Artist Textiles at the Fashion and Textile Museum

This post has now been moved to my new blog Should Be Sewing. Check out all the gorgeous photos here!

I Can't Believe I Forgot About Laura Ashley

This post has been moved to my new blog Should Be Sewing! To check out all the gorgeous photos from the exhibition click here.

Print Pilgrimage

Next week I'm going to be leading two workshops with Craft Creative, teaching some eager sewers how to hand embroider and construct their own snap frame purses.

As well as learning some basic embroidery stitches, and how to use and fit metal purse frames, they will have a choice of fabulous Liberty Tana Lawns to line their purses with. Now, I always have a stock of Liberty fabrics in my studio, but recently I've been running a little low. What better time than now to pay a visit to the Standfast Factory shop?

I'd had a few customers and other stall holders at fairs telling me about this wondrous place where Tana lawn is only £5 a metre and they sell scrap bags of all sorts of prints! The shop is attached to the Standfast and Barracks printing company in Lancaster, where they print not only Liberty fabrics, but other big names like Sanderson, Designers Guild, Harlequin and John Lewis' own furnishing fabrics, and all are available in the factory shop.

Printed furnishing silks by Designer's Guild. Far too nice for curtains in my opinion.

The shop itself is small but well stocked, and when I visited this morning it was very busy. Possibly explained by a certain recent BBC series, as when I went to get my fabric cut the sales assistant asked if I was 'a Sewing Bee person?' I think for those in the know this shop has always been a go-to place, scrap bags and Liberty fabric packs are rationed, with a limit per customer, and they were in short supply when I arrived. They did constantly repelnish the shelves while I was there, and all the fabrics they had packaged up were also available off the roll.

The Liberty range was fairly small, but there were a number of classic prints, and some I'd never seen before, plenty were perfect for the workshop though, and I might have bought a little extra for myself ... The shop takes steps to discourage reselling of their fabrics (potentially a VERY profitable exercise), by limiting the amount of fabric you can buy in one length ie. you can have 9m but you have to have it in three 3m pieces. Even if you're making curtains or furnishings this isn't an issue, and at the prices they're offering (generally around £6 - £9 for upholstery types and printed silks) you wouldn't complain!

My haul for the day consisted of these Tana Lawns to add to the collection for the workshops;

Some beautiful Harlequin furnishing cotton for my studio curtains;

A perfect match for my new desk chair and my Nikki McWilliams custard cream cushion.

And this Sanderson cotton sateen, it's meant to be for curtains, but I feel it's headed for dressier things...

The shop recently extended their opening hours, Monday - Friday 9.30 - 3.00, and Saturday 10.00 - 3.30. There are directions here, I took a taxi from Lancaster station for about £4, but walked back into town, it only took 25 minutes or so.

New for 2013

In the months since Christmas I have been busily working away on a new collection of jewellery, with a little bit of help from YouTube and my trusty Good Housekeeping Encyclopeadia of Needlecraft.

 Whilst sitting at my desk for hours playing with string might not have looked like work it was an important part of the process.

 So far, not very impressive.

 Getting somewhere...

I think I'm onto something!

It was also my first foray into the frankly baffling world of jewellery components, which lead to hours trawling Ebay, Etsy and various other sites trying to find the things I thought I needed.

And once that was resolved I had to splash out on (another) new gadget for my machine, though that was much less confusing.

Is owning 3 different kinds of zipper foot excessive?

And you can see the new collection after the jump!

Work in Progress

 

Stripe-less party ring. (as if being without electricity for the day wasn't bad enough)

Always there when you need him.

Blackout.

City Break, Part 1.

Last Friday I took myself on a day trip to Manchester, somewhere I do not visit anywhere near enough, considering it's only 40 minutes away on the train. I'd spotted the adverts for the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair a few weeks back, and then a newsletter for the First Cut exhibition at Manchester City Gallery landed in my inbox. Add to that a long overdue visit to Platt Hall Gallery of Costume and I had a cracking day planned.
A minor 'gas meter battery failing' incident (no hot water and a head full of shampoo lather, rinsing my hair with kettle water in the kitchen sink, four wrong gas emergency hotline numbers and far too much hold music) threatened to scupper my plans, but I made it to Manchester reasonably early. Too early in fact, as Platt Hall doesn't open until 1pm and I hadn't checked the opening times. There isn't a huge amount to see in Platt Fields Park, except the ducks.

 I saw a signpost for the 'Teenage Village' but daren't investigate further, and I found myself unexpectedly detained by a friendly, if slightly odd, man who insisted that you couldn't work in fashion without learning sugarcraft and that I was in town with the Labour conference and friends with Nick Robinson. I politely declined a request to be his penpal.

