FINISHED! A dress for race day

This was supposed to be a fun post about the dress I made and wore for Melbourne Cup day. Australians all know the Cup, but for those of you not in Australia, this horse race really does 'stop the nation'! Almost everyone watches the race.  Workplaces (that still work on this day -Victorians get the day off) usually have some form of lunch and then all crowd around a tv (or mobile phone!) to watch the race at 3pm.  I love the day. I always make a special effort for work, wear something fun, don a fascinator, have a glass of champagne and always buy too many entries in a sweep thinking that I'm going to win and never do. Unfortunately yesterday was marred after two of the horses died after this years race, so I have been torn as to whether or not to share this dress, but I have decided to share it. I'm sorry if it offends anyone.

I found this fabric for $5/m, clearly polyester, at Spotlight and immediately had in mind a Melbourne Cup dress. Seriously, it has every type of horse event on it so it was an obvious decision. I have had a bit of 'post make' regret that I didn't just make a skirt that I would be able to then don a stripey top with (my usual neutral), but that wouldn't be 'Melbourne Cup'. A dress it had to be and a pussy bow seemed appropriately costumey for the Cup.

I have been extremely busy lately and I knew the time leading up to Cup Day would be limited so I decided to go with a tried and true pattern: W from 'Les Coleurs Francaise' by Tsukiori Yoshiko.
I have used this pattern many times, here, here, here, here and here, Phew That's a lot of times! It is originally a top pattern, but this is the second time that I have lengthened it into a short dress.

I didn't quite have enough fabric to match the rows of horses up exactly so I matched up the stripes but just not the exact horse pattern. I don't mind it in fact - it provides a little bit of interest on the sides. And I love the orange collar!

The colour probably doesn't do my hair and complexion any favours but a dress for the races, should be a bit over the top and the colours I think are perfectly flashy for the races. I did wear a fascinator but it was a bit boring and rushed so I don't have any photos of me wearing it.  Next year I'll start earlier and raise the standard of my fascinator. On the day, this was a very fun dress to wear and I got a lot of comments about it .. and my orange shoes!

FINISHED! All the pretty wild bush horses baby quilt

Back in 2009 I came across the work of the very talented Ann Wood and became fascinated with her cardboard horses (and then everything else she does).  On her website is the template for the horses, which includes 2 horses and a colt and their legs so when Elliot was almost one I had an idea that I would sew horses onto fabric and make a wall hanging or something with it for him.  I got quite into it on a little holiday at the coast, randomly cutting out all the little legs and bodies from scraps of fabric and sewing them onto calico.  And then I stopped. The holiday was over, I wasn't sure that I had got the colours right and cursed myself that I hadn't planned the horses better and so my semi sewn horses went into the cupboard.

 

3 years later, my brother has just had his first child, a little boy.  Now my brother and his wife are horse crazy. They live on a farm and have a lot of horses so I decided it was time to bring out the horses and finish this as a quilt for my new nephew Blake.

So here it is.  I wasn't quite sure how I was going to pull the whole thing together but my mum suggested putting his name on it and I think it works.  Now that it's finished and backed and bound the randomness of the colours isn't such an issue.  I ummed and aahed about whether to put any stitching into the quilt but with thanks to some instagram advice from Michelle I added the stitching to help the batting stay in place and I love the overall effect of the landscape contours and my clouds.