Tag Archives: textile design

Dress and Mask Combos

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During lockdown I sewed some coordinated dress and mask combos; loose cotton shift dresses to accommodate the inevitable weight gain paired with covid ready face coverings. 

The fabrics are my own designs which I get printed to order in the UK by Woven Monkey.

These combos went down particularly well with shop checkout people, bless them, who were pretty much my only outside contacts. One chap in Waitrose complimented my outfit then looked down at his stripy shirt and said “Oh, I’m going to get a mask made to match it!” I really hope he did…

This certainly made dressing for social distancing a bit more fun. 

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2CV Peg Bag

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My parents’ old peg bag has seen better days; the handle was too long and the bag itself too deep so I made them a new one from my 2CV fabric. peg bag, bag, home made, craft, digital printing, pattern, 2CV, fabric, textile design, home sewing, needle work, home made, car, textile, material, surface illustration, illustration

Luckily I had a length of cream canvas tape stashed in my sewing kit which matched the canvas 2CV fabric perfectly, so I used it as a handle and to bind the edge.

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A super quick and simple craft project that’s made hanging the laundry out a little bit more fun.

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2CV Tea Cosy

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My parents are big tea fans so their tea cosy (left) has taken a bit of a battering over the years.

I decided to spruce it up with a layer of my 2CV fabric (below).

 

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And here’s the revamped tea cosy, resplendent with its little cars!

Dragonfly Dress Mark 2

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To accommodate my physical expansion since last year I recently made myself another summer dress from my grey dragonfly fabric.

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My finishing skills are improving! This time I followed my mum´s advice about French seams so the interior of the dress is much neater. dragonfly, fabric, surface design, illustration, textile design, woven monkey, dress making, dress, sewing, homemade, home sewing, made to measure

The arm holes are edged with grey bias binding with contrasting white and yellow top stitching while the neckline is finished with yellow bias binding with contrasting white and grey top stitches.

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It’s a comfy one and stylish too! 

Cockerel Dress

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For my latest foray into textile design and home sewing I  made myself a cotton dress to wear to my dear friends’ June wedding in London.

As usual I had the fabric digitally printed by Woven Monkey in the UK having made a white, red and pale green version of one of my cockerel variations; as my dad once said I’ve certainly got a lot of mileage out of that cockerel! 

Click here to see how the original cockerel came to be…

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I decided to finish the hems with red bias binding to match the cockscombs….

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…and luckily enough found a pair of my favourite Fly London sandals in the exact same shade…

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…and finished the ‘look’ with white nails and sunglasses…cockerel, fabric design, textile design, surface pattern, digital printing, woven monkey, illustration, dress making, home sewing, made to measure, cotton, rooster, bias binding, home made, dress

 

The dress stood up well to the festivities – just a couple of armhole stitches popped during the disco phase!

 

And the wedding was absolutley wonderful.

Fab…Fab…Fabrics!

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Huge thanks to all those lovely people who have responded so enthusiastically to my designs for fabrics.

My exhibitionist side has enjoyed swanning about in exclusive patterns but since spring is coming it’s time to share them…with the world!

 

 

I’ve spent many, many happy hours developing my designs for fabrics and have tested them all to make sure that the patterns repeat seamlessly, that the colours are reproduced beautifully and that the material itself is comfy in terms of weight, drape and care.

All my fabrics are digitally printed to order in the UK.

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So! Here’s how it works: 

  1. Select your favourite design for summer clothes or upholstery (scroll down for details)
  2. Work out how many metres you need
  3. Contact me!
  4. I’ll calculate the postage cost, add that to the fabric cost and email you my PayPal details
  5. You pay securely online
  6. Your fabric is printed to order 
  7. Your fabric will reach you 2 to 3 weeks later depending on your location

Immediately below are the designs that I’ve selected for light cotton fabric; ideal for making summer weight clothes, pillow cases, appliqué and quilting.

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And below are the designs that I’ve selected for (dry clean only) cotton drill fabric; ideal for making cushions, curtains and for other upholstery projects.

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…since I’m not a professional seamstress I’ve decided against making and selling finished garments but if you’re in the Vejer area I can put you in touch with a highly skilled dressmaking friend of mine if you need help with the sewing part – that way you’ll be one step closer to getting the made to measure garment of your dreams!

Please feel free to contact me with any questions!

 

Dragonfly Tunic Dress

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So this little number is the result of my third dress making adventure; using a black on beige version of my dragonfly fabric design which I had digitally printed in the UK by Woven Monkey.

I find the boat neck / empire line combination really comfortable and flattering so I’ve continued it here but by cutting the hem straight and splitting the sides I’ve converted the dress into more of a tunic which allows for much more movement below the waist…I can run in this one but long undergarments are essential for the preservation of modesty!

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I wanted to make the bodice of this dress more closely fitting which meant putting in more darts and a zip. I opted to put an ‘invisible’ zip in the side seam (right) and thanks to guidance from several YouTube tutorials my first ever attempt worked pretty well.

 

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I also decided to sew on a long black ribbon to accentuate the empire line and add a bit of flounce round the back.

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While making my first two dresses – from my Dragonfly (white on grey version) and Horse fabrics – I’d come to love bias binding so I decided to use it to make a contrasting trim around the neck, arm holes and hem on this dress. I was also inspired (by a pair of black, beige and orange shorts I own) to add an orange top stitch to jazz up the black and beige combination.

Feels jolly nice on and washes well! Yay!

 

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Horse Dress

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I’m jolly pleased with my horse dress; the result of my latest adventure in home sewing. It’s a variation of the first dress I ever made (a shift style sewn from my dragonfly fabric) and since I mastered the use of bias binding on that project I decided to make an external feature of it this time; embellishing it with contrasting stitching. 

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I made a pencil drawing (left) using my photos for reference, taking a morbid turn by adding the skeleton of the horse as part of the decoration.skeleton, horse, halloween, day of the dead, roundabout, repeat pattern, illustration, surface design, horse, sketelon, carousel, roundabout, merry-go-round, cotton, fabric, surface design, illustration, textile design, woven monkey, bias binding, dress making, shift, dress, sewing, homemade

I vectorised the drawing in Illustrator, used Photoshop to colour it and make the repeat pattern, which I then had printed onto a light cotton by the lovely folk at Woven Monkey.

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The dress feels lovely on, here’s me posing about in it on my 50th birthday.

 

 

Could it possibly be said that I’m flogging a dead horse? You bet!

Dragonfly Dress

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I just made myself this dress with fabric printed with a version of the dragonfly design I made back in 2014.

I uploaded my design to the Woven Monkey website and they printed it onto a lightweight cotton.

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It’s the first dress I’ve ever made; patterns give me the heebeegeebees so I cut round one of my favourite dresses and made the rest up as I went along.

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It was also the first time I’ve used bias binding as I’d previously imagined it to be a right faff but there really is no other way to neatly finish neck and armholes. I watched a couple of tutorials on YouTube and bit the bias binding bullet; it’s actually quite straightforward and I’ll definitely be using it more in the future.

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Here’s me doing ‘catalogue’ poses in Cádiz this week, during the dress’s first outing.

 

 

 

 

Cushion Covers

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Here are my most recent home sewing projects: making cushion covers from light cotton canvas fabric that I’d had digitally printed with my illustrations.

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This one (left) features a white on black version of my extra large cockerel circle design.

The cushion cover has an ‘envelope’ style closure and measures 38 x 35 cm, comfortably accommodating a 40 x 40 cm cushion.
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The two covers on the right feature my Two-Tone 2CV design, measure 50 x 30cm and have a zip closure.

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Click here to contact me about prices and availability.