Laura Ashley

Yesterday, I had a lovely daytrip to Bath with my daughter with the main feature of our packed day being a visit to Bath Fashion Museum to see the Laura Ashley Exhibition.  Featuring almost entirely dresses from mid 1970s I was in dress heaven.

Furthermore, photography was allowed and a notice welcoming photographers to share with social media.  My daughter and I snapped away.

I have a white high collar Laura Ashley dress from the mid 1970s similar to the one below, a thrifty find a few years back from the car boot sale. It is a hard item to wear, being so white, but it makes me happy just seeing it hand and every now and then I try it on and put it back.

You will notice how blue is a dominant colour,

This one was stunning

A close up on the sleeves, beautiful fall of fabric over the cuff.

I thought this one looked dramatic with its deep dark print.

There are many historical references, this dress with its elaborate leg o' mutton style sleeves has a pioneer, prairie aesthetic.

Great shoulder detail

I liked the use of lace and the deep scoop on the neckline

And the regency buzz on this one took me straight to Jane Austen's novels

Colour: short tunic shift dresses in needlecord dating from the mid 1960s.  I had no idea Laura Ashley was commercially designing dresses so early on.

Contrasting colours

Bright colours, strawberry

Orange and a little flamenco styling influenced by the rise of Spain as a favourite holiday destination

 Acid green

Stunning print and colour

Historical references galore 

Startlingly low cleavage in with all those high collar buttoned up styles.

Home made using Laura Ashley dress patterns for Mccalls.  I remember my mum making this one for my sister in the days when such dresses were worn as 'party' dresses to birthdays.  She made the bonnet too.

Handsewn hexagons, sewn together mid 1970s by 'Beverly Peach during her evenings working as a nanny in Spain'.

Our favourite and one I would happily wear today ( I would happily wear almost all of them)

Each dress (with the exception of the shift dresses) was made of acres of cotton fabric, maybe 6 yards or more in many of them.  Voluminous skirts and complex sleeves- I cannot imagine such dresses being mass market high street store styles today.  I have been a long time fan.  My mum was partial to the prints and home wares and the romantic historical styles have always been a favourite.  Taking me back to The Getting of Wisdom, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Room with a View- these are all key films in my personal cannon.  The exhibition continues until 26th August and a ticket includes entry into the Fashion Museum which is full of treats and with lots to try on- corsets, hats, bonnets, dresses. We had a lot of fun.  I am just about to enter into a few weeks of day trips, visits and generally enjoying the summer holiday period so emails and response may be a little slower than usual as I spend a little more time with my nearest and dearest xxx

Hand Drawn: Feeling Nostalgic at Village Haberdashery

I know a few of you have experienced the phenomenon of only truly appreciating a fabric line when it is long gone and only available on Etsy at an enormous price and an OOP tag.  Part of me has learnt to anticipate a little earlier when I feel the stirrings of affection for a new range but I still underestimate how I can fall for something.  

When fabric manufacturers bring back these popular, sort after old designs with a revamp and a new twist I am pretty satisfied and when I saw Village Haberdashery stocking Anna Maria Horner's Garden Party prints coming back at as part of her Hand Drawn Garden range I was thrilled!  Evening colour way is above, Sunlight, below.

You can build a bundle here and see the range here.   

And then there is Lush Uptown, not yet arrived, but hot stuff when it does, get ready, finger poised to order...

I do have a little Painter's Palette from first time around with this fabric collection,  and it is a very special print.

Blythe has been another range that has crept up on people and some prints have already sold out- the navy spots (I think the colour is called Park) is one I was crushing on and it was already too late but I did buy some of the green (garden) which is a perfect Kelly green and a colour which is often neglected in fabric.  Build a bundle is here.

And finally, Melody Miller Ruby Star Sparkle.  This is the last Ruby Star range Melody Miller is designing for Kokka, she has new plans, so if it pulls your heart strings, now might be the time to get some in and Annie has it on sale too.

