Horse Dress

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’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. 

horse, sketelon, carousel, roundabout, merry-go-round, cotton, fabric, surface design, illustration, textile design, woven monkey, bias binding, dress making, shift, dress, sewing, homemade

horse, sketelon, carousel, roundabout, merry-go-round, cotton, fabric, surface design, illustration, textile design, woven monkey, bias binding, dress making, shift, dress, sewing, homemade, skeleton, day of the dead, halloween, horse, carousel, fair ground, roundabout, pencil drawingThe horse motif was inspired by the extraordinarily beautiful hand painted artwork I saw when Carter’s Steam Fair visited Maldon in Essex.

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!

Pretty Creepy Horsey for Hallowe’en

skeleton, horse, halloween, day of the dead, roundabout, repeat pattern, illustration, surface design, This piece was inspired by the beautiful carved wooden horses of the Jubilee Gallopers carousel at Carter’s Steamfair.

horse, carousel, fair ground, roundabout, pencil drawing

I started off with a conventional pencil drawing, working from photos I had taken while visiting the fair in the summer.

horse, carousel, fair ground, roundabout, pencil drawing, digital colour, illustration

Having scanned the drawing into Photoshop I coloured it. Nice but boring, I thought…and that stripy saddle looks a bit like a rib cage…

skeleton, day of the dead, halloween, horse, carousel, fair ground, roundabout, pencil drawing

…so I kept drawing and developed the skeletal theme which I found much more interesting

skeleton, horse, halloween, day of the dead, roundabout, repeat pattern, illustration, surface design,

I scanned the new pencil drawing into my computer, vectorised it in Illustrator, then coloured and duplicated it to make a repeating pattern in Photoshop. I also added noise to the image to improve the texture.

I like the way that it’s not until you look closely that you see the dark creepiness of this image.

I’m eagerly awaiting delivery of a sample of digitally printed fabric in this design….it’s been dispatched today….dead horse cushions, anyone?!