Fashions in London

Yesterday I took myself off to London for the day.

It was a beautiful sunny day and after a cuppa at the Festival Hall I wandered off along the south of the river, past many sights, to the Fashion and Textile Museum.

It was my first visit here and I'd taken Gina's advice to go on a Wednesday when there's a free talk at 1pm.  The talk and the exhibition were fascinating, tracing the history of 20th century art in textiles.

It's hard to pick favourites but here are a few:

1950's Designs by Andy Warhol

Screen prints by Estelle Laverne (1947), Ben Rose (1951) and Angelo Testa (1947)

1955 dress designed by Clare McCardell in a fabric designed by Picasso 

and these gorgeous dresses from Horrockses in the 1940s and 50s made from textiles designed by Alastair Morton and Graham Sutherland.

I also loved the smaller exhibition by Sarah Campbell 'From Start to Finish' (of course I knew I would as I'm a big fan of her work) - a room showing a film about her and her work and huge boards like this on the wall showing the journey, from start to finish, of a design  (this one is for M & S bedding 2013).

After spending quite some time in the museum I then wandered up to Somerset House as I wanted to see the Boro exhibition.  These are items made by the Japanese poor who couldn't afford the new cotton cloth so literally pieced together scraps and rags to make clothing and household goods.

Some were quite geometric whereas some really revealed the original shapes of the scraps of cloth.

Outside Somerset house, a costume drama was being filmed, so I stayed and watched for a while. 

I have no idea what it was, or if any of the actors are famous, but it was fascinating to watch and the costumes were amazing.

Finally I made my way to John Lewis, really to look at curtains for the lounge but I seemed to end up in the dress fabric department and ended up coming home with this little lot (and no curtains!)

There's a distinct 1950s influence in the fabric I bought isn't there!

A Row of Tags

In the midst of the lounge decorating that's taken somewhat longer than planned I have finally finished a textile piece.  I've done several over the last year but haven't really liked any enough to finish them or show you.  At one point I got myself so bogged down in the 'rules' and 'balance' etc that I lost all my confidence.  This time I started small and decided to just do things so that I was pleased with them rather than trying to work to someone else's formula etc.

Having said that, I did keep to some self imposed 'rules'. Each piece is on a brown tag and each piece has something 'found' in nature on it and some simple cross stitching.

Each piece also has old lace and buttons,

and they are all of a similar colour palette (one without much colour which is what I always seem to gravitate to!).

Some have text from old books and shredded bark cloth.

All have recycled sari ribbon and some have music and vintage fabric,

and some have string.

They sit side by side, tags in a row, 

and, for the first time in ages, I'm actually pleased with them, and also pleased to have some confidence back! They will hang in my lounge once the floor is laid in a few weeks' time.

A Trip To The Ally Pally

This is the time of year when Fran and I make our annual 'pilgrimage' to the Knitting and Stitching Show at the Ally Pally.  I think this was our 4th visit and, as ever, it didn't disappoint.

Although there were many lovely galleries of work, these were my two favourites; the first by Mandy Pattullo who re-fashions old quilts and fabrics into new patchworks and textile art.   

I particularly loved her use of colour.  There are lots more photos of the work in this exhibition on her blog.

The other gallery that really took our eye was the one entitled "Our World of Make Believe' - a wonderfully imaginative display of free form crochet and knitting by Mitsuko Tonouchi and Sonomi Tanimoto. 

I also really loved this work in the graduate showcase by artist Faith Wray.  

You can't see it from my poor photo but she'd taken photos of old buildings, and created panels using various mixed media, textiles and other materials based on the textures and colours. 

Of course I also did a fair amount of shopping; some alpaca and silk lace weight yarn from Eden Cottage Yarns ,

a rainbow of naturally dyed blue faced leicester yarn from The Natural Dye Studio (I plan to make a crocheted scarf)

and some other bits, mainly for using with the embellisher, including a lovely dark blue based silk brick from Oliver Twists and some fancy threads from Stef Francis.

It was a great day, one of the highlights of my year, and I'll definitely be back for more next year!

