Pretty pink and duck egg blue

One of my favourite forms of creativity has always been collage, since I was about four years old and old enough to use scissors and glue. My love of collage has never gone away and my mum jokes about the irony of the fact that I'm now doing a degree in collage, or at least a degree in which collage can be incorporated as a part of it.

Recently my attentions have been focused on fabric collage, I love taking tiny scraps of beloved fabric and lace, too small to be of any use, but far too beautiful to throw away, and sewing them together, adding some embroidery and ribbon and voila.

I think it's a lovely way to preserve scraps of fabric and notions that are otherwise unusable, the exquisite lace on the left of the top photo was left over from my sister in law's wedding bolero and the buttons came from my grandmother's button box which I remember playing with as a child. Instead of being hidden away these things are now displayed on my wall to be looked at everyday, much better use.

Environment

Having spent the entire last term slaving away on photoshop to create a collection of fabric designs

And not being quite sure whether or not all the hard work would pay off grade-wise, I didn't even want to look at my designs

However, having received a grade that I am quite happy with, I can at last look at my work and appreciate it and actually think 'Wow, I'm proud of that' It's a good feeling!

A little something sweet.

Living alone poses an interesting dilema for a person like me, a person who loves to bake but knows she really shouldn't eat too much cake that is...



As someone who is used to, when bored of an afternoon, whipping up a sweet treat or two it's difficult to resist the urge to do so, so the other afternoon I could restrain myself no longer and baked these delicious chocolate cupcakes with Baileys icing.

And with no one else to share them with, what was I to do? Well of course I had to to eat them all by myself! (Not all in one day I hasten to add!)

Looking Forward to Summer

It's become a bit of a tradition the last few years that as soon as spring begins to arrive and thoughts turn to the oncoming summer to start dreaming up beautiful summer dresses. I generally start with a vague idea of a colour or a certain shape and take it from there. This year was no exception and I had ideas about reds and dark pinks.

This first dress I definately remember thinking up whilst watching the BBC adaption of Upstairs Downstairs, I know the style is more 1950s than 30s but something about the rich colours of the costumes made me long for a ruby dress. I think this one will be more of a summer evening dress though, the fabric is heavier than than I imagined but it was a perfect colour and it feels gorgeous to wear.

The second dress is still a work in progress but I used the same pattern as I used to make the bridesmaid dress I wore to my brother's wedding last summer, only knee length instead of floor length. The colour is almost exactly the same too, dark raspberry, but in a beautiful light broderie anglaise instead of the heavy duchess satin of the original. I decided as I will proably never wear my bridesmaid's dress again (boo hoo!) it would be nice to have a more wearable everyday version to remind me of it.

Here is a detail of the bodice, I really need to get my act together and finish this one before summer is upon us, I don't want it to become one of those projects that sits in the bottom of my wardrobe for months before I get round to completing it, which does tend to happen shamefully often I have to admit!

Springtime Patchwork

Lately I've been absolutely loving the springtime and particularly the spring flowers. Beautiful shades of purple and yellow have been leaping out at me from parks, gardens and roadsides everywhere.

I have a tendancy to become obsessed from time to time with colour combinations and these stunning seasonal flowers have sparked my latest obsession. Couple this with a desire to get back into patchwork and the need for a new picnic blanket and...

I present the Springtime patchwork picnic blanket.

I'm super pleased how this has turned out, sometimes I spend forever deliberating on which fabric to put where but this time it came quite easily and I just love it! The splashes of red, the gingham backing, it was just one of those times when it all came together very nicely indeed and I can't wait to try it out. Now we just need some more of that lovely sunshine for a perfect picnic day!