Archive for the ‘Fabric’ Category

I met Virginia at the North Melbourne Market last Sunday and she liked the Pinnies but wanted one with a red floral trim. These are the red floral I have. They look best in combination as the plain off sets the fine pattern. I don’t have very much of any of them so would have to combine them anyway because each pinnie takes 3 metres of hand cut bias.

What do you think?

As I said I bought the co-ordinating fabrics and this is one of them. I think I actually like this floral better than most, and it is probably because it looks drawn.

So Now that I’ve done these few I feel free to shelve summer cottons until the end of the year and move into Autumn. It is with a little sadness but I think I’ve finally left NSW and arrived back in Melbourne, and the thought of new styles and colours is spurring me on to cooler weather.

Well they are calling it the North Melbourne Market but I’ve got a feeling it will always be the Thread Den Market.

Its on this Sunday and in aid of their delicious fifties revival feel I have made some new skirts out of this great retro fabric I found on-line.

I have loved this Parisian style of sketch design since I found it in op-shops in the eighties. You don’t see much of this sort of thing any more which is why I pounced on it when I saw it and bought its co-ordinating fabrics as well because I couldn’t resist. Now I wish I had bought more of it because I think it will be popular.

While in Sydney stumbled upon a great fabric shop in Surry Hills called The Fabric Store which carries designer end of lines.

I bought some fabric from them and in doing so found out that they have opened a shop in Brunswick St Fitzroy.

What fun!

Don’t know what I am going to do with the Fabric!

Will I ever learn?

Why am I tapping away at 4 am? Aside from the toddler needing a toilet stop I am losing sleep over fabric once again.

Yesterday I found the perfect summer denim for my front and back skirt, light weight and dark in colour. George at Gjs confirmed my suspicion that light weight denim is very hard to come by at the moment. I proceeded to buy 15 metres of the stuff as I am about to start doing bigger runs of skirts in the lead up to Christmas.

At home I cut the piece in half so that it would fit into my machine because I always pre-wash fabric and test for coloufastness.

At this point I want to swear.

Horrible bleeding ensued and did not stop.

I washed and washed.

What to do?

So at 4 in the morning Google has come to the rescue. I have found and bought a fixative online. Hope it works.

For sleep as much as fabric…………..Goodnight.

Note to self………don’t buy fabric without knowing what you are going to do with it!!

I bought quite a lot of good quality cotton fabric a few months ago. At the time I was pretty certain of what my course of action would be. I was going to make drop hem skirts and make a feature of the hemline with a wide bias of a complimentary fabric. Sounds simple eh?

Well I have thought and deliberated and changed my mind no less that a dozen times. I have contemplated these fabrics in bed, on the walk to school, during conversations that I should have been attending to, while cooking dinner and hanging out washing, while the kids were in the bath, while stacking the dishwasher.

Quite a bit of water has been involved, and yet all of my vacillating, thinking, changing of the mind, doing other things, putting it back in the cupboard, hasn’t worked.

They were going to be wrap skirts, simple a line skirts, drop hem skirts, long skirts with a frill, dresses. Part of the problem is that they are the narrow width of quilting fabric which doesn’t lend itself well to garment making because there is a lot of waste, and that fact bothers me.

Another problem is that the patterns have a direction, a right way and a wrong way to be cut, this create a whole other set of limitations!

I don’t feel any closer to a solution now than I did when I started but I have decided that I just need to use it, it doesn’t matter how, just get rid of it so that I can move on, breathe in fact, get some sleep and re-enter the human race.

By the way I bought some fabric on-line from Japan, thats a bit of fun! Check it out fabric Tales

These little ladies have given me a lot of pleasure today. I have so enjoyed putting these pockets together. I have done their bases in the same denim as the skirt and then I put a box of fabric bits on the table and played. I still don’t think I would ever make a quilter because quilters are so precise but I love all the variation and colour in the fabrics and then seeing how they affect each other when they are placed side by side. I almost don’t want to sell them!

This is the first of the wrap skirts. I sampled it up last week while Collingwood was in the afterglow of success and now I’m posting it in the aftermath of a complete thumping. Aah well there’s always next year when Bucks will be on board. Maybe his hunger will be the injection they need!

This piece of fabric has been hanging in my friend Sue’s window for the last thirty plus years. Not a fade mark, not a moth hole. Its the sort of thing that fabric-wise makes my heart swell with joy. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it, maybe just take it out of the fabric cupboard and look at from time to time. Definitely another aaahhh…….