Pages

Friday 4 October 2013

Fabric purchases

Buying fabric

Buying fabric has to be one of my favourite pastimes! It has so many possibilities, and I'm incredibly fortunate, here in the north-west of England, to have a range of fabric retailers within easy reach. 

I love cottons, for practical purposes, and I adore brocades, silks, embroidered taffetas and other super-luxury fabrics, too.

Here are a couple of recent purchases on the line after washing, and all wrinkly!
Fabric with a design of silver birch tree trunks
Maybe a skirt?

This one on the left is called 'Silver Birch'. I bought it because I liked it, without any purpose in mind, but now I'm thinking it could make a very interesting, versatile and flattering straight skirt, with its combination of neutral colours and what are effectively vertical stripes.

The fabric below was bought for apron-making. It's 100% cotton in a light upholstery/curtain weight - considerably heavier than a dress-weight - with a lovely smooth finish. Although very creased on the line, it took only a brief pass with a hot iron to get it looking pristine. All these qualities make it ideal for aprons. In addition, it's printed in the UK by a highly-regarded British company, normally sells for between about £12 and £15/m, very occasionally as low as £8/m - and I paid £1/m. Yes, you read that right - £1/m. Doesn't get much better than that, does it?

bright abstract printed cotton for aprons
To become cheerful pinnies.
I've also got a couple of very floral-y florals in the washing machine as I type. Cath Kidston, eat your heart out!

I'll start cutting out some more aprons tomorrow. I've got two lovely - and very different - patterns drafted, both of which I'm familiar with so can complete quickly, but want to work on a third design to the stage when I have a pattern drawn up, marked and cut out on the brown wrapping paper I like to use for patterns I intend to keep. 

As they used to say on Blue Peter and on cookery programmes: 'Here's some I made earlier'. These are almost-dry, ready to bring indoors, iron and fold. The spotty fabric has been very, very popular this year - but I think I'm using the last of it. I'm unsure if I'll be able to get any more.
Colourful aprons hanging on the washing line
Freshly-washed aprons on the washing-line








No comments:

Post a Comment