Traces Pt 1: A Bag for Miss Harbrow

I created two pieces for Traces at Holdrons of Peckham, both handbags but both very individual. Each bag was intended for  staff member at the department store, and were exhibited in the staff lockers, along with personal items and ephemera that told the story of each of the characters.There is a great feature on it from Design Week here.

The first design I am going to share with you is 'A Bag for Miss Harbrow' - hand embroidery on vintage linen with a Liberty Tana Lawn lining and a sew-in brass colour frame. You can see my inspiration over on my Traces Pinterest board, and the bag in-situ on the Peckham Peculiar blog.

 

 

Also, a very big thank you to everyone who donated to the Kickstarter fund as a result of badgering from me :)

Snippets

I'm back in that hut at the bottom of a garden in Oxfordshire again, this time for a production of Great Expectations. I'm going to share a few of the costume highlights so far (a trip to Bristol Costume Services is on the cards for next week, I LOVE hire companies).

 First up, fabulous military jacket covered in braid, mmmmmmmm braid.

Next, a couple of delicate embroidered blouses. The first one is commercially made (as opposed to being made for theatre or by a costume company).

The embroidery is really fine, in a pale blue variegated thread on the latte colour silk crepe.

I haven't got round to doing the ironing yet.

The second blouse is possibly a one off, there are no labels to be seen, so I don't know if it was a theatre make or a home make that has made it's way into the costume store.

The scallop detailing on the cuff is incredible, but what had me most intrigued was the embroidery on the body of the blouse.

It looks like a simple running stitch outline, with a trellis pattern in the flower centres, but the leaves and petals look more opaque than the surrounding area. At first I thought it was an incredibly small and neat applique, but closer inspection of the reverse shows that this is not the case.

It's not very easy to see in the photo, but the running stitch on the outside is actually the back of a herringbone stitch that has been worked over all the petals and leaves, which is what's making those areas more opaque. I've never seen this technique before, does anyone know if there's a particular name for it? Clearly it's only effective with sheer or semi-sheer fabrics, but it's so clever!

Finally it's this late Regency velvet and damask gown. There are so many details in this dress that I love.

Narrow braid over the curved bodice seam.

Pleated front section, gold piping and a crepe chiffon contrast.

MASSIVE puff over sleeves.

I fully expect to see more of this kind of thing next Friday as I'll be in Bath to see the Laura Ashley exhibition at the Assembly Rooms, expect many photos.

Custom Creations- Think Pink.

Occasionally I am asked to create a completely unique item for a customer, the most recent of which was a bespoke purse for birthday present. Word of mouth was instrumental in this one, with the good folks at Really Now pointing the client in my direction.
After some discussion about styles and shapes of purse, using my Flickr album for reference, the customer decided on one of my embroidered snap purses, with a flamingo on the front and pink polka dot lining, all excellent decisions!

With something more figurative like this I try to do some research first, so I know what I'm aiming for. I find Pinterest really useful for this, as I don't need to go printing out sheets full of birds for just the one project.

And now I've remembered what flamingos actually look like, not always pink it would seem, I can start scribbling.

 

Once I've got a general idea of the design, and it's placement on the purse, I use the iron on transfer pencils to get a simple outline on the fabric to work from.

Cakes and Crafts

Last week I taught 2 groups of enthusiastic sewers how to embroider and construct their own snap frame purses. The classes were organised by Craft Creative Events, and were held at Tavern Co. on Smithdown Rd and Siren at the Womens Organisation on St James Street.

Tavern Co. where we had the top floor to ourselves.

Beautiful light and spacios Siren cafe. And they made their own bunting!

All the threads, fabrics and equipment were provided by us, as well as tea and cake!

Colour coded needle sheets and the BEST fabric glue in the world.

Stranded cotton wound onto old thread reels to make it easier to use.

Delicious selection of cakes from Siren, including a sew appropriate 'Red Velvet' cake.

The Liberty fabrics I picked up at Standfast went down a treat, particularly the William Morris designed Strawberry Thief print (absolute classic). Once everyone got their embroidery going it became very quiet, extreme concentration!

Even though some of the participants had never done any embroidery before they all produced a really beautiful purse, just using the most basic of stitches.

Just lazy daisy stitch but using different lengths and numbers of petals to make a little cluster of flowers.

Lazy daisy cluster for a large flower with satin stitch and french knots in a lovely subtle palette.

Two coloured running stitch to personalise a phone case.

Running stitch, back stitch and 2 purple sequins to make a couple of very dainty flowers, in colours perfectly matching the lining.

Back stitch, french knots and a little bit of couching to make a flower echoing the lining.

A little running stitch bird to match the Strawberry thieves inside.

Lazy daisy and stem stitch to make flowers and butterflies.

Brilliant geometric pattern in simple straight stitches with sparkly gold sequins.

More lazy daisy and running stitch to make a colourful bouquet.

Lazy daisy, french knots and sequins to carry on the colourful flowers from the Kayoko print lining.

A very fuzzy picture of the most dainty embroidery, love the fly stitch grass and tiny prick stitch stems.

A colourful mix of lazy daisy flowers, leaves and french knots, with another stitchy bird.

Chevron blanket stitch, lazy daisy petal, back stitch stems and a buzzy satin stitch bee.

Delicate stem stitch stalks with red lazy daisy petals.

I love that from starting with the exact same materials they all created something really individual!