Children's Bed Linen Inspiration

We have many customer enquiries regarding making childrens bed linen from our fabric collections. Tamika, one of our talented customers purchased Good Travel and has sewn this fantastic quilt cover for her son.

Many of our fabric widths for children's novelty fabrics have a 110-112cm width, however Tamika has shown perfectly here, how magnificently bed linen can come up when choosing something like a spot, stripe or solid and combining with a children's print. This not only looks effective but is often more cost effective as well. When deciding upon a suitable fabric for linen or curtains for that matter it is important to pay attention to the direction the design runs. Some designs may not be suitable for example if the design runs in only one direction from selvedge to selvedge. This information on the direction the design runs is often noted in our fabric descriptions.

Thankyou Tamika for the lovely inspiration! This along with many more customer handmade items will be displayed in our NEW gallery soon. Our gallery upgrade is taking a little longer than expected but should be available for complete viewing soon!

Creative Customer January/February Gallery Winners

My apologies for the delay in posting the winning entries for our creative customer gallery competition. We have been working hard behind the scenes on a few things we look forward to sharing with you in the coming months as well as uploading sooo many new arrivals into our shop.

The gorgeous images above are of a chair Katie picked up from the side of the road and recovered in Hoffman Petal Punch. Katie was looking for something contemporary and bright to go with the natural wood style of the danish looking chair which she sanded and oiled as part of this revamp. Congratulations Katie, you are the 1st winner of a $25 Kelani Voucher.

Julia has sewn this gorgeous boys top and pant set using the fabulous Oliver + S Sailboat top, skirt and pants pattern. I love the simple fabrics Julia chose for both pieces to give such a classic look. The light weight denim is available in our store and works really well for all clothing. Congratulations Julia for being our 2nd $25 gift voucher winner!

Julia's Pink Fig Stripwork Skirt also came up a treat!

We had such a difficult decision choosing the winners this month as well as being a 'tad' late with this post that we are offering all other entries a 10% discount on their next order with us. I have pics of these entries below as they are all amazing and sooo inspirational!

Erika has transformed her bedroom beautifully with the addition of this bed head she covered in Japanese Cosmo flower fabric.

Fantastic handmade boys wallet using Japanese Kokka fabric! Carolyn has been extremely clever and made this wallet that opens out into a racing track and handy carry all for her sons matchbox cars. Carolyn tells me that she got this fabulous idea from The Princess and the Monkey. Be sure to pop over to this fantastic blog!

Claire made the most beautiful dresses from the gorgeous Oliver + S Birthday Party dress pattern. Claire also made a lovely clip holder and bloomers and clips that can be viewed in our gallery.

Speaking of the Birthday Party Dress, Rebekah has sewn this gorgeous dress also from the same pattern using Tanya Whelan, Darla fabrics.

 
Naomi has made this eye catching tote from the latest gorgeous japanese Echino Birdsong fabric.
 

 
I just love Kirsten's beautiful tunic using Nani Iro Pocho. Kirsten has an amazing blog here and a lovely etsy store here.
 
 

 
Adriana has made this A-line skirt with another of the latest gorgeous Echino fabrics, Quiet Ground and...
 

 

This ADORABLE magoo!

 

 

Carmel has made this lovely girls tunic using the oliver + s puppet show tunic dress and shorts pattern. I love Carmels coordinating Heather Ross Far Far Away fabric choices and her placement of the sweet unicorn in the middle!

 

Thanks again to all our customers for their FANTASTIC handmade creations! Please get in touch with us regarding the discount for your next order with us. Any creations emailed in March will be uploaded into our gallery shortly.

Creative Customer October/November Gallery Winners

Another AMAZING couple of months of customer creation entries for our online gallery! Thank you to everyone who emailed us their gorgeous creations!  I know I said two $40 gift voucher winners but it is Christmas isn't it so we have made our difficult decision and chosen three. And the winners are...

Joy has done such a superb job with her son's kindy backpack above! Backpack made with japanese Kokka Toyland fabric.

ITS A DOLLS LIFE!

I always love seeing what has been made by our customers with fabric purchased from us but I was impressed with this gorgeous dolls house revamp or "reno" by Sarah using Kelani Fabrics. Sarah sanded and painted her original dolls house, used interfacing to stiffen the fabrics and then applied fabrics to walls with spray adhesive. I think Sarah's idea will inspire many others to renovate their old or second-hand dolls houses rather than spend money on a new one. Well done Sarah!

Adriana has sewn this fabulous tunic top with Nani IRO. This tunic has shirred sleeves providing two options of wearing as seen in above pics. Adriana has also made this lovely sling bag using the Amy Butler Birdie Sling pattern with the beautiful Dandi 'Bloom' laminate and an adorable smock from My Folklore oilcloth.

Thankyou to all our customers for inspiring so many others in 2009 and I look forward to receiving more of your beautiful gallery entries in 2010! More details on entering our monthly handmade gallery competition here and I will announce our next winning entry early February.

