Japanese kimono fabrics

I love it when I receive an order of fabrics in the post. These beauties arrived recently, all the way from Japan. They are vintage kimono fabrics, in varying shades of blue, terracotta and cream. These will be made up into stunning decorative scarves - the perfect gift for a Japanophile!

Indigo blue

 I love Japanese indigo fabrics and collected a lot when I lived in Japan. I love the way that the dye soaks into the fabric and I love the bold, stylised designs that are often used in indigo textiles.

I have a selection of traditional and modern indigo fabrics and decided to use both of them in one design, combining a geometric print with a traditional floral motif.

These fabrics are so dark, they almost look black and were perfect for making into clutch bags.

The clutch bag is lined and lightly padded, with a zipper closure to keep everything safe.

For the lining, I decided to use a modern geometric cotton Japanese fabric in shades of cream and navy, using the reverse of the colours on the outer bag.

The bag also has a lovely silky black tassel attached to the zipper pull.

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Fabric Friday

Anyone who loves fabric, knows how therapeutic it can be. There is something very pleasing about choosing a selection of fabrics and piecing them together to create something new. A year ago I was going through a difficult time in my life. My parents were very supportive and I was staying their house at the time. After dinner, mum and I would sit in front of the TV (with a glass of wine of course!) and the sewing would come out. My mum was in the process of making fabric hexagon squares and so I decided to do the same, using fabric pieces I had in my stash.

Paper hexagons are cut out, and then the fabric hexagon is tacked onto the paper one, to give it shape. The hexagons are then whip-stitched together in batches of seven, to create a bigger hexagon.

From the back, it looks pretty messy! But the paper is a great way of keeping the shape of the hexagons as you sew them all together, and the paper, and tacked stitches will be taken out at the end of the process, for the grand reveal!

Once you have a good amount of larger hexagons, you can start sewing them together, which is what I am now doing.... a year later! I love the fact that sewing projects can be left for a while, but you can always come back to them and start where you left off.

The fabric selection includes, polka dots, bright solids, and a mandolin design! Now I just need to decide what to make my lovely hexagon project into. A funky clutch? Or a fun tote bag? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.