I'll leave you with the yarn bombed taxi that was outside

and a reminder that if you want a chance to win the needle-case made from Celia's fabric then pop over to this post and leave a comment, I'll be drawing the name on Wednesday.

Sun Printing

Sun printing is something that I wanted to try last year but it wasn't very sunny and I never got round to it. This year I'd forgotten all about it until Fran mentioned it last week.  I planned to do it yesterday but there was a slight technical hitch - no sun!

This afternoon the sun came out and very soon I had 4 experimental pieces laying in the sun to 'print'.

I have to admit I don't understand how it works (I failed both chemistry and physics o levels!) but the theory is that when objects are placed on top of heat sensitive paints/dyes (I used setacolor transparent fabric paint - it has to be the transparent one) then where the objects are makes an undyed silhouette when they're removed.

I had mixed success - the poppies (far right) didn't work at all.  I think because it was all on a towel which retained the dye.

The albums (which everything I read said would work really well) sort of worked, although the texture from the plastic mat came through rather more than I would have liked.

The lavender worked well

but the one that surprised me most was the feverfew as I didn't really expect it to work (I thought it would wilt before it printed).  

I'm not too keen on how the colours of the paint on this one have dried, they look sort of muddy, but the definition is really good.  Where it's a bit blurry is where the shadows were.

It definitely has potential and I will do some more when I'm next at home on a sunny day.

A Textile for Aldeburgh

I know I've told you before that one of my all time favourite places is Aldeburgh on the Suffolk coast.

A mosaic of Aldeburgh loveliness!

A few weeks ago I wanted to something textiley and I decided to try and reflect Aldeburgh.  Not an actual representation, more of a memory of the light, the textures, the movement and the colours.

I kept to a very limited colour palette, but used a variety of different fabrics and threads.

I did some free motion embroidery, some hand embroidery, half hid some mother of pearl buttons and made some rust like holes through the layers of fabric with a solder iron.

I added some shells and a small piece of drift wood.

A Textile for Aldeburgh - 35cm x 24cm

(click on the picture to enlarge it)

I'm not sure if it does reflect Aldeburgh, but I don't know whether that really matters.  I enjoyed working with the limited colours and at the moment I quite like it.

A Holey Cuff.

A few weeks ago I was intrigued by a cuff that Iz showed on her blog that she'd made on water soluble fabric so I decided to buy the book she'd mentioned (Dissolvable Delights by Maggie Grey) and have a go myself. 

I used a thread pack from Stef Francis and randomly machine stitched velour ribbon onto the surface, wrapped pipe cleaners with a rayon ribbon and stitched them on before adding beads, lots of beads (far more than I'd intended!)

Ready to have the background fabric dissolved.

It was a nervous experience dissolving the fabric as I wasn't sure it would all hold together, I was half expecting a pile of bits in the bottom of the bowl, but all was ok.

After dissolving the background fabric.

I think it probably should have had more pipe cleaners on it going across the short way as it hasn't held its shape brilliantly, but I'm quite pleased with it as a first attempt stitching on dissolvable fabric

As well as being unique it reflects my fascination with holes and the shapes they create (I'm not sure what that says about me though!).

Who'd have thought that pipe cleaners could end up so pretty!

Feline Helpers Win!

I have a black cat and a cream sofa.  In an attempt to keep some of his hair off the sofa I decided to make a throw.  It was only going to be a little 'cat sized' throw but it sort of grew and this afternoon I got to the quilting stage of it - that's when my feline helpers arrived...

First of all Florence tested the front

Is this for me to sit on?

 
   and then she tested the back.

It's quite nice and soft.

Then Dylan came to see what he thought of it

What's going on here then?

while Florence retreated to my sewing chair.

What do you mean you need to sit here to sew?  I'll turn my back and ignore you!

I hung it on the back of the chair while I made a cup of tea in an attempt to keep them off it.

Silly me, did I really think that would work?  Look who I found under it when I came back!

It makes a nice tent!

Then he pulled it all onto the floor and really didn't want to move!

I don't know how it ended up on the floor but I'll stay here anyway!

I hope this means that they approve of it and will sit on it when it's on the sofa.  Mind you that might be some time away at this rate - I've given up for now, admited defeat to the two feline helpers!