Platt Hall itself is a beautifully restored Georgian mansion, a testament to the success of Manchester's textiles industry in the 18th century.

 

I Want It Now.

 The costume collection at the hall is fairly wide ranging, from the 17th century to the present day, and covering men's, women's and children's wear, with an impressive array footwear, hats and bags. My personal highlights were the dresses by Biba and Ossie Clarke from the 60s and 70s, and as always the 19th century held my attention for sometime.

In addition to the permanent collection there was a temporary exhibit of West African textiles, which included this beautiful loom.

Clickety clack, clickety clack.

One day I WILL learn to weave.

 The First Cut, an exhibition of works in paper by contemporary artists is housed primarily at the City Gallery, but there were a few costume related pieces at Platt Hall, including this dress by Violise Lunn. Suspended in one of the upstairs galleries, it is a beautifully delicate piece that seems very much at home in it's opulent surroundings.

 Hopping on a bus full of students back in to the centre (including a brush with that ubiquitous C list celeb, the ex-Hollyoaks actor) I made a beeline for the City Gallery. I hadn't actually looked too hard at where it was so my beeline was none too straight.
I was running out of time by this point as I had planned on attending a talk by Louise Gardiner at the GNCCF, so I dashed past the Pre-Raphaelites and went straight for the paper. Most well known in the exhibit would be Rob Ryan and his silhouette papercutting, represented in some large works and originals of his popular greetings cards. My own favourite was the work of  Claire Brewster, who uses old maps to create intricately cut birds, by themselves or in a huge flock taking flight across the gallery wall, the maps of northern towns give these garden birds a tropical hue.

The First Cut exhibition is on until the 27th of January, and is completely free, so if you're in the North West I strongly reccomend it. I'm certainly going to go back and take it in a bit more slowly, along with the rest of the City Gallery's permanent collection.
I'll be covering my visit to GNCCF in my next post, expect sherry and drum n bass. You have been warned.

Prize Time!

I promised in my last post that I'd do a giveaway very soon to celebrate reaching 1000 views on my blog. It's getting on for a year since I started this blog, and this coming weekend will be one year since my first ever craft fair, so lots to celebrate. As it stands I'm only 6 likes away from 100 on my Facebook page too so if anyone wants to help me out with that we'll have even more to celebrate!
If that wasn't enough I'm also working on two very exciting new projects with some great small businesses, and the Made-Here pop up shop in Liverpool, through which I sell my work, is relocating to an exciting new location in the city and it's even bigger than before! Could things get any better?

To mark all my good fortune I will be giving away this stripey purse and rosette;

Made in soft cotton ticking in red, and with one of my trademark 'surprising linings' it has a zipper top and a wrist strap for safekeeping of valuables, money, phones, cameras, haberdashery... The rosette is made in red and ecru ticking and isjust the right size for attaching to the pouch, and has a 1" locking brooch pin so you can wear it on your coats, hats, cardis, dress up your pets...

 What do you need to do to win? Just say hello! Leave a comment below, you don't need to follow my blog (but if you'd like to I won't stop you!) Do you also have some good news to share? Share it here,  or just introduce yourself, it's nice to know who I'm talking at to. And I know the prize is a bit female oriented, but don't let that put you off chaps, just think of it as a mother/sister/daughter/girlfriend/wife present you don't need to buy!

In two weeks time I'll put all the commenters names in a hat and draw one out for the winner. Easy!

PS. This giveaway is open to anyone, no matter where in the world you are!

Hot Off The Press

When I was doing my A Level in Textile Product Design we all had a go at using some fabric that you could feed into an inkjet printer and print onto like paper. I think the technician had to cut the fabric to size and there was a solution you had to soak it in and leave to dry for it to work. Also, you had to feed it into the printer from the back. The results were reasonably successful, but I imagine it was a awful lot of faff and that's why we only ever did it once. Luckily some smart person has simplified the process greatly and you can now buy pre-cut, pre-treated sheets of A4 fabrics, both washable and non washable, and in cotton, linen and silk. Amazing!

I'd been planning to try some out for a while so I ordered a starter pack from this site, which inlcudes an A4 sheet each of cotton, cotton lawn, linen, silk and silk organza. One of the things I wanted to do was try and reproduce my hand embroidery on decorations and accessories. I love embroidering and how fluid it is compared to, say, sewing purses or folding books, but it takes a long time and that increases the final price considerably. I'm not at all against charging lots of money for things when it's justified by the work involved, but I don't want to sit at a stall for hours on end with lots of beautiful things that no one can afford. (sometimes it's hard enough with very reasonably priced work, but when people think a craft market is basically the same as a jumble sale there's not much you can do) Wouldn't it be nice, I thought, if you could have the look of a hand embroidered piece without spending a fortune on it?

