Vintage dress fabric from the states

Florals

checks 

 dots

 stripes

 1930'3

novelty 

I've been meaning to blog about this fabulous book I received for my birthday a few months ago.  Vintage dress fabric from the states is from the excellent Pie Books publishers in Japan, and as the title suggestes the book is full of hundreds of colour images of vintage fabric patterns - gorgeous!

All the vintage fabrics have been collected in New York, with many of the designs being still relevant for today.  It's a fabulous inspiration book, with images divided into themes covering floral, check, dots, 1930's, geometrical and novelty etc. 

You can buy the book at Amazon, or direct from Pie Books - I'd highly recommend it for anyone who's interested in vintage fabric, textiles and patterns!  

Funky floral fabrics

I've found some funky retro floral fabrics and tablecloths at various second hand shops recently....

This cute little seersucker fabric with simplified orange florals was from the local Vinnies.

This gorgeous tablecloth was picked up from the Mornington Antiques Centre closing day sale.  I love the overscaled bold flower pattern, and the mustard and olive colours.  Its a lovely soft drapey cloth too.  I need to find a table now to use it on!

This fabric featuring giant yellow, orange and brown flowers and leaves is also a tablecloth.  I love the linear detail with this floral print, and the bold scale keeps it really fun!

Ink & Spindle - open studio

I had the pleasure of visiting local print studio Ink & Spindle at the weekend, run by the very talented duo Lara Cameron and Tegan Rose.  I went as part of the Creative Women's Group which brings together women working in creative industries and establishing small businesses to share information - and best of all be inspired and learn from other women setting up or running businesses within the creative field.

Working from home and trying to develop a small business can be isolating and a little lonely at times, so it's great to have the opportunity to get together with other creative peeps and learn how they have set up a design business.

After the talk Lara and Tegan had an open studio session where they gave a yardage screen printing demonstration - you can find details of open studio dates on their blog!

Exposed screens ready for printing, and above the fabulous Young Husband building
Ink & Spindle set up their boutique screen printing studio in 2008, with the aim of specialising in high quality and environmentally-friendly textile printing for designers and independent labels. They work from the fabulous Young Husband Wool building in Kensington, hand screen-printing their designs and creating ethical as well as a sustainable range of textiles.

Lara and Tegan hand printing on their 10m print table - but hand screen printing also means hand cleaning screens!

Some of the cushions and fabrics designed and hand printed at Ink & Spindle.
Images courtesy of the Ink & Spindle website

It was a great experience seeing Lara and Tegan hand print their designs in their fabulous studio (very jealous of their studio environment!!) and to hear about how they set up Ink & Spindle, including their great environmental commitment which is very inspiring.

I can highly recommend visiting one of their open studio sessions - dates and details on the Ink & Spindle blog and also check out the Creative Womens Group blog for future meetings.

1950's fabric

I fell in love with this cute 1950's fabric as it depicts my favourite subject matter of all things related to vintage or retro kitchenalia.  It makes me want to put on an apron and bake a cake!

It's very pretty and I love the vibrant red next to the soft mint green.  I'm not sure yet if I'll make anything from the fabric.....or just use it as inspiration.

Oh well - I'm off to have a cup of tea and look at cake recipes ;-)