Creative Customer September Competition Winner

Congratulations to Andi our gallery winner for September! Andi has used the gorgeous range of Echino fabrics to make these fabulous bags.

A special mention to our youngest gallery entrant Jemima who is  11 years old and handmade a lovely doll. Well done Jemima and I will be sending a surprise parcel to you shortly in the mail.

I would also like to wish one of our talented customers Jennifer all the very best with her new business making beautiful bags and reversible wrap skirts photographed above and below. Jennifer's business is called 'Bella Regazza' which in Italian means beautiful girl. Jennifer loves using unique and quirky fabrics such as Echino! View more of Jennifer's handmade items in our gallery and let me know if you would like me to pass on Jennifer's details if you are interested in having a fabulous bag or skirt custom made.

I will be posting our October creative customer entries in the gallery soon. Visit our gallery for further details on how to enter this competition and please note that we will be announcing both October and November gallery winners this time around in December with a special $40 Kelani Gift Voucher for the winning entries.

Creative Customer August Competition Winner

As always their were so many fantastic entries in this months creative customer competition! Be sure to have a look at our customers amazing talents showcased in our handmade inspiration gallery.

Congrats to Rebekah who made this fabulous and funky laptop bag using a combination of Amy Butler, Kokka Yugyoku Floral Purple and Kokka Croquant Brown Stripe fabrics.

I chose Rebekah's laptop bag this month as I loved how she pulled off such an amazing and eye-catching bag using three very different fabrics that came together so well! Notice how the croquant stripe is the same tone as in the outline of Amy Butler's design and also came together well with the white within both of these fabrics and the Yugyoku floral also picked up and complimented a couple of colour's in the Amy Butler fabric while at the same time introducing new colours to the mix contributing to the funkiness of this bag. The basic stripe also broke up and worked really well with the two patterned fabrics. Great eye Rebekah and what an inspiration! Rebekah has been inspired by Amy Butler patterns but also managed to put this bag together based on things she has seen over the years. I also love the chair the bag is hanging from.... where can I get myself one of these?

Thanks to all customers who were a part of our competition last month and I look forward to receiving this month's entries of customer creativeness! Further details on entering are available here.

SULTANchic Upholstery

I have many customers asking whether the medium-weight Japanese fabrics such as Kokka and Echino, are suitable for upholstery purposes. My answer to this question is "yes", however a fabulous example is the above chairs upholstered by Albert, owner of SULTANchic a fantastic and very unique business running out of New York. Albert sources unique and vintage furniture from all over the world and lovingly restores and transforms them into 'one of a kind' works of art! Albert purchased 'Kokka Blooms Aqua' from us and the results above are exquisite!

Thankyou so much for sharing your wonderful images Albert and I can't wait to see what you come up with next for the Echino!

Creative Customer May Competition Winners

And the winners are......





Melinda sent me this pic of her fabulous fabric covered boxes that were a gift for her mum. I immediately loved them and I think it shows perfectly how stunning fabric can make anything just like an ordinary box beautiful. Boxes, lamps, buttons, tin cans...... the skies the limit!

Pop over to Melinda's new shops here and here. Way to go Melinda!

It is always exciting to see what our customer's make with our fabrics on the other side of the world! I just love this Japanese fabric I call 'Animal Tea Party' and thought Nicole from Texas did a marvellous job with her funky kids palazzo style pants! Visit Nicole's lovely store here.

Thank you to our customers for their inspiring entries last month and I look forward to receiving more competition entries for our June gallery comp.

We have also recently added loads of new fabrics to our store with more to come in the next few weeks so keep an eye on our 'new arrivals'.

Creative Customer April Competition Winners

Thank you all for your April submissons to our Handmade Inspiration Gallery!

All submissions were fantastic as usual, but there was something I just loved about the sweet little clutch that Megan made above. I am particularly fond of the japanese 'my folklore' fabric collections and just loved the style, design, gorgeous button and size of this clutch purse.

Please visit our gallery regularly for wonderful inspiration from our customers, find out about some of their businesses and to read further info on how you too can enter our monthly competition.

Creative Customer March Competition Winners

Each of the creative customer competition entries were fabulous last month so I am sending 4 customers (Carrie, Yvonne, Adrianna and Sue) each a $25 Kelani Gift Voucher.

Here are a few of the customer pics and be sure to visit our gallery and click on each image for details of fabrics and patterns used under the main enlarged gallery image.

Beautiful dresses handmade by Carrie. Congratulations Carrie for also taking out 1st prize for the pink dress on the left in her local Agricultural show sewing competition.

Lovely smock dress and bag handmade by Adrianna.

Appliqued Tee and cute girls pants handmade by Sue.

Gorgeous birthday party dress and pj's made from the Oliver + S Bedtime Story pattern handmade by Yvonne.

Don't forget to view our handmade inspiration gallery for competition details and loads of fabulous customer creations as well as our new arrivals as MORE & MORE fabrics and patterns continue to roll on in.