As we are over the middle of the year 'hump' it is sadly acceptable for me to start thinking about (whisper it) Christmas. So, my first experiments are of a decidedly festive nature, and for that I apologise. Using some of the leftover linen from my vintage tablecloth and red stranded cotton (and 3 episodes of The Sopranos, and lots of cups of tea, and Poirot) I produced these:

Redwork heart on vintage linen. Lazy daisy, chain stitch, running stitch, french knots and back stitch.

The heart was first and quite restrained. The tree had a couple of false starts in green but the red seemed to make more impact on the white, and I didn't plan any of it out to start with, just added and filled in gaps as I went along. I've found Pinterest to be a great help when looking for embroidery inspiration, partifularly for less formal approaches than you'd find in books on the subject.

Redwork Christmas tree on vintage linen. Chain stitch paper chains, lazy daisy flowers, french knots and running stitch.

 With the embroideries complete I gave them a good iron and then scanned them and uploaded the images to the computer. After a little playing around in Photoshop this morning and a few test prints on paper I was ready to go with the fabric. I used the cotton lawn for these, a nice smooth weave and natural feel. The fabric comes backed with paper and goes straight in your ususal paper tray, paper side up. Set your print quality to Best and away you go! I find it easiest, once you've printed and left for 30mins or so, to mark your cutting lines on the paper and cut them out, then peel the backing off.

 With my printed designs ready I tested two ways of making hanging decorations. First up I used some gorgeous red 100% wool felt from Myriad and wundaweb-ed it to the printed lawn, finishing with a machine stitched edge, I prefer the zigzag, but think either would be better in a white or off white thread so as not to distract. The tree has an extra layer of medium interfacing between the layers too which makes it hang straighter. I like the simplicity of these, but I'm not sure if the tree has too much of the car air freshener about it, what do we think?

Next up I went for a tried and tested 'stitch and stuff' method, using red polka dot cotton for the back. I like the squishy-ness of these, and it's great to substitute the stuffing for lavender or other aromats. I'm currently on the lookout for festive smelling things if anyone has any tips on that? Perhaps steering clear of anything too pine-y as we'll be back in car freshener territory again.

As a start I'm quite pleased with how these have turned out, might have a couple more stabs at this idea and then settle on a final method. The other fabric sheets I have plans for too, there'll be more on those in future.

Today I realised I've also passed the 1000 mark on my blog views, woo hoo! I'll be doing a little giveaway to celebrate that in the next week or so, so stay tuned!

Reinvention

A few weeks ago I shared some pictures with you of the beautiful things I found at a vintage fair in Liverpool. I've had a few weeks to play with them and now I thought I'd show you what they've become!

The pair of Liberty curtains and the Sanderson furnishing fabric have become simple shoppers (along with a pretty Ikea floral) It's the first time I've done this style of bag and overall I'm pretty pleased.

The hand embroidered table cloth has had a few reincarnations. Firsty, these lavender hearts, all with a different patterned cotton on the back and a ribbon and button detail on the front. The little motifs left behind from cutting these out have become covered buttons (and my old threads serve as great dressing for my product shots!) I've got four large panels cut out as well ready to become cushiosn, but more on those another time.

Lastly, one of the lace table runners has become a very delicate coin purse, I used pink cotton behind the lace for a hint of colour and echoed it inside with a pink polka dot lining.

There's plenty more pieces left as well so I'm sure I'll find lots of exciting things to use them for, especially with three big events coming up this summer. This Sunday I'll be at Stalls in the City, an arts market run by Open Culture in Liverpool One outside the Hilton. The first fair I ever took part in was one of these markets last September and it was a great day. I'll also be there on the 4th August and 2nd September, so it you're in the area why not pop down and say hi!

One Of A Kind

  Just thought I'd share my newest creation with you all.

 

It's made from a beautiful screen-printed floral furnishing fabric and is lined is silk duchesse satin. I think it's the most luxurious thing I've ever made!
I've only made one bag with this sort or large frame before, and I wasn't 100% happy with it, but this one has turned out exactly how I wanted.

I love the shape of the bag, and the way the metal complements the colours in the flowers. I had a little of the fabric left too so I made a coin purse to match!

 Both the bag and the purse are available at the Made Here Pop Up shop in Liverpool One, opposite Topshop.