new from old 2
after my recent whinging i decided to take myself in hand and set out to try to find affordable sources of fabric. old bedding seems to sell fairly cheaply here and you get a useable amount of fabric (as opposed to clothing, which usually has way too many seams and awkward shaped pieces to make it worthwhile dismantling). if you can stomach some poly with your cotton you can get your hands on some cracking vintage prints.
the above aren’t all vintage; the far left is current stock ikea but display damaged so a bargain, i got a single duvet cover plus pillowcases and the print is a smaller sale on the cover, which i love. some of these are simple stash building, others already have destinies. M and i are both keen to experiment with pillowcase dresses for the summer. she really wants a dress out of the balloon fabric (a duvet cover with a rather fetching reverse) which i think i’m going to find quite a challenge 
posted: January 24th, 2007 under recycled, shopping.
comments: 3
comments
comment from shannon
time: 29/1/2007, 5:27 pm
I like the reverse better, I think, but I can imagine a child’s need for a dress out of the balloons. It is hard to make garments out of such large prints!
It reminds me of something I read in The Art of Zandra Rhodes. She was talking about what motivated her to begin designing fabric, and there were these photos of some of her first dresses. All the prints were cut in the middle of a motif or some suych; what choice does one have? So then, her response was to design fabrics with borders that fit the shape of the garment pieces…
I guess when faced with large prints, I add borders of quieter or at least smaller print fabric to sort of… end things.
comment from shannon
time: 29/1/2007, 5:28 pm
oh, sorry. duh. My other idea would be to isolate the balloons, ie, cut them out and applique.
comment from soph
time: 29/1/2007, 6:33 pm
yep i was thinking along the lines of making the dress itself from the reverse, and including a border or pockets out of the balloons as a concession to M’s wishes. but i quite like the idea of going exactly counter to my instinct and using the print as the main fabric with a border from the reverse. hmmm.
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