Batik in Blue

I've had these photos, taken at the Spey River near Craigellachie one beautiful sunny day, on my hard drive a little while now. They have just been sitting around, waiting for me to be inspired to write something entertaining to go with them. It is said that success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration so I decided to give up on being inspired and just get stuck in.

Many years ago I bought a lovely piece of batik cotton fabric while on holiday in Bali and it has been sitting in my stash untouched ever since. Admittedly this was partly because it was too nice to use and partly because I had no idea what to use it for. So finally I bit the bullet and made a decision. As the piece was too small for a whole garment I had to make a feature of it and design a dress around that. The rest of the fabric came from a roll of navy poly cotton that had also been biding it's time.

I wanted something easy to wear and comfortable for the occasional warm day we get here in Scotland, so this dress just slips over the head and pulls in behind the waist with matching fabric ties made from the batik. The neckline is finished with bias binding also made from the batik and has a false underskirt effect to achieve the length I wanted. It was very much a "make it up as I go along" process.

Overall I'm pleased with the result and have recieved some lovely comments when wearing it. This success prompted another experiment which I will blog about shortly (when I can produce some photos I'm happy with).