Weavers of the Clouds at the Fashion and Textiles Museum

I recently visited the Fashion and Textiles museum for their Weavers in the Clouds: Textile Arts of Peru exhibition. In the 1990's I created a man's waistcoat for one of my art college projects based upon the absolutely gorgeous hand-embroidered and woven Peruvian textiles. In those days the only examples I could find of these delicious designs were found in books from the library and maybe the odd example in the V&A museum. This exhibition is a feast for the eyes if you love colour, pattern, design, texture, embellishment, embroidery and weaving!

I would highly recommend a visit if you get a chance. The exhibition runs until the 8th of September at the Fashion and Textile Museum in Bermondsey, London.

Have you been to see an inspirational exhibition recently?

Crochet and Culture at the Fashion and Textiles Museum

I attended a fabulous workshop at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in the last week of October to learn how to crochet with the absolutely lovely knitwear designer Katie Jones. She delivered a 3-hour session with the help of her mum where she taught us the basics of crochet and by the end of the session we had all made a crochet necklace.

We used t-shirt yarn in a variety of colours which is a pretty chunky type of yarn made from recycled t-shirts. Due to the thickness of the yarn you created a decent amount of crochet in a short space of time.

Here are some photos of my progress.

Learning how to get into the rhythm of a continuous chain 

The first row was 20 stitches long

My first attempt at adding a new colour to the second row. Still too early to tell if I have done this correctly!?

The finished piece after a third grey row. This final yarn was VERY chunky which gives the illusion of extra volume but it's exactly the same stitch as before

On the first Friday of November, I attended a talk by Amber Butchart on the 'Chronicles of Fashion' her most recent book. She is an associate fashion lecturer at the London College of Fashion and also presented the BBC programme 'A Stitch in Time'. 

Amber spoke about a number of the best-dressed people from history she has selected when writing the book which covers over 100. The talk was extremely interesting and engaging and at the end of the evening, I bought her book which she kindly signed!

The ticket to the event also included entry to the current exhibition 'Night and Day; 1930's Fashion and Photographs' which has an abundance of absolutely glorious bias cut, beaded and embroidered dresses. A true feast for the eyes! I would highly recommend you pay a visit. The exhibition continues until 20th January 2019.

Stripy Dixie DIY Bonnell Dress

In September 2017 I discussed a host of works in progress projects and the Dixie DIY Bonnel Dress was one of them. 10 months later and just in time for the wonderful heat of this surprisingly hot UK summer I have spent the last two weeks sewing this little beauty together in half hour and hour slots. This is my third version of the pattern; the first is here and my second here.

The soft and lightweight cotton stripy print was gifted by my friend Sophie who lives in Hong Kong. It was not quite opaque enough to go unlined so I underlined it with a soft white cotton batiste I purchased from MacCulloch and Wallis a few years ago.

I did make a few changes to the original pattern as follows:

• I omitted the cut-out sections at the sides of the bodice
• Removed the V back
• I didn't use the in-seam pockets
• French seam construction
• Added patch pockets on the front as I had just enough fabric left-over to make some generous large squared pockets that were also lined with the white cotton batiste
• I completed my first ever exposed zip, mostly because I didn't have any concealed zips in my stash but when I discovered the pretty jade green zip in my 'zip box' (everybody has a 'zip-box' right?) I hatched a plan to make it a feature
• Hand-stitched a waistband on the inside to keep the insides neat

Enjoy some close-up shots of the construction.

In other news, I enjoyed the fantastic Orla Kiely, A Life in Pattern exhibition at the Fashion and Textiles Museum in Bermondsey. It's definitely worth a visit to see the rich collection of gorgeous colours, patterns, bags and fab fashion! Here are a few photos from the exhibition which is on until 23rd September so there is plenty of time for you to go.

Have you seen any lovely exhibitions recently?

Couture Techniques Workshop at FTM

Last month I attended a wonderful workshop at the Fashion and Textiles Museum ran by Zandra Rhodes' head couturier Jalanta. She planned a comprehensive set of tasks based around sewing silk satin and silk chiffon. These are notoriously tricky fabrics to sew with as well as being very expensive. Double trouble! There was no need to have worried as Jalanta gave us some really practical advice and we were all sewing with little samples of silk satin and silk chiffon with great confidence by the end of the day.

French Seam

I already knew how to do a French Seam but a really handy tip Jalanta gave us when sewing with ANY delicate fabric was to start the seam on a scrap piece of similar weighted fabric and keep sewing onto the seam from there. It avoids the delicate fabric from disappearing down the throat plate of the machine.

Pin Hem

I have read about Pin Hems but never knew how to accurately sew one until this workshop. Fold a 1.5cm hem, iron in position then sew as close as is humanly possible to the folded edge depending on the type of foot your sewing machine has. Now trim the raw edge, again as close as is possible to the sewn hem. Fold over and sew a second set of stitching, ideally in exactly the same place as before. Fiddly but oh so satisfying.

Pin Hem Around a Corner

This looked so hard I thought I wouldn't manage it. Luckily patience and resilience is key here AND nimble fingers. To sew around a scarf / handkerchief the key (which I NEVER realised until now) is to start sewing the edge in the middle NOT at the corner so you can fold over the corner as you get closer to sewing it and keep going. Once you have sewn one full seam all around you trim back the excess fabric like before. Next, fold over and sew a second hem making sure you hit the original sewing lines. This is particularly tricky when sewing with the chiffon as it is transparent and you can easily see any mistakes.

Silk Chiffon Bias Binding

Yes, I know what you are thinking; as if sewing bias-binding with regular fabric wasn't enough! We made our own bias binding with silk chiffon and attached like regular bias binding. The only difference with the final finish was how it was pinned at the front of the neckline / hem so that when you blind-stitch from the back you technically should be stitching in the ditch (I hope that makes sense?). The sewing line is 'supposed' to nestle EXACTLY in the seam of the chiffon bias and base fabric. In practice this was VERY hard.

There were a few more techniques but I didn't really get sufficient photos to share with you. Overall it was a great workshop that made me feel like I could make something from the 2 metres of Liberty silk I have had in my stash for too long.

I will leave you with these fun photographs of Bermondsey Street Fair that was in full swing on the 13th September!