easily distracted by shiny things…
Posted in inspiration, shopping on Jan 29th, 2010
I have to confess that I hadn’t looked at the Nomads website recently. I’d always associated Nomads with gothy dresses and plenty of tie-dye, so I sort of assumed they wouldn’t have anything I’d like these days. I can’t remember what drew me to have a look at their website today, but I was very [...]
Posted in sewing on Aug 23rd, 2009
I started making this dress last weekend, but I’ve been so busy at the Museum this week that I didn’t have time to finish it until today. It’s Butterick B5317, made in black organic cotton from Bishopston Trading.
The pattern is marked as “Fast & Easy”, and for the most part it was, but inserting a [...]
Here you go - the completed blue dress.
I showed you the smocking yesterday, and I’ve just finished the binding and the belt.
This is my usual raglan tunic dress pattern, with the neckline, sleeves and hem all finished with navy blue bias binding. I was hoping to be able to find a navy broderie anglais lace [...]
Posted in embroidery, sewing on Jul 6th, 2009
This is what I’ve been up to all weekend - working panels of smocking on the front, back and sleeves of one of my tunic dresses.
From top to bottom, the stitches are Trellis, Wave, Honeycomb, Chevron and Van Dyke.
I’m really, really pleased with how the smocking’s worked out.
Unfortunately, I over-estimated how much fabric the smocking [...]
Posted in embroidery on Apr 8th, 2009
This is a robin. Wearing a hat. Of course.
Last week I drew some silly pictures of birds wearing hats, and then spent ages deciding what I could do with them. Ages ago I bought a whole bunch of organic cotton tote bags, with the idea of embroidering designs on them. So, I embroidered the robin [...]
Posted in inspiration, shopping on Mar 14th, 2009
When I worked in a fabric shop, we had a large number of customers who would come in and buy linings and haberdashery to go with the most amazing fabrics that they’d brought with them from Ghana. The image above is a beautiful example of embroidered french lace, which you can buy in the UK [...]
I hope this doesn’t spoil a surprise for anybody whose gift hasn’t arrived in the post yet, but this is why I’ve been a little bit busy and stressed out over the past few weeks.
There’s only one item missing from the photo call, and that’s a hat that I knitted for Paul, mostly in the [...]
Thanks to a combination of my new medicine and the truly dreary weather we’ve been having lately, I’ve been finding it very difficult to feel inspired by anything much.
Suddenly, thanks to a little visit from the postman, I feel much better!
(Sorry about the terrible picture - it’s raining so hard that it’s been dark all [...]
I’ve been away from the blog recently on account of a Dreaded Lurgy, so I haven’t had a great deal to show you. Fortunately I have managed to drag myself out of my sick bed *cough* for long enough to make this:
which is eventually going to be the front of a shirt, in organic cotton [...]
Posted in fabric, inspiration on Oct 2nd, 2008
Yes, it’s October, and the new Bishopston swatches have just arrived!
The most exciting thing about this is that they’ve just introduced a new fabric weight - a Fair Trade cotton lawn! They’re the swatches on the left - the colours mostly match the regular cottons, but the fabric is a much lighter weight.
The new cotton [...]