Quick DIY Christmas Jumper

Tomorrow a lot of people will be wearing a Christmas jumper to get in the festive spirit and to support the charity Children in Need.
I decided to make a quick DIY jumper with a sweatshirt, a few fabric scraps and some Bondaweb. All you need is a little bit of imagination and an iron. Here is what I managed to create in about half an hour.

Note to self - don't take photos when using the iron or you will scorch your fabric and ironing board! Whoops!

 

#2017SVE Secret Valentine Exchange 2017

For those of you who haven't heard about the marvellous Secret Valentine Exchange (SVE) it was set up a number of years ago by the lovely Ute and Sanae.
I took part last year and thoroughly enjoyed the experience (you can read about the 2016SVE here) and thought I would definitely take part in the 2017 exchange.

I almost missed out this year as I didn't hear about it until a day AFTER the deadline for signing up (because I am not on Instagram anymore it is easy to miss these things). I commented on Sanae's blog post saying I was upset to have missed the deadline...

I got a lovely reply from Sanae which confirmed I had missed the SVE boat.
BUT, the following day I received an e-mail from the lovely pair asking if I was still interested in participating as quite a number of people had difficulties signing up using their mobile devices etc.... Of course I said yes!

So my SVE buddy was Kate from Cornwall. She loves the colours of the sea; blues, greens and purples. She has an Instagram account @k8c1962 which is lovely stream of hand craft, crochet, luscious hand-drawn patterns and beautiful scenery. I admit to a bit of research (friendly-cyber-stalking) before embarking on my hand-made gift to Kate.

I used only stash fabrics to produce a good sized tote bag to showcase my English Paper Piecing Patchwork I made at the London Craft Club at the National Gallery. I used a few fabrics provided at the workshop but also included some scraps of my own including Liberty Tana Lawn prints (the aqua Vanessa and Betsy prints).

Here are some photos of the finished bag. The patchwork was hand-appliquéd onto the blue fabric before the construction of the bag.

I used a bright blue medium weight cotton (remnant fabric from my SOI Tulip skirt from 2014) for the bag outer along with a baby blue polka dot cotton lining that I bought in a Cath Kidston sale quite a while ago.

I also wrapped up an A5 Liberty print sketchbook (Kate is always doodling and sketching) and some pretty MUJI origami papers. Here is the final Secret Valentine Exchange parcel.

My SVE didn't end there, although this was not an 'official' Secret Valentine Exchange.....

After attending the Janet Bolton workshop at Selvedge in January I created a hand-sewn applique and embroidered piece using monochrome colours. I had it in my mind that this would be the piece I would send to my SVE buddy. When I got Kate's details I realised that the colours and personality of that piece might not be quite right. I instead chose to send it to a new friend Kathy who I met on the Janet Bolton workshop. She lives in New Jersey and had travelled to London to enjoy some sight-seeing and the embroidery workshop. I had mentioned to Kathy about the SVE project and she thought it was a wonderful idea.

Here is the final piece. All hand patch-worked, appliqued and embroidered.

After gift wrapping.

Here are the parcels ready to go in the post!

Last week I received my parcel from my SVE buddy. It turns out that Kate (that I had made my SVE gift for) was my partner! She had been busy and made me four beautiful gifts!
I had mentioned that I liked the colours red, bright pink, green and monochrome and the pattern company Marimekko. She was very creative and produced the most lovely things.

Beautifully wrapped in such lovely paper with a hand-made card too!

First a beautiful black linen bag. This fabric has been hand-dyed by Kate made with the remnants of a costume she made. The linen originally came from her grannies haberdashery shop. A very precious piece of stash busting here Kate. Thank you.  

This funky little felt brooch was attached to the ribbon of the parcel. So cute and I love the hand-stitching.

My favourite piece is this striking red leather purse made from a recycled leather jacket! How cool! I especially love the vintage ribbon with the Marimekko-esque flowers. 

The final gift is a hand-made bag in black linen. The appliquéd decoration is actually a woven sample that Kate produced whilst studying Textile Design in the 1980's. The texture and colours are brilliant.

In conclusion to this epic post, I feel very lucky to have participated in this year's Secret Valentine Exchange. I had so much fun making the Janet Bolton inspired embroidery piece for Kathy and learning English Paper Piecing techniques for Kate's SVE gift.

A big thanks goes out to Ute and Sanae for organising such a beautiful project that brings joy and happiness into peoples lives x

I am already looking forward to SVE 2018!

This post is linked to #handmademonday organised by Julia of Sum of their Stories.

Teaching Classes at Ray Stitch

Yeah! I started teaching Machine Embroidery classes at Ray Stitch in January 2016 and taught my second class last night with some lovely sewing enthusiasts.

The lovely ladies in the January class learning how to sew pin-tucks

I have devised a set of classes that are aimed at people who want to learn new manipulation or machine embroidery techniques that can be applied to their own projects. The sessions are 3 hours starting at 6.30pm - 9.30pm and the price is £55.

