Moneta Dress - in Anna Maria Horner fabric

I've recently been inspired to sew garments again.  I think it's the influence of several things, including Cath's beautiful Bondi Top, and meeting Lizzy House and new kiwi / Canadian ex-pat Erin Charter, both of whom have amazing handmade wardrobes.

Anyway, I bought several yards of this lovely purple knit designed by Anna Maria Horner last year when I was sewing garments, and then never did anything with it.  Since it was a long weekend here, and I had Erin to help me, I pulled it out to make a dress using the Moneta pattern by Colette Patterns.  One of my lovely IG friends, Nancy, responded to my call for help and lent me her overlocker / serger for the weekend, which made things MUCH easier.

 

The Moneta is one of the most made and blogged indie patterns out there, so it was really helpful when I was deciding what to make to read everyone else's posts about it.  For the sake of being helpful to other people who might want to make it, I am 5'8" and in this version made a size small, but lengthened the bodice 1.5".  I didn't alter the skirt at all.

 

I had read Karyn's post which mentioned the issue with excess fabric under the arms.  I took the armpits in 1/2" but you can see there is still a bit of excess fabric there.  I didn't have this issue on the second version (which I will show in another post), so I suspect it might be partially caused by this fabric not having amazing recovery (it's 100% cotton which made it easy to sew with but it doesn't spring back into shape as easily as fabric with a nylon or other polyester type content).

 

You can see here that the neckline is lower on the back than on the front - pretty cute!  These photos were taken in slightly challenging light, hence all the sparkles (and I would like to blame my glowing white skin on the light as well but I suspect that is just me...).

So, yeah, I'm pretty happy with this dress.  It will be a cute weekend outfit for me as the weather starts to warm up, and it's super comfy.  Colette describes the pattern as being for beginners, and generally I would agree with that - the only thing I found slightly tricky was attaching the top of the skirt to clear elastic, and hemming the neckline.  I'm sure it would have been quite a bit more work without an overlocker though.  If you are planning to make this dress, I would highly recommend reading the Colette Moneta sew-along and this post about using clear elastic.

When I share the other dress I made, I'll include a few more details on the tweaks to the pattern that I made which resulted in a better outcome for me, and the technique I used to get a much nicer result on the hems.  If you have any questions, shout out and I'll try and include the answers in that post!

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Taupata star mini quilt (a Natty collaboration)

Since I moved to my little suburb a few years ago, I've enjoyed watching it change and come to life with the addition of new shops and eateries. One of these new places is Natty, a workshop and retail space just up the road from me.

 

Cat and Fiona are the creative forces behind Natty, and together they design and make a range of lovely gifty things.  I popped in a few months ago for a chat and to scope out the shop, and fell in love with this Taupata leaf design which appears on a few products, including this tea towel.  Cat and Fiona were kind enough to print the design for me on my favourite Essex yarn dyed linen in black using beautiful gold ink.

I recently started experimenting with english paper piecing, and thought this fabric would be perfect for some fussy cutting and hand stitching.  To make these shapes, I used 60 degree diamond templates, and paired the hand printed fabric with some Carolyn Friedlander fabric with complementary gold accents.

 

Once I stitched my star together, I set it on an ivory Essex linen background and machine stitched it in place.  With a nice plain background, I thought some free motion quilted texture was in order.  I've long admired the way Jess from Elven Garden Quilts quilts her quilts, and one of the things I think she does really successfully is to use straight lines in her free motion quilting.  I used lots of straight lines in the quilting of this mini, echoing the star shape and playing with triangles and diamonds.

I'm pretty delighted with how the quilting came out on this quilt.  The lines aren't perfectly straight, but I like the organic, imperfect look.  I have a larger quilt ready for quilting and I'm planning to play with free motion quilted straight-ish lines on that one too.

If you're looking for cute, locally designed and made gifts, Natty is definitely worth a look.  If you're visiting in person, make sure you check out my local bakery, Baker Gramercy - their loaves and other treats are delicious.

