Zinnia Inspiration

The sun has been shining and the flowers are starting to bloom, what better time to be bringing you Zinnia's!




I was hoping to be able to show off my second Georgia to you today, but alas I came across some fitting issues so that will have to wait for another day. Instead I thought I would share with you my inspiration for my next project which is: The Zinnia Skirt by Colette.

I think I am in danger of only sewing dresses if I am not careful, and so wanted to expand my sewing horizons a bit. Thankfully, just as the Georgia sew along finished, The Stitchery in Scotland decided to host a Zinnia sew a long. Now this wasn't on my list of things to make, but lets face it, they were all dresses, so I don't mind this little deviation. This however is not the only reason for my slight deviation, this sew a long comes with a fabulous competition to win a brand new sewing machine, and or some vouchers for The Stitchery, or their local fabric shop. I love my sewing machine, it has been a trooper and I am always using it so I am not in the slightest complaining here. However, the opportunity to perhaps get a machine with a one stage button hole function is just too much to pass up on, and who doesn't love new tools? Even if you don't need them!

So you will see from the above I decided to take my inspiration from actual Zinnia's, I thought this was quiet fitting. I really love the pinky peachy tones of these flowers. I knew I wanted to make version 3 of the skirt with the sheer overlay and lining, and wanted to use a lace for the overlay. I mostly picked this version because I want to challenge myself at attempting to sew with a silk and I was lucky enough to win an ebay bid for two meters of this gorgeous real silk crepe de chine in a peachy colour.

I then started looking at the lace to cover and decided that although peach is a lovely colour, if I wanted to wear this in the summer without tights it would make my legs look really pale. Instead I decided that a more coral coloured lace might be just what I wanted. I have realised that the lace is quiet see through in places and so I am not quiet sure how the contrast in colour will work in the final version but I am ready to give it a go. You can see above just how much of the peach is visible with the lace over it.

I'm really looking forward to following the rest of this sew a long and will of course let you know when I have it completed. Are you following any sew alongs right now? Where do you get your inspiration for colour schemes/fabrics from?

Post Wedding Round Up: The Bouquets

I purposefully didn't want to purchase real flower bouquets for my wedding. The idea was to hand craft as much as possible. I started off, like I usually do, collecting images from the internet with ideas and popping them on (yep you guessed it) pinterest. There were actually tons of ways to DIY flowers out there I was surprised at the amount of different ideas I got from it.

So after a couple of evenings with my bridesmaids trying out different techniques, with some attempts more successful than others, we finally settled on these. It was actually something which I didn't find an image or tutorial for but just happened to cobble together from the collective ideas I got. I think it worked perfectly and the colours really complimented the dresses. I think the finishing touch of the ribbon which my mum did really helped as well.

I am not planning on writing up a tutorial on these as there is some vague twinkle in my eye about making them for sale. But should that not happen I will of course show you how to. In the meantime, check out the board (sorry it's on my old account) and hopefully find some fabulous ideas for yourself. It's actually really easy to make your own wedding bouquets and the best thing about them is that they will keep forever as a souvenir of that special day.

A little sneaky peak there at the dresses! but look at how well they work with the colour scheme.

I plan to run the wedding bits as a series of Friday posts, so watch out for next weeks installment!

Photos by Ed Godden