Little Update

Just some pictures of things I have been up to.

A chevron skirt packaged up. 

Just finishing this dress for an Etsy order - different version of my Brandy Snapp dress.

I had to take another dress into Conker on Friday.

Was so nice to see some of my Battenberg dresses hanging there.

I am having a super SALE on screenprinted sweatshirts as well!

♥ Liberty Love ♥

When I lived in London I was sort of obsessed with Liberty. I hated all that Oxford Street stuff, but I'd love to walk through Soho & up Carnaby Street & just wonder around Liberty gazing at beautiful & expensive things I will never be able to afford.

 {image from Google}

Last week I walked passed an antique shop in a near town & saw the most lovely lovely roll of vintage Liberty print fabric. I rushed in & said I must have it! Then later that day when in another anique shop - sort of addicted - I saw a gorg little Liberty print dress. Well I sort of had to have that too. Then, when I went back to collect the fabric today my eye caught a skirt, don't actually know if it's Liberty print, but I know I love it. So, well, it's been rather a liberating week...

Little pink dress.

Simple skirt.

I will be making the vintage Liberty print material into very special bespoke dresses - please get in touch if you are interested :)

Wet Weekend.

The weather has turned back to drizzly & wet & grey around here. This morning I lit the fire at 9.30! It's quite nice to be able to just stay in doors & finish some orders, sort out my studio without feeling too guilty for not being in the sunshine.

So this weekend I didn't go anywhere - but I did do a lot of baking.

I made a few loaves of bread - one with olives & peppers. Rob made nettle soup.

 I baked this gluten free cake for a birthday. It was pretty intensely choccy.

 I made this dress last week - It's fully lined & has a lovely weight to it - It's made from an old curtain fabric I bought. I might have to keep it for myself.
{Etsy listing here}

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend, & it's more sunny wherever you are.

Proper Job

Proper Job is an amazing place near where we live, it's sort of a privately run recycling/non-profit organisation that is jam packed with amazing furniture/clothes/fabric/book/everything you could ever want (or we want). We normally go on a Thursday after we finish at Chagfood.
This is what we found today:

This weird hand painted parrot plate. I love parrots & I'm collecting plates. Perfect. £1.50

These amazing vintage maps. £1 each.

 A funny old book about zoo animals. "To Bunty". £1

Hmmm, we totally love Proper Job - Long live PJ!

Studio Sunday: One Of A Kind.

As I said in my previous posts - I'm going to start working my way through my fabric collection & making up dresses as I go along. One of a kind dresses. Totally unique. I made one yesterday & one today - it's been very lovely.

They are already up in my Etsy shop!

This one is made from sari fabric I bought in India in about 2007?

This one is made from really gorgeous fabric I bought a long time ago from The Cloth House in London - I remember when I was about 15 going on trips to London & buying bits of fabric & dreaming about working in the shop when I was older.

Out With The Old.

It's amazing how Spring cleaning makes such sense. Something in the air makes you want to open all the windows, pull back the dusty covers & throw out old clutter. I'm feeling this a lot at the moment, literally, but also when it comes down to life & business & all those other sorts of things.

So, even though we are now long into 2012, I'm starting again with some (not) New Year resolutions:

A timetable - I've realised how important it is to structure time when you're 'self employed', if it was up to me I'd spend all day lounging around & then at about 10pm realise I have loads of work to do & end up staying awake until 5am getting headaches & drinking tea. It's really not a good plan. So. I've made myself a brief outline for a structured week that includes blogging & drawing & also time off. Otherwise you end up not enjoying your work, & working in your free time. Which doesn't make much sense at all.

30 minutes of drawing every day - I'm really awful at fashion illustration, but I'm not that awful at drawing when I sit down & concentrate on it, I've always just got so worked up about the fact I don't have a 'style' & end up giving up & getting pissed off & not getting any better. Well practice makes perfect, so I'm making myself (from today) sit down & do half an hour of drawing, copying from Vogue or an anatomy book.

Re-doing my blog or getting a proper website - Still trying to work this out, but I am definitely redesigning the look of my blog (photos). I'd really like to have a very simple, proper website that feeds off my blog & visa versa, but I'll have to think about it more as the whole thing rather confuses me.


New designs, new makes, lots more sewing - I'm just going to sew anything I feel like. I want to make as many individual & different pieces as I can. It keeps things interesting & makes more special pieces. I feel stuck in a rut with using the same fabrics & shapes but my personal way of designing is just sort of making it up as I go along. So by doing more sewing, I hope to create more & more ideas too.

(These are purely I Know goals - I also need to sort out other personal goals - but they are too hard - learning to drive, learning to speak French, doing exercise, read more. The usual)

What a rambler! I'm all talk & no action ehh. Oh deary me.

Here are some starting points for new blog design:

Bonjour!

Bonjour mon ami. Sorry for this lack of blogging. Over Easter we crammed 9 people into our trusty old VW van & drove all the way from Devon, to Dover, to Calais, to Toulous & then to the Canal du Midi... It was pretty intense, but so so lovely. We hired a canal boat & drove along the canal eating bread & drinking coffee & pretending we know anything about wine. Anyway, now I'm home & back to work. Well, maybe just one more day off so I can go & buy bits to do up my bike! (I've only just learnt how to ride at the grand age of 21, I always lived on a big big hill).

Hope everyone had a super Easter :) My head is full of new ideas & exciting plans for the summer.