Get Your Geek On

Penny and I have a new pattern set on sale, 'Get Your Geek On'.  You can read all about it over at Sew-Ichigo and mindful of those of you who already have the 'Retro Sunnies' pattern from the most recent Fat Quarterly issue, the pattern set is on an offer price of $5 (around £3ish) this week only.

Giveaway Winners

Congrats to Sara from Sew Little to Say- she has won the Form and Fabric pack plus Aurifil.

Congrats also to Audrey Matlock (trying to contact you Audrey via google plus, fingers crossed), Melinda from Quirky Granola Girl and Mary from On Lake Pulaski- you have each won a pack of thread, emails have been sent.  Thankyou everyone else for such excellent recommendations-be it books, music, recipes or random.  If you are stuck for any of these things, I recommend you visit the comment thread to read them!

Iphone Photography

Thankyou for the comments left so far for the giveaway- I am loving the recommendations, random and otherwise, it's still open if you haven't commented for a chance of winning.   I have had a few photography questions in the comments so I thought I would show you via a couple of Amitie Bring Me Flowers block of the month blocks.  I have been tempted to by a camera whcihc goes beyond the standard automatic point and shoot snap shot camera (this is what I have) but being realistic, I am so much more likely to grab my iphone and ipad than fiddle around and learn how to use a SLR camera and store/transfer the photos.  Iphone has its limitations but I recently came across a superb app, VSCOcam which elevates iphone photography.  All the pictures in the giveaway post were taken with it.

Before:  Picture taken using VSCOcam with no filters.

When you take a photo on this app there is no standard iPhone touch screen focus option, you can't move in and out with your fingers, you just move closer with the camera, but it will go close up and  there are two circles- a focus which places the lens focus in a particular place and an 'exposure' option which I either move to the darkest area or in the same place as 'focus' option.  Once the picture is taken there are basic editing options like crop, rotate contrast, brightness etc.  I don't use these much beyond the first two as the filters that follow will sort out a lot of issues.

After: with filter F3

For those familiar with Instagram, VSCOcam has a series of filters but they each indiviually adjustable with a sliding scale.  I bought an extra set of filters on offer for a few dollars.  You can get really fancy with this and the VSCOcam video gives  you a huge amount of options.  

The same pic, different filter: I increased the exposure of this one and used filter C1 which has a slightly different effect.

You can play around and get a huge range of filter effects and the photos are easily exported to your camera roll and social media sites.  The app will only store a limited number of photos so I tend to export as I go.  It is a very handy app for taking photos with a theme, for example, I knew all the Swedish Bloom quilt photos would be in one blog post so I used the same filter throughout.  The weather that day was a mix of sun and cloud with a threat of a big shower so the natural lighting was variable and the filters helped perk this up.  I love it, a great, easy to use app!

Patchwork Please! Zakka Along 2 : Swedish Bloom Quilt

Welcome to week 10 of the Patchwork Please Zakka Along 2 hosted by Lindsey and Debbie.  I was so thrilled when Ayumi told me she was finally writing a book and even more excited when I got a copy of Patchwork Please!  I felt so proud of her and her huge accomplishment of creating a book where every project is a delight.  It is packed full of projects with a little bit of everything- applique, paper piecing, quilting, small projects, big projects- I chose the biggest, Swedish Bloom Time lap quilt, it was love at first sight.  

A project this size with paper piecing as the main design needs a little organisation.  I printed out my foundation templates first- I use a scanner to transfer the pattern from the book.  It does use a lot of paper but the cheapest thinnest paper makes the best foundation patterns so don't use your best printer paper.  I was systematic in my process.  I picked out a colour combination for each flower looking for contrast and harmony.  I made plastic templates of each separate piece of the petals and leaves and drew round them on the reverse of the fabric with Sewline pencil and cut 1/2" seam allowance all round.  I worked on 4 petals at a time so I could sort out directional prints and laid all the pieces out before I sewed anything.  This method means you use a less fabric, allows you to fussy cut a little and keeps all the pieces on the grain.   I used just over a yard of background for the flower/leaf blocks rather than 2 yards.   Each flower took around 2  to 3 hours to assemble from beginning to end.  