 February's class had two very lovely ladies to learn how to extend their knowledge of pin-tucks and box pleats

There are four more sessions on the following dates if you would like to join in the fun:

Friday 18th March

Session Three: Machine Applique

Explore machine applique using fusible fabric and a sewing machine to produce creative designs that could be applied to furnishing, fashion or craft projects.

Friday 22nd April

Session Four: Cut-Work / Reverse Appliqué

Develop your decorative sewing machine skills further with cut-work. This technique is also known as reverse appliqué. You will be taught how to create beautiful textile samples using a domestic sewing machine with layers of fabric that get cut-away to build up a decorative pattern. This technique could be applied to fashion, furnishing or craft projects to add texture and interest. 

Friday 27th May

Session Five: Faux Chenille

Exploring properties of bias fabric you will create some exciting faux-chenille samples using a range of cottons and man-made fabrics that fray. This technique works really well for furnishing and quilting projects.

Friday 17th June 

Session Six: Free-hand Machine Embroidery

Learn how to produce beautiful machine embroidery using a domestic sewing machine. You will be taught the basic free-hand machine techniques and how to experiment using different threads and materials. You will also explore simple machine couching.

Dolores Pocket Skirt Summer Stash Bust & Tate Modern exhibition

Wow! What a crazy two weeks. First let me introduce you to a new skirt pattern that will be available for PDF pattern in the not-too-distant future called the Dolores Pocket Skirt. It's from the lovely Beth at Ready Ruthie who asked for pattern testers for the Dolores. I was excited at the prospect of being a pattern tester and the basic requirements of having sewn PDF patterns before and being close to the skirt sizes and to be able to feedback your experiences in the space of a month were the only requirements. I happily received an e-mail with links to the PDF soon after I e-mailed Beth.

At the same time as agreeing to pattern test Beth's skirt I decided that the final art-piece for my 'Cutting into Colour' Matisse collage course at the Tate Modern would come in the form of an appliquéd garment - killing two birds with one pair of scissors! Oh, and I also used ALL stash fabrics, so I have stuck to my self-imposed fabric buying ban for the Summer Stash Bust 2014!

Onto the skirt.... You have seen little peeks of the decoration in my previous post, so here is the full skirt.

The skirt was quite intuitive to sew together and I think when it is publicly available as a PDF pattern it would be a great basic wardrobe staple to add to anybody's pattern stash.

The only thing I need to practise for my next version is the slight angles on the waistband which I haven't really managed to achieve very crisply.

Overall I am pretty happy with the applique and hand embroidery on my abstract decoration inspired by my work based on Matisse's cut-outs. I used bonda-web to adhere the fabric shapes then sewed a machine zig-zag and also some simple hand-stitching around the blue shapes.

Machine and hand-embroidered applique decoration

I also hand-stitched the pockets for decoration and to ensure the lining doesn't peak out either.

hand-stitched pocket detailing

I finished the Dolores Pocket Skirt in time to wear to the Private View of the collage course 'Cutting into Colour' at the Tate Modern inspired by Matisse's Cut-Outs. I can now say I have exhibited my work at the Tate!...OK, it was 'only' in the Cloires Gallery in the basement of Tate Modern. But still... it's the TATE!

The final evening of the course entailed us creating an exhibition space to showcase our work. We all brought nibbles and refreshments and were allowed to invite friends and family (unfortunately my f&f were otherwise engaged so could not make it). It was a fun evening and I enjoyed wearing my Dolores / Matisse skirt as part of my exhibition. Below are photographs of my exhibition space and a picture of me in front of the group inspired lire-size collage.

My Matisse inspired Dolores Pocket Skirt in front of the group Matisse inspired collage.

The Private View exhibition for the Cutting into Colour art course at the Tate Modern 13th July 2014

My art exhibition at the Private View. I created a free-standing mount to display my 3D paper sculptures.

I was pretty happy with the fact that I 'almost' finished a whole sketchbook of Matisse inspired collages in 5 weeks!

More Matisse inspired collages

I bought some fab Japanese Washi tapes from the Tate Modern shop in insanely bright colours that spurred on the next collection of Matisse inspired collages during the Tate workshop on Monday.

I have been abstracting and simplifying the peacock feather motif then moved away from that entirely towards a more linear direction in a fresh new palette of red, yellows, green and black. I used quite a number of the 'left-over' sections of paper to create this new collection of collages; which is something that Matisse did himself to create a wider range of negative images and motifs.

I had made the decision that I would make an item of clothing using my Matisse sketchbook work as inspiration for some applique / embroidery decoration. Last month I volunteered to pattern test the Dolores Pocket Skirt by Beth from Ready Ruthie. I am going to share the full write up next week because I need to send Beth my comments and findings by the 20th July, so you will only be able to see some sneaky peaks at the work-in-progress and the collage that partly inspired the design is top left of the photo montage below.

The added bonus to this current skirt is that its made entirely from stash fabrics including all the coloured appliqued sections too!