Thursday Inspiration: Hand printed fabric

Today I want to share some special hand printed fabrics that I think are totally awesome.  Don't worry, the interviews will be back next week.  I just wanted to share some of the other things that inspire me from time to time.

First up is Umbrella Prints.  Based in Australia, they screen print wonderful designs on hemp and cotton base cloths.  I bought a trimmings pack with the intention of entering the Umbrella Prints Trimmings Competition but ran out of time before the competition closing date.  They're still hanging out on my design wall and I love looking at them and plotting what I might make.

Umbrella Prints Trimmings Pack - Earth

When I bought my trimmings pack I also splurged on a Floating World fat quarter set.  The fabrics are seriously gorgeous and lovely to work with (if you look at my Winter Plus Quilt top, you can see that one of the prints has sneaked in at the top right corner).

Floating World Fat Quarter Set

Another person making wonderful hand printed fabrics in Australia is Leslie Keating of Maze and Vale.  I managed to score some sample packs last time they were available and the fabrics are just delightful.

Maze and Vale Sample Packs

Now that I've had a little taste of the Maze and Vale fabrics, I think a larger purchase is in order.  This gorgeous Flight print is high on my list.

Flight in Dove Grey

Karen from Blueberry Park  in the UK has a variety of beautiful designs that she screen prints on a range of fabrics (mostly Kona cotton).

Charm Pack

I recently asked Karen if she would be willing to do a custom order for me, involving printing her designs on this stunning Pretty Potent Solids bundle from Westwood Acres (the fabrics are FreeSpirit designer solids, which are my favourite solid fabrics).  Karen has been absolutely fantastic to deal with and posted this picture of the bundle all printed up and ready to ship out to me (exciting!!!).

Photo from Karen's blog

While I love buying commercially printed fabric, I think there is something special about hand printed fabric.  It's a little bit imperfect, which is part of what I think makes handmade things so charming.  I also like feeling like I'm helping makers live their creative dream by supporting their businesses.

Finally, if fabric hand printed by someone else is outside your budget, consider printing fabric yourself.  I thoroughly enjoyed the fabric printing I did at Handmade, and I've done a little bit more since.  My stamped fabric is no masterpiece, but it's very satisfying nonetheless.  Rubber stamp carving materials are not expensive, and you can always go down the potato carving route if you just want to use things you have to hand.

So - anyone else a fan of hand printed fabric?  Do you have any other makers of hand printed fabric that you love and you'd recommend?  I especially love buying local so if you know of anyone in New Zealand making cool hand printed fabrics, lemme know!

By the way, this is not a sponsored post.  I bought all the fabrics myself and I don't have any special relationship with the fabric printers.  I just genuinely think they are great and merit a recommendation.

Handmade: Stamp carving

This weekend I took a class at Handmade, an annual Wellington event where you can learn and do all kinds of crafty things.  I decided to try something outside my existing range of craft skills and took a class called Hand Carved Rubber Stamps and Printing, taught by Melissa Wastney (who blogs at Tiny Happy).

 

The concept is quite simple really - you take a rubber eraser and some kind of carving tool (I used a little set of wood carving tools but you can also use a lino cutter) and create your very own stamp.

 

I had a think before the class about the kind of stamps I might like to make.  My drawing skills are minimal at best so I was trying to come up with simple shapes that I can actually draw.  I got the idea of creating a two piece stamp from a new design, "Flight", which Leslie Keating from maze and vale posted on instagram last week, and I guess the winter weather inspired the clouds and the rain.

 

The cat stamp was something that of course I had to try out.  I think it turned out quite cute, like a funny little cat polka dot.

Overall I really enjoyed this class - we didn't have too much to cover in the time available, and Melissa was a great teacher with a lovely calm and encouraging manner.  It was fantastic to see what everyone else in the class was doing as well - people came up with some amazing designs and my favourites were not necessarily the most complicated.  

I'd like to play around with stamp carving and printing some more, and since I bought about a dozen erasers and only used 4 in class I've got plenty of material to work with!  Have you ever tried making your own stamps?