Okay, once again I haven't written in ages, so here is a quick picture tour of what I've been doing on the crafty front. I don't feel as though I've been very productive, although I don't have pictures of everything so I've done more then this! I'm not going to write much.
Here is some of the matroyshka fabric that I screen printed sewn up into pants for my toddler. I also made the top - my own version of a peasant top, in Sandi Henderson fabric - love this design in yellow and wish I had more of that fabric.
I made these clothes when my toddler was this age, but now they've been handed onto the bub I just had to take a pic. I love her in all red. She's wearing a minky fleece hat, a frottee jacket (Ottobre pattern), a cotton velour dress (my pattern) and recycled jumper wool pants/nappy cover, along with red fleece booties (that never stay on). She looks so snuggly. It may not be fancy, but it's one of my favourite outfits for her now that it's winter.
A screen print that I did for my daughter's classes' education week performance. I didn't do the design - I just printed it ...
... on a heap of t-shirts.
These tees were for the boys. I didn't get a pic of all the girls' t-shirts, but there's a pic further on of the girls' whole costume.
This pic is jeans that I made for my boy, and also a plain white tee (not very exciting). Jeans are hemp denim, and Ottobre pattern. Tee is organic cotton.
This is what the girls wore for their costume. I printed the tees and added a bit of elastic down the bottom to make them a nicer shape. The sun design is mine - super-simple. With help of other mums I sewed up the skirts. Thank goodness I didn't have to shop for the fabric and all the other bits and pieces too - sewing them up was easy. I also made the leggings just for my daughter. All the girls supplied their own leggings.
This is my first try of this sort of screen print. I just did about 1&1/2 metres of it to do a peasant skirt for my toddler and a dress for my bub. My plan is to do lots of mt of this print to make curtains for my dining room. I drew the design and did the printing.
This is the biggest piece of embroider I've done. It looks a bit wonky and it is a bit wonky! I didn't want it to look perfect because I wanted that "freehand" look, but I think it would have been better if it were a little neater. It is going to be part of a handbag.
This is the fabric that I printed to make up the rest of the handbag. It is hemp/cotton muslin, dyed with fibre reactive dyes, then screen printed using a couple of kirigami shapes - ie paper cut-outs - as the design. I only printed about 1/3 mt of the fabric for this, but wish I'd done more as I'd love a skirt made out of it.
I did print this for a skirt for myself though. It is using the same screens, plus one other, but uses much stronger colours on undyed hemp muslin. I think I would have preferred the colours to be more similar to each other - perhaps pink, red and something else.
But I like it much better now that I've sewn it up into a skirt for myself! I think it will be better in Summer or Spring, rather then with black stockings underneath.
I also printed this paisley design (my drawings) on some hemp/cotton muslin. As usual I dyed it using fibre reactive dyes and love the shade of blue that it turned out. That's one of the great things about dying fabric, that can also be one of the bad things. Because I'm at the stage of trying out all the colours, and not of trying to repeat them, the colour that eventuates is always a surprise. I do keep careful notes though so I should be able to get something similar if I want to repeat them in the future.
You can't see the paisley design very well here. I love drawing paisley. It's easy, and it's fun to fill with different patterns. Hardest bit is chosing which ones to use (and finding the time to do them).
So these are pants for my daughter. They're just super-simple, beach/lounge pants.
I love how this turned out. It's a screen print - I did quite a few of them. You can't really tell here, but it's about the size of an A4 sheet of paper, printed on hemp/cotton muslin (of course, although I've pretty much run out of the lovely thick stuff now until I can get some more). It's to cut out and sew together to make a simple mini-cushion. I'm thinking of selling these as craft panels. What do you think? I have some other designs in mind too.
That's all for now. I've also made a couple of peasant tops for my bub and a few other things. And I've almost finished crocheting myself a scarf. I'll post pics when I get to it.
Jeans for my daughter. From Ottobre 1/08. Topstitching is of course mine, but the denim came with the embroider already on it.
