Woodland

It was lovely to see my fabric designs in Creative Quilting recently, a shop based near Hampton Court. The fabric collection is called Woodland and I designed it for Makower UK. It's inspired by the flora and fauna of the British countryside and uses a pleasingly soft colour palette of blues, greys and teals. When I designed this collection I wanted it to be as versatile as possible so that it could be used for quilting, as well as for home decor projects and for dressmaking.

When I design a collection, the designs all have to complement each other, with a selection of 'mother' prints (which are more detailed and are the main designs for the collection) as well as smaller, co-ordinating designs that complement each other. The designs have to read well on the shelf of a fabric shop as well. This is how they looked in Creative Quilting and I was really pleased with the outcome!

Many shops make up a project using the fabrics that they are selling so that customers can get a better feel for how they could be used. Creative Quilting had a quilt design hanging on the wall which worked really well. You can see a picture of it below.

You can see a wider selection of the Woodland collection below. I created each design in Photoshop and used a linen texture background which gives the designs more depth.

I couldn't resist buying a selection of the fabrics and now I just need to decide what to do with them!

Watch this space....

Happy Monday

Happy Monday!

I hope a good weekend was had by all. I spent some of my weekend rediscovering my fabric stash. I have so many lovely fabrics that get hidden away in my studio, and it's always good to reacquaint myself with some of them. I love to hide myself away for a few hours and forage.

I spread the fabrics out on my studio floor and was amazed at the array of colour I had chosen. 

These are all vintage obi fabrics (the 'belt' that goes around the kimono) that I bought in Tokyo.

I really enjoy cutting out the fabrics to make into clutch bags and choosing a suitable lining for each one. Even the leftover scraps are interesting to me and look so pretty in a pile.

My favourite find was a stunning yellow floral obi fabric. Check out those blooms!

I decided to make it up into a clutch bag and added a grass green cotton lining to compliment the outer fabric. You can find it in my store here.

On Sunday afternoon we decided to head over to East Molesey, where there is a fabric shop called Creative Quilting that I like to go to every now and then. It's situated on the small high street that has lots of lovely little shops to browse in. We can walk to East Molesey through Bushy Park, a lovely park where deer roam free and you can get lost in the wild grasses. East Molesey is also very close to Hampton Court Palace, the home of Henry the Eighth, so we popped into gardens adjoining the palace for a quick look at the rose garden, which is now in full bloom. The scent was amazing and I homed in on many of the yellow blooms. Yellow is obviously a popular theme at the mo!

Shop and relax

I've pretty much recovered from the jet lag and am on fine form for my next bag sale which is tonight at the Orchard School in East Molesey (near Hampton Court). I'm all set up and ready to go. Tonight's event is called 'Shop and Relax Evening' and I'm looking forward to meeting lots of new people and selling a few bags. I even have a glass of bubbly to help the evening flow!

Large clutch bags 

iPad cases

Small clutch bags

Coin purses