If you are a beginner at paper piecing, using non directional prints or solids makes this process a lot easier- no need to worry about getting things upside down- (read about directional prints here).  I also  creased all the seam lines on the foundation paper pattern  using a Hera tool as this makes the process of flipping the paper back and forth for each seam easier for me.  I pressedand trimmed all the seams to 1/4" as I sew. You can find paper piecing tutorials here.  The same process is applied to the leaves- I did a 9 of these in one session so I started to pre-cut the pieces in bulk and create an assembly line.

The template method has some big advantages.  The pencil marks on the reverse help lining up the pieces.  You can see how I aligned piece 3 on the petal.

This is especially useful when adding diagonal pieces.  The pencilled corners give precise points- in the pic below I am adding one of the background corner sections- the pencil corner aligns with the edge of the paper, then I know the fabric will fit without being too small.

When it came to sashing, I got a little confused with the different strip measurement so I went my own way with it.   I stuck to the same widths but I cut my lengths differently and assembled in a different order.  My outer columns and top/bottom strips ended up 1/2" longer than those in the book which may have been trhough my strip construction but it is worth checking your measurements, especially the lengths before you cut the sashing. There is room to be creative and play around with the layout- add more leaves, take leaves away.  Just a single bloom would make a great pillow/cushion or mini quilt, or the design could be shrunk down for mini blooms, they would look great all in a row!

The border was 5" pieces, mainly a the remains of a Posy layer cake with a few extras added.

I kept the quilting simple.  There was a lot going on with the flowers and so I did a little colour matching with these fantastic variegated 50wt threads from Aurifil- this selection is chosen by Tula Pink and the colours were a great match.  The quilting is mainly echo quilting on petals and leaves with parallel lines round the quilt border.

I did get a little fancy in each flower centre.  Free motion quilting does not come easy to me so these were stitched with a pencil line to guide me, lets just say they are organic in design!

 I used Amy Butler Full Moon dots for the binding with a little Riley Blake Mind's Eye  'Lost and Found' coral dot on one corner and Rita's trusty sewing machine binding tutorial, plus glue basting- it  produces perfect corners!  Clover wonder clips are a boon for this, essential for the gluing.  The backing is a cotton unused vintage sheet.

I used my favourite batting of the moment, Quilter's  Dream  Blend.  This has a little more loft (only a little, it is still very flat) than the 100% cotton Quilter's Dream Natural Request so it makes for a little softer, cuddlier quilt plus the touch of poly makes it lighter and quicker to dry.  It is a very stable batting that holds its shape whilst cutting and making the quilt sandwich and it can be stitched far apart.  

The only thing to watch out for is not to get a hot iron near it.  I was trying to fix a nick in the border by pressing a little fusible interfacing underneath the fabric  but my iron was too hot  and ended up scorching the fabric and the batting went a little hard and flat underneath.  I had to hand piece a new section of fabric and  batting.  All was hidden in the quilting but it did give me a little flutter at the time.

The quilt is with its new recipient, my daughter.  She is most happy!

Now time for some giveaway goodies, generously donated by some of the sponsors involved in the the sew-along,  Form and Fabric and Aurfil.    

• 1 person will win Form and Fabric fat 8th pack in green prints plus a great sticker plus Aurifil sample pack, further 3 people win Aurifil sample packs. 
•  I can post anywhere so international entries are welcome but you must have an email address that I can contact you on in your profile/comment.  
• I always find giveaways where you recommend me something are great to read and really helpful- please recommend: a great book- audio/fiction/whatever, or great music- track, artist- whatever and if all else fails recommend me something totally random!

Leave one comment with your recommendation!

Random winners chosen 12th August

Don't forget to visit Lindsey's blog where she has a Zakka Along 2 linkup details and  prizes provided by the generous sponsors.