Embroidery Workshop with Lora Avedian

Last weekend I attended an embroidery workshop as part of the Belgravia in Bloom program of events at #fridasparlour. It was run by textile artist Lora Avedian who specialises in hand embroidery, in particular, couching. We began the workshop with a few quick sketches of flowers as a starting point and then we got onto the hand-couching on calico.

Here are a few photos of the workshop including the lush garden outside the building.

Gorgeous threads to choose from

Lora's beautiful hand-couching samples for inspiration

Lora's hand-dyed couching

Lora's hand-applique and hand-couching work using linen and silk

Flowers at the workshop that we used for drawing and embroidery inspiration

This is where I got to after an hour hand-stitching the red wool and bronze silk fabric strip. Hand embroidery is truly a mindful and calming activity and the workshop seemed to fly by!

I will continue this rose embroidery when I need some peaceful creative time to myself.

New Look 6446 or My Frida Jumpsuit

I have finally finished the New Look 6446 tropical jumpsuit which I fashioned out of a H&M tablecloth I bought in the sale last summer.

I wasn't too worried about making any mistakes on this due to the copious amounts of tablecloth fabric still left and saw it as a learning curve in terms of construction and if I felt comfortable wearing a jumpsuit style garment.

Spoiler alert! It is fab. I wore it this afternoon and it is so comfy and breezy.
I thought it would be a fun outfit to wear on the last day of Me-Made-May and in a rather strange circle of fate, I started MMM with my Melilot shirt in the exact same fabric.

I wore it during a creative adventure in Belgravia at a portraiture workshop with artist Dan Whiteson to celebrate the V&A Frida Kahlo exhibition.

Back to the jumpsuit. The bodice has deep V cut darts in the front for shaping and is fully lined. I used the same fabric for the lining. I used the over-locker at the Village Haberdashery a few Social Sewing Thursday's ago to finish the insides of the trousers neatly.

I had made my usual bodice adjustments to the paper pattern (grading from one size bust to the next size up at the waist) but when I tried it on after fixing the lining inside it gaped quite a bit either side under my arms. I had to slightly unpick a section and remove an extra 1cm from under the arm each side grading out to nothing at the waist. This did the trick and the bodice fits really nicely.

The zip is neatly finished with hand-sewn bias binding that I bought from Ray Stitch

The straps still need about 1cm removing from the length as they had a tendency to slip off my shoulders at points during the afternoon. Overall, I am really happy with my new jumpsuit and I am looking forward to making some more in a more conservative palette.

Here are some gorgeous photos of Belgravia in Bloom where all the floral displays were inspired by Frida Kahlo.

Here are the drawings I produced during the one-hour portraiture workshop.

10 minutes into the 25-minute self-portrait using chalk pastels focusing on tone only to start with

Frida Kahlo's self-portraits were available for reference 

25-minute sketch using chalk pastels and charcoal - I look like a unicorn zombie!

The rest of the class' self-portraits - I love the one to the left of mine. Such powerful and striking lines!

Have you made anything outside your comfort zone recently?
Workshop information for the Frida's Belgravia celebration can be found here.