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).

Dresses for Charity

This morning as I was browsing the blog-verse I got diverted to a lovely post by Louise at Sew Scrumptious about a charity campaign to provide dresses for girls living in poverty. Louise is encouraging her readers to get involved and has offered to bundle up and send off any dresses she receives by the end of May.

I don't know whether it was the gorgeous sunshine or just the fact that I've been feeling very lucky to be me lately but I really liked this idea. I have plenty of fabric and what better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than at the sewing machine. So I offer you pics of the two dresses I came up with, based on the pattern from Little Big Girl Studio. Both use recycled fabrics (another bonus) and ribbon that I got in a bulk lot.

Multicolour floral cotton and mulberry cotton fabric with pink grosgrain ribbon.

Green sari fabric with gold satin ribbon.

Sunshine and Splinters

It's amazing how inspiring a little bit of sun and warmer weather is. With a beautiful clear sky today turned into a bit of a work whirlwind, and about time since these school holidays have been terrible as far as getting any work done is concerned.



First on the list was photography, to make the most of the sunlight on my front windowsill. I got all my new pieces photographed and the picture above is a compilation image for one necklace (the "neck shot" was taken by hubby yesterday). Not content with the damage caused to my back by that exercise, I couldn't resist getting out in the sunshine to pull some weeds and trim back my climbers before they start shooting skyward again. As we have road works and a set of traffic lights virtually outside our front door at the moment, my tussles with overgrown plant life must have given the drivers some amusement while they waited to move on. Unfortunately, the plants weren't so amused and have left me with several scrapes (some self-inflicted as I dug fern splinters out of my fingers), an infected spot from a splinter I missed (will get out a needle to deal with it shortly) and a rather painful swelling on the back of my hand where I was caught by a rose thorn.

The moral of this story (as it is every time I get gung-ho in the garden) is to wear gloves when gardening. I'm sure it will also be the moral after my next bout of gardening, and the next, and the one after that ... I love to feel my garden, even when it bites me.