Geta life

I fell in love with this geta (Japanese flip flops) fabric as soon as I saw it and new I had to have it. It has now been lovingly made into a cute little pouch to store all your precious items. I also found a rather lovely rice bowl and chopsticks fabric and thought the two would make a nice pairing.

You can find them on my Etsy here.

Maze and Vale

Melbourne-based Leslie Keating describes herself as a graphic designer with an intense love of fabric. For years she made soft toys and quilts using other people's fabrics but in November 2011, she decided to follow her love of hand printing and launched Maze and Vale, a line of screen printed fabrics. The designs are beautifully simple in soft, muted colours and are made using hand mixed inks on natural cotton and linen.

You can find more of her beautiful items here.

Tenegui patchwork

I have finally found another use for all the tenegui I've been collecting. I often speak about tengui fabrics and how much I like them. They are Japanese fabrics that have all sorts of uses from napkins, to gift wrap and tea towels. The wonderful thing about them is that they often have very interesting patterns and colours and are usually produced in the traditional way, often with intricate stencils and an involved method.

This tote bag uses a combination of tenegui fabrics patched together, with a natural linen base and a cream cotton lining. There are two thick canvas straps that fit comfortably over the shoulder and you can find this, and other tote bags here.

The nice thing is that some of the fabrics from this tote bag have also been used in some of the clutch bags I made recently, which you can see below and can find on my Etsy store here.

Bali buys

Well, needless to say, we had a fab time in Bali - a wonderful combination of relaxing in our lovely villa/hotel, as well as getting out and seeing the beautiful island of Bali. You can read more about our travels here.

As a lover of textiles, I was in heaven and the choice of ikat weavings, batik fabrics as well as the rather brash gold printed pieces that are often used to 'wrap' figures in the temples, was overwhelming. I could have gone crazy with the shopping, but hubby kept me at bay and I only came back with a 'small' number of fabric pieces as well as a wood carving.....

I'm really looking forward to making some clutch bags out of these gorgeous finds and am even wondering how they will combine with the kimono fabrics I already have. Watch this space....

Ikat weaving is a process where the design of the weave is dyed onto the threads before they are woven. I can't even begin to imagine how they work that out, but the effect is gorgeous.

Batik is a process where the design is 'drawn' out using wax that creates a resist. The design is then coloured in and the wax is removed using boiling water. There are many more complicated ways of doing this, where layers of colour and pattern are added over time.

A gold design is printed onto bright coloured cottons. It is quite brash, but I love its vibrancy.

Lovely new fabrics

I went to Machida shrine sale the other day and bought these gorgeous fabrics - a mixture of kimonos and obi, the sash that goes around the kimono. I'm looking forward to making some new clutch bags with them soon!

You can check out a selection of my clutch bags here.