Little Pieces of Me

What do you do when it is a cold and windy April day with an ice storm in the weather forecast and all you really want to do is get started on the gardening?  Sulking is high on my list, followed by getting started on something sunny and summery. I'd been mulling over an idea for a white cotton tunic or shirt with watercolour-like painting on it. Considering that my painting skills are even worse than my drawing skills, this seemed like an overly ambitious undertaking. But what the heck. I had a good length of a nicely textured crinkle cotton in the stash to use and drafting the pattern and sewing the shirt was easy. But I was unsure about how to get the painting effect while still leaving the fabric with a soft hand and natural texture. I tried out a number of things and I decided on 2 options - very thinned out Colour Vie or watercolour pencil crayons. Watercolour pencil crayon on wet cotton Yes, pencil crayons. I had no expectation that these would work, ...

Last year there was some activity online around a pattern from Vogue (1312) which featured prominent angular structures in the skirt. Several bloggers offered up their own versions of this construction which came to be known as the tablecloth skirt or  ' garment formerly known as tablecloth ' although it really doesn't have much to do with tablecloths at all.  At the time I thought it looked fun so I bookmarked it for later. 3 of the 4 points showing here Now it's later, and with the teasing glimpse of warmer weather over the Easter weekend, I thought I'd see about making something like this myself. I thought I'd go for a dress with a fitted bodice, short sleeves and pockets.  I had 3 metres of inky blue (photos are lightened for detail) light-weight linen that I'd bought on sale which would be perfect for this project, which I call the Four Points Dress. Note: no tablecloths were harmed in the making of this dress! Having recently finished...