towel dress

The latest towel dress that I made this month.  Why is it called a towel dress?  Exceptionally good question which I can't answer.  Someone mistakenly called it a towel dress and the name has stuck.  It is made from chenille.  You know the stuff that bedspreads used to be made from - maybe they still are.


What ever it is made from or what it is called, it is one of those very comfy items that is worn and loved and then worn some more until the poor thing is worn out, which is why I happened to be making another one this month.


The first one I made was in 2000.  I was given a dress that had been bought in Brunswick Street Fitzroy and asked to copy it as we live in Darwin, not close to Brunswick Street, the dress was wearing out but had been so easy to wear and comfortable that the owner of the dress couldn't bear to part with it.  We found some grey chenille and the next towel dress came into being.
That was 10 years ago and the grey dress was now thin, shabby, stained and with little fluffy chenille left on it. I went in search of fabric and came up with this chocolate brown chenille, a much better option than the baby pastels that were also on offer.  Considering the use the dress has it definitely needs to be made in a strong colour that wears easily.


Voila!  Another towel dress was born.  The chenille for this one seems to have a thinner backing than the previous material, meaning that this one may not make its 10th birthday.  That's okay.  Anything over five years old for a dress worn several times a week is a bonus.


The owner commented that she felt like a chocolate teddy bear in it and that is a fabulous description of the comfort and versatility of this dress.

some things I have made in the past - 1

While I am creating new things, I will take a moment to put up some things I have made in the last few years. Actually, many years ago.  2004 is the date on one photo and I feel that the others were around that time as well.  My time passes very quickly when having fun in your life.

This is a necklace made from tiny multi-coloured seed beads and given to a girlfriend for Christmas 2004.  I do remember having loads of fun making it but not sure if I would make another - very time consuming and most probably have to work with the magnifying lamp to repeat the process.

My eldest sister lived in Jabiru for a while.  During that time she presented me with a couple of sewing challenges.  The inspiration for this outfit was a pale green silk sarong she liked and wanted to wear to a wedding.  There silk also had mauve and pink incorporated into the pattern, therefore the choice of mauve silk for the  top.  My sister completed the outfit with a cerise jacket.  Looked fabulous!!

Me playing 'auntie' for the daughter of friends, possibly on her 4th birthday?  A book bag and a fairy princess cape.
Again found the process very enjoyable of embroidering with beads and silks.  I think I also made a similar cape - but without the beads - for her brother.  These were based on a very simple blue cape I made for my son when he was 5, embroidered with a big red 'S'.  He wore that everywhere for at least a year, if not more.  It ended up being very thin and tattered, the blue cape that is, after being much loved.

curtains - upstairs Canberra

March of last year, 2009, I went to Canberra to make the curtains for the upstairs.  The process of the curtains started at least in November 2008.  These things take time to plan and develop.  Making curtains for someone else's house that I am not living in takes an amount of thought to design what will be beautiful and totally suitable for the rooms they will be hung in.

In this instance it was decided that the main part of the curtains would be panels made from silk brocade that my daughter's father bought for her when he visited Shanghai about 2000.  This bolt of material has been patiently waiting around until we found the perfect vehicle to use it.  This was it.  As this material was very dramatic, many metres of natural raw silk was purchased at Job's Warehouse in Melbourne early January, along with the sun block out backing.  We had not measured the windows at this point, this was flying on a wing and a prayer that what was needed was purchased.  Of course it was!  I made it all work and be enough.

The finished curtains - wall on the left had the gold brocade, edged in the red and the right wall had the reverse.  Looks amazing in the room

The thin gold panels were pieces left over from the gold shirred silk that my daughter's wedding top was made from.  The beads were old ones that I had and new ones purchased in Canberra.  

The wooden gold painted lions I had purchased in an antique shop in Malacca, Malaysia in 1995.  They were originally designed to hold up the name signs above the front doors on the wonderful homes of the Chinese merchants living and trading in Malacca.  

Maybe you can believe me when I say I had so much fun creating these curtains to work in a specific space and to be items of beauty.  Having the freedom to put together items that needed to be taken out of their boxes where they had been hiding for years and putting them into something that was useful and seen on a day-to-day basis -yes, this is pleasure.

curtains - downstairs in Canberra

What have I been doing lately?


This is a question that I ask myself  frequently.  Describing with words and pictures what I make and placing in this blog is answering that question to myself and if anyone else has enjoyment from this it is a bonus for all.


In February I was invited back to my daughter and son-in-law's house in Canberra to design and make the curtains for the windows downstairs.  I had an idea in my head before I went down and spoke eloquently to this idea and had it nearly sold except - there is often an exception - one of the windows was much larger than I had remembered and the idea for furnishing that window was over the top, even for me.  Yes, it would have dominated the room which was not the idea. 


What I love doing with curtains is to curtain the wall, not just the window.  If curtaining the window, this often results in the room being cut down in size when the curtains are closed.  I feel that if the wall is curtained, when the curtains are closed they look like they belong to the room and could be a feature wall as I feel I have accomplished in these curtains and the ones I made last year for the upstairs rooms.


On the Saturday afternoon my daughter and I went looking at fabrics available in Canberra - some stores were lovely but not with fabrics that fitted with my vision for the curtains.  We did settle on a natural linen for the background.  Sunday morning we went to the Old Bus Depot Markets for a browse.  Wonderful handmade items, inspirational for their quality.  There is a stall selling Japanese fabrics, mainly in squares.  As soon as I saw these I knew it was THE fabric we needed for the panels on the curtains.


I first made the panels by sewing the squares to a panel of plain material, leaving a space between the panels length ways and having enough material on the edges to fold over for the edging.  Each panel is different, the main theme being a red background and also using a blue and the linen as the last background.  The kitchen area of the open plan living space has teal walls, dark blue/teal bench tops and red kitchen appliances.  The colours in the curtain panels pulls the three areas together - lounge, dining and kitchen - completing the space.






The curtains in the lounge area of downstairs. 


The light linen is backed with the strongest sun block lining that we could find.  This really works at keeping the heat out of the room in summer and keeping the warmth in the room in winter.


I really loved having the freedom to design and make these curtains to what the room needed and my daughter and son-in-law would enjoy living with.