textiles | Petal & Pins

Fashionable Flowers

dresses in an exhibition mannequin dress detail

On a recent trip to Melbourne I saw the 200 Years of Australian Fashion exhibition at the NGV and this wedding dress (circa 1952) designed by Beril Jents was just one of the dresses that not surprisingly caught my eye.

Over the years I’ve made a garden full of flowers from fabric myself – from evening and wedding dress embellishments to adornments for lapels or hats. Just lately I’ve been making ‘spring blossom’ out of paper for part of our petal & pins display at our second trade fair appearance.

We’re launching our new Garden Party card collection, a Black Label range of notecard sets and I have designed a new collection of limited edition prints we’ve called Atelier Pétale featuring a vintage fashion inspired sketch with hats I’ve styled from flowers from our garden.

So our garden flowers continue to inspire me creatively and petal & pins continues to grow! We head to Melbourne next week for the trade fair and Mr Petal & Pins and I are getting excited, thank you for following us on this journey you are part of our story!

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April 27, 2015

What’s In a Name?

Do you remember my January post about turning my scraps into fabric twine?
My first project with it was to make these.

And I continued with the re-use-recycle idea and folded origami boxes out of Vogue magazine pages to gift pack them in.

Trivet or Doily? – What you call it depends on how you use it!

trivet – doily

handmade from textile offcuts

silk – wool – cotton

origami box

folded from old Vogue magazine pages

recycled paper

4 Comments

February 14, 2015

Teddy Bear Muse

Last November, in anticipation of seeing the exhibition The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier:From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk, I created two Gaultier inspired designs for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe.

For fans of “the enfant terrible of French fashion” it will be no surprise that one of these was a corset.

For inspiration I chose the conical bra style he first showed in the early 1980s and which was famously worn by pop icon Madonna on her Blonde Ambition World Tour.

Here is my take on it for my garden fairy and some photos I took at the exhibition.

In the exhibition monograph, Jean Paul Gaultier thanks many including his teddy bear – which features in the exhibition wearing the cone bra he fashioned for it as a child!

“…thanks also to my teddy bear Nana who was my first model and without whom my whole career not to speak of the cone breasts, would not have been possible…”

In my post Good Things Come To Those That Wait I spoke of waiting for several years to see this exhibition. It was first shown in Montreal in 2011, then in Dallas, San Francisco, Madrid, Rotterdam, Stockholm, New York, London and finally Melbourne in 2014.

It was worth the wait – so much so that I went to see it twice on that weekend trip to Melbourne in November!

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January 31, 2015

Purse Project #2

Following my Purse Project last year using my Kaleidoscope Garden photos I decided to make one for myself using some of my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe designs.

Choosing just which four dresses was the most difficult part!

2 Comments

January 5, 2015

Shades Of Pink, Shades Of Green

This morning I made my first Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe dress for 2015 with two different pink geraniums that grow in my front garden.

I decided to use two shades of pink together inspired by the two colour effect of the fabric twine I’ve started making.

A Xmas gift of The Sustainable Fashion Handbook by Sandy Black combined with a workroom tidy up spurred the start of this new project to recycle some of the smaller scraps that mount up in my studio.

I found the instructions on My Poppet. It’s easy to make and all ready my mind is sparking with ideas for what I might do with it.

You can see other ways I use my scraps in my posts Macarons, Memories & Momentoes and Treasure & Mermaids.

Always better than them ending up in landfill.

4 Comments

October 21, 2014

Changing Hue

I let my vase of roses linger…I like the petals fading hues they remind me of my vintage velvet jacket the fabric bruised with wear and time only adds to its beauty.

The petals spill on the mantlepiece and I let them linger too.

As in Faded Glamour I’m inspire to turn them into a garden fairy’s gown.

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August 7, 2014

Botanical

June 6, 2014

Fashion & Favourites

I smiled when I saw this design from the Oscar De La Renta Spring/Summer 2014 collection as it reminded me of my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe dress that I created for my very first Petal & Pins post in September 2012 .

The Oscar De La Renta dress is made from crushed pleated silk taffeta and tulle, my Fairy’s dress was made from a peony flower!

The big voluptuous blooms of the tree peony are a favourite of mine and I’m lucky they were a favourite of a previous owner of my garden who long ago planted two.

That’s the thing with favourites you keep coming back to them or you want more – choosing the same dish at a favourite restaurant, revisiting a holiday destination or wearing some things from your wardrobe more often than others.

Sometimes fashion labels repeat a popular style in a different fabric or colour the following season, I certainly do that for some of my clients and I have done that here for my Garden Fairy’s Wardrobe – recreating my peony dress with roses.

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May 19, 2014

For Everything There Is A Season

I love Autumn – but then I love each season and the changes they bring – in the garden, in the fabrics I work with in my studio, and even in the way I get together with friends.

My Autumn wedding creations for last weekend were sumptuous in both texture and colour.

Champagne coloured duchess satin and heavily beaded lace for the bride. Rich purple velvet with silk chiffon for the bridesmaid and an Italian printed silk satin and slubbed dupion for the Mother of the Bride in mink, wine & cerise tones.

I’ve also had my sister visiting so we booked a few days on the east coast and it was magical. Walks on the beach, red wine in front of an open fire and the most spectacular sunsets and sunrises.

Back home, the wonderful thing about my garden is that despite the carpet of Autumnal coloured leaves there is always a bit of colour to be found somewhere.

Perfect for an afternoon tea setting with a friend on Sunday.

And perfect for a ‘In A Vase On Monday Post’.

‘In A Vase On Monday’ was started by Cathy from Rambling In The Garden who has a beautiful garden in the north-east rural fringe of the West Midlands, England.

And while I’m enjoying Autumn, she’s enjoying Spring!

4 Comments

March 11, 2014

Purse Project

The results of my bag making project from The Last Days Of Summer using my photos from Kaleidoscope Garden

4 Comments

Petal & Pins

Tag: textiles

July 30, 2016

Fashionable Flowers

April 27, 2015

What’s In a Name?

February 14, 2015

Teddy Bear Muse

January 31, 2015

Purse Project #2

January 5, 2015

Shades Of Pink, Shades Of Green

October 21, 2014

Changing Hue

August 7, 2014

Botanical

June 6, 2014

Fashion & Favourites

May 19, 2014

For Everything There Is A Season

March 11, 2014

Purse Project

Tag: textiles

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