Fabric Design competition shortlist!

My fairies fabric design has made the shortlist of the By Hand London fabric design competition! By Hand London are a really super indie pattern company who are now printing their own fabrics too. Their Anna Dress is one of my favourite patterns I've made so far. 

There is a vote on their blog now - the pattern with the most votes by this Friday, 13th February will be the winner! And then their fabric will get printed - too super!

If you have time and the inclination, it would be lovely if you could go to the 

By Hand London blog

to vote. 

Thank you! 

Fabric pattern

By Hand London is running a competition until tomorrow midnight, to design a fabric pattern for their new pattern line. The theme is Once Upon a Dream - it's pretty dreamy to combine illustration and fabric! I think this went too kiddy really - might be nice for a child's shirt or dress? And I was trying to make it adult, darn it! I was thinking of toile colours and patterns... anyway, here it is. Wish me luck!

Butterfly friend for moth, by Karen Wall!

Karen Wall, who made the beautiful moth from Ambrose Goes for Gold that I blogged about here, has made a butterfly to go with him! Isn't he completely beautiful? I love the photo of them both together - combining children's books and sewing, what a lovely thing.

Thank you Karen!

They reminded me again of the work of one of my favourite artists, Mimi Kirchner. I covet her sailor and lumberjack dolls... she's just posted a round up of her dolls from 2014, so now is a good time to check out her blog if you haven't seen it before!

Sewing roundup!!

Still working to finish up this book - it will be done by the middle of next week, and then onto new things! Partly trying to get some more stuff together to sell at Hifest...

In the meantime, I've been carrying on the sewing. First up is the Miette blouse from Tilly and the Buttons. I made this for my mum, but in the end a blue shirt I'd made was a better match for her.

Front view

Back, with buttons from Mum's button box!

Copied from old Jaeger charity shop shirt - let's pretend those buttons aren't sewn down sans buttonholes.

Shirt outside Mum!

I also had a go with some cotton jersey, and with some flammable horrorfabric from Goldhawk Road. But I love the white dress even so, I feel like a powerful 80s lady in it - a feeling I enjoy very much. 

Sewing stretch cotton - pretty forgiving.

Powerful. Channelling Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead.

Beautiful moth!

Karen Wall, who wrote that her sons like my book Ambrose Goes for Gold, shared these photos of the completely beautiful, brilliant moth that she sewed for them to play with. Isn't he incredibly great? I'm really inspired to have a go at making a character myself, although I'm not in this league of sewing! 

Also on her list is the caterpillar, the butterfly and the ladybird - if she does manage them too I can't wait to see! As a mega novice, I'm filled with admiration for Karen's sewing skills.

Thank you so much for sharing Karen, your moth RULES!

Check him OUT!

Lovely stained glass window wings.

Moth cuddles!

Original moth. Who could do with taking some sprucing-up tips from Karen's moth. Also, its nose is like that because it's a super cool hummingbird-hawk moth:

(Not because, as some may have suggested, I get confused between moths and elephants...!)