Fabric Friday

This Friday's fabric showcases some beautiful pieces that I bought from the Karenni Student Development Programme (KSDP) who were exhibiting at the Knitting and Stitching show in Olympia. The KSDP charity was founded in 1999 by Stephanie Lee when she discovered the Karenni refugee camp on the Thailand/Burma border during her gap year. The KSDP funds schools, housing and basic needs for hundreds of young Karenni fleeing oppression from the Burmese Government.

Stephanie was sadly killed in a road accident close to the camp in 2001 and her family now run KSDP, with her mother Beryl utilizing her background in textiles to raise funds, as well as giving talks to raise awareness of the situation in Burma. You can read more about their events and where to buy their products on their Facebook page.

I bought the striped fabric above as I loved the shot of hot pink running through it.

This fabric is handwoven and can be bought by the metre.

I decided to design a clutch bag by combining the striped fabric with a lovely modern linen fabric which is printed with pink elephants that are exactly the same shade as the hot pink stripe. It has been finished off with a fun pink bobbly trim and the lining is also a bright pink! You can find it here.

The fabric above is most likely printed using a resist technique. The fabric is thick and nubby and allows the dye to really soak into it. What I loved was that this fabric had a border print on it and I decided to incorporate it into the design of a clutch bag.

I made this clutch bag by combining the lighter blue KSDP border fabric with a beautiful dark indigo and cream vintage floral fabric from Japan.

I have used the Japanese fabric for another clutch bag which you can see here.

I also used the same blue KSDP fabric to make a version using blue elephant fabric. The blue of the elephants is the perfect match with the KSDP fabric and you can find it here.