Selvedges are beautiful

Yes, I am still alive. I have been doing boring but necessary stuff since my return from Melbourne such as calculating costs and typing up price lists for new products.

Here are a couple of pics from the Craft Show including the absolutely fabulous dress from Ric Rac created solely from selvedges. Selvedges are the non-fraying edges of woven fabrics that are often printed with the company's name. Jodie, Ric Rac's creator, has to be the most talented sewer I have met. Check out her blog for more amazing creations including 3D fabric teapots and cups.



This photo is from the Channel 9 coverage for the Mornings with Kerry-Anne show (see previous entry). Presenter Tracey Atkins is admiring my hemp/organic cotton canvas shorts (not yet available) while chatting to the creative director of the L'Oreal Fashion Festival about eco fashions.

Many of you are wondering if I get any sleep since I am always working at weird hours. Yes, it is now 3 in the morning here in Brisbane, Australia and the secret behind my bad sleeping patterns is that I have my husband relentlessy snoring quite loudly in the background. It's impossible to sleep so I am working instead. What can I do besides snuffing him with a pillow? He refuses to do anything "unnatural" about it. Does anybody have a solution that works?

Thea & Sami Wrap Dress

While the rest of us were screen-printing on Saturday, Emily Tappenden, our resident fashion guru whipped up this beautiful wrap dress in our freshly printed Marguerite design.  The eco-fabric we have used is a very exciting 55% hemp/45% PET muslin.  Hemp is a wonderful sustainable, natural fibre and PET (short for Polyethylene terephthalate) is made of from 100% recycled plastic bottles.  While I am not a big fan of synthetics, you have to love the fact that this fabric is utilising what would otherwise end up in land-fill and and isn't depleting the Earth's natural resources in its production.

We have sampled another blouse from the same fabric and have printed, washed, dried and pressed it and it has fared remarkably well.  And speaking of recycling, what do you think of our in-house mannequin Justine (so-named by Emily)?  A friend rescued her from being dumped by a major clothing chain store.  It is incredible how many of these poor girls are tossed when they reach a certain age and are now longer shiny and new, kind of like real life?

And if you are wondering why Emily has yet to appear in any blog photos - it's because she is always hiding from the camera but I promise I will catch her soon.

I would really appreciate your feedback on our wrap dress from Thea & Sami's upcoming 2009 eco-fashion range.

Designing a Floral Fabric - Part 2

I finally picked my new floral fabric screen on Friday so had to quickly print up a couple of colour samples as I was visiting a new design gallery on Sunday, interested in hand-printed fabrics.



I decided to call the new print "Marguerite", French for 'daisy' as the name sounded a little more sophisiticated, don't you think?

I can't show you the whole print yet as I haven't had a chance to register the screens yet to print it as a repeat. That that will demonstrated in 'Floral Fabric -Part 3' so stayed tuned. Marguerite will feature in our upcoming eco-fashion range but will also be available for sale as a fabric for all you clever creative types.

I'm not sure about the colours yet.  I have the classic black on (off) white and the sweeter dusty pink that I am naming "Desert Rose".  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.  The fabric used is a lovely all-purpose hemp/organic cotton.