreaming 
of different fabric designs.





These took my breath away this morning... Dries Van Noten's Spring 2012 
collection. This man is the king of fabric design... his clothes are pretty good too ;) 
The pics below are my favourites. You can see the whole collection here.










I have finished going through my two-year's worth of mags... the dining table is 
now cleared... Time to start some screen printing I think :)
What do you have planned for the weekend?

Fabric Giveaway

One of Jane's creations with some of her fabric scraps :)

The lovely Jane at Flaming Nora is having a fabric giveaway. 


Working as a costume maker for theatre and film, she has amassed a heap of fabric off-cuts 
in small and strange sizes, but sizes that would be perfect for craft projects.


The first 15 bundles, she will post free to anywhere and then she'll be putting them on Etsy. 
So waste not a moment, my friends! Get yea over to Flaming Nora's. 

Inspiration: Sashiko Fabric

Maybe it's because the weather is getting warmer, 

but I'm thinking about fabric a lot lately.

This is an inspiring find... Sashiko Washaway Fabric 

by Kokka Fabrics.

It's printed with an ink that washes off in the laundry. So, you 

can go wild with your creative ideas along any of the guide 

lines and then wash them all away, leaving only your 

embroidered or appliqued or painted design.

Pretty cool, huh? :)

I found it here.

My Creative Space - Little Blue Dress

Make avatar

There are so many things I should have been doing this week, instead I made a dress. 

My Little One received some fabulous blue shoes for her birthday which reminded me of the fabulous blue and black striped jerseys I had in my stash... and I just started cutting and making it up as I went.

 Thankfully, she loves it. 
I think she must like a bit of asymmetrical wonk like me :)

If you want to dance along just channel Leo Sayer You Make Me Feel Like Dancing :)

Just in case you haven't heard the news... Kirsty (who has tirelessly hosted My Creative Space at her blog Kootoyoo for ages) has now discovered some new directions she'd like to explore. So, rather than drop things, she has kindly set up a new blog just for Thursday's crafty show-and-tell peeps... and it's called Our Creative Spaces. 
To see some more spaces or join in yourself, you can now find all the links here.
Thanks Kirsty!

Wallflowers

I've been taking a bit of a break from complex patterning (for me anyway!) to print up some basic fabric designs in various colours. I've been enjoying the slow rhythm of block printing and fantasizing about creating an Atomic wallpaper. Wouldn't that be fun? There's a course here I'd love to do some day.

Isn't it weird how Atomic is suddenly looking quite tropical when placed all together like this? Happy Monday! Wishing you a creative week ahead :)

My Creative Space - Fabric first

A friend of mine asked me to make her a dress. It was one of those requests where there are no firm guidelines about what she actually saw in her mind so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do. It wasn't until I read Ingrid's wonderful post about Zandra Rhodes that I realised how I'd gone about it. [Don't get me wrong here, I'm NOT suggesting any comparable link between myself and the magnificent Zandra!] I just thought it was interesting how one approaches dress design; the process you develop for yourself... and I realised I start with the fabric, it's all about the fabric really.

So, I began by designing a fabric for my friend... pottering around with colour and pattern and placement until I'd put together a design that screamed her name to me...

... I added detail to draw it all together...

... then I threw it over the mannequin and just looked at it... I was looking at how the fabric draped and thinking about what kind of dress design would best suit it.

I started playing around with a few ideas, pinning the fabric into shape to see if it would work, and I think I've decided on the style on the right (below).

I'll just play with some details around the neckline and then I'll start cutting and sewing :)

What's in your creative space today? Visit Kirsty at Kootoyoo to see more.

My Creative Space - New Dress

I'm playing along with Kirsty's My Creative Space meme today. Visit Kootoyoo to join in or see more spaces :)

There are a lot of things I should be doing... instead I found myself working away on this simple dress idea. I made up the pattern as I cut and adjusted as I went. It's fully lined and I had some fun with one of those chunky zips too. Somewhere along the way the pattern on the fabric (hugely discounted Orla Kiely bed linen!) wasn't center-balanced anymore so I think I'll make a brooch out of my bunny ears design too. Can you see my bunny tail? :)

Happy Creative Space day - hope it's a great day for everyone.

Making Collars

I seem to have caught a collar-bug... I can't stop making them ;) Started off with the white one below and modified them from there on. I'm still thinking about ways for them to clasp at the front... in the meantime I'm going back to my machine to make some more :)

Pattern People

A couple of months ago now I came across Pattern People at about the time they were hosting a fabric design competition. I threw my 'Atomic' design into the ring and it was unsuccessful but they've announced the winners and you can see them on their website. Pattern People are putting together a fabric design publication for release in the New Year. They have some fabulous pattern downloads and a fun blog too :)

More design experiments

I'm still playing with fabric designs here... There's been a particular design in my mind for a while now. It first made it's appearance last year when I struggled with the question of how similar it was to a Lucienne Day piece and whether there is such a thing as unconscious plagiarism. I think I've resolved those difficulties now and feel that this is very much my own (strange) design :)

One of the things I like about it is the way it can be a simple pattern or evolve into a complicated mass. I've taken some 'in progress' shots below which show how I was able to keep building on the design.

1st layer

2nd layer

I've not quite finished playing with it yet but I think it has potential. What do you think? Fun or too messy?

3rd layer

My Creative Space - Fabric design

I've been experimenting with fabric design, printing up pieces of old cloth in a haphazard kind of collage way... It doesn't look like much and I know you've seen some of these design bits before but I've been trying to think of them in a fabric way if that makes any sense? ;) I'm very happy with my 3 tree motif and I've been playing with a telegraph pole screen and button hole cross stamp too. Not quite there yet but I'm enjoying the process :)

Pop over to Kirsty's at Kootoyoo to see more creative spaces or to play along yourself.