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The mysterious art of pattern-cutting

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Dress design ideas. Comments welcome!

Dress design ideas. Comments welcome!

I’m looking forward to the City and Guilds Lion Awards Ceremony, which is held for all the Medals for Excellence winners at the Roundhouse in London in June.

There’s just one teeny weeny problem. The invitation states that the dress code is ‘glamorous and stylish’. Most women would see that as a wonderful excuse to go shopping. But let’s be brutally frank here; I’m definitely not a ‘glamorous and stylish’ shape! I tend to treat clothes shopping as a commando-raid. (Pause outside for last-minute pep-talk: balaclavas on: synchronise watches: then On the Command: In, grab, out!). What clothes designers just don’t seem to understand is that it is no good at all just scaling a design up from small to – er – not so small. How can I put this politely? Larger women will know just what I mean when I say that our proportions just aren’t the same as for as slim women! I start to send out distress signals from the changing rooms: ‘Emergency! Emergency! Please rescue me’. Just when I finally manage to squeeze into something that seems to have no method of getting back out of it, someone turns the changing-room thermostat to turkey-roasting, and I have to get OUT. RIGHT. NOW.

Instead, I’ve decided to design, make and embroider something myself, replacing ‘glamorous and stylish’ with ‘colourful and fun’. The idea is that that way it should fit, there’s no shopping-trauma involved, and it would be fun to wear some textile art. The designs above are a vague general idea, kind of Indian-inspired. I couldn’t find a paper pattern that I like and I have no idea how to make a customised pattern, so I’ve been for two pattern-cutting sessions with Kat at ‘Sew in Brighton’. In two sessions we had made a ‘pattern-block’ and customised it with a sweetheart neckline, princess seams and flared skirt panels. I was quite dumbfounded by the clever tweaking and manipulating. Cool! Problem solved! Except that having made up a rough trial version yesterday in an old dust-sheet, it looked suspiciously like a hospital gown. DH commented that the issue may be that I’m just not the same shape as the drawings of the fantasy dress. He’s living dangerously! Yes, yes, I know I’ve drawn the designs as a size 10. Go on, be my friend, indulge me!

I haven’t abandoned the idea of making a dress, but it’s in the balance. I thought that if I put it here in a post, that would be a way to call my own bluff because then I’d have to get on with it. (I reserve the right to completely back-track on this premature and rash post, and to shuffle off to the shops instead). Any comments or observations on the designs gratefully received!

City and Guilds Medal Award Ceremony

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Medal Presentation. Left to right: Margaret Walker, Chief Verifier for Creative Studies at City and Guilds; Janet Edmonds, Embroidery Tutor; Me; Beth French, Adult Learning Service Manager for Bucks CC.

Medal Presentation. Left to right: Margaret Walker, Chief Verifier for Creative Studies at City and Guilds; Janet Edmonds, Embroidery Tutor; Me; Beth French, Adult Learning Service Manager for Bucks CC.

What a big day on Saturday! Missenden Abbey hosted a lovely event for the presentation of the City and Guilds Gold Award Medal for Excellence for Stitched Textiles and for Floristry. There were a hundred or so people in the audience, including current City and Guilds students, my fellow Diploma students, Missenden Abbey staff, and DH for moral support. Thanks to Alison Pearce at the Abbey for organising a lovely event. It was all quite nerve-racking for someone who doesn’t like to be the centre of attention, but I really appreciated that the Abbey made it a special occasion. Despite my nerves it was lovely to be made a fuss of. The ceremony was for two of us – Jill Harden won a Medal for Excellence for her Floristry course. Here’s a photo of all of us.

Margaret Walker, Janet Edmonds, Me, Beth French, Jill Harden (Floristry Award Winner), and Jill Booker, Floristry Tutor.

Margaret Walker, Janet Edmonds, Me, Beth French, Jill Harden, Floristry Award Winner, and Jill Booker, Floristry Tutor.

It felt very unreal to be receiving this award, because of my real diffidence, many years ago now, about signing on for the first part of the course (now the Certificate, then ‘Part One’.) I remember seeing the end of course show at Northbrook College and feeling inspired to try it but also feeling quite intimidated because I didn’t see how I could possibly reach a sufficient standard to do the first course, let alone the second one. Luckily the tutor, Sue Munday, made me laugh about this apprehension and so she was able to introduce me to the delights of design, colour, stitch and particularly machine-embroidery. It was many years later that I signed up for the Diploma Course with Janet Edmonds, and continued the creative journey. Janet has been an inspiring and encouraging teacher, who has opened door after door into new worlds. Her own work is amazing, and we have all learned so much.

I was really pleased that my fellow-students were able to come to the presentation. The support of the group has got us all through many ‘life events’ during the course, as ‘life’ has taken it’s twists and turns over the three years. It has been a pleasure to work alongside such positive and enthusiastic people, who are now firm friends.  Here we are, together with Janet Edmonds.DSC09999

Here’s Janet receiving her thank-you present from us, some time ago now, at the end of the course. It’s a sewing-roll, designed by Cheryl and stitched to her instructions by the four of us.DSC08437DSC08442

When shall we three meet again…

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Coiled fabric pot

Coiled fabric pot

I’ve been working on coiled fabric pots and bowls lately. There’s something very soothing about the rhythmic, repetitive stitching involved in this kind of construction. The one above is made from strips of a dyeing-experiment-gone-wrong. It’s a great way to use up material where you like the colours but not the pattern. I’m currently working on a multi-coloured one made with strips of silk sari-waste – I’ll photograph it and add it to the blog when it’s finished.  I just can’t resist buying bundles of sari waste due to the glorious colours, so it’s good to finally find a purpose for it.

20140413_133716_Android - CopyFamily walk, Sussex DownsLast weekend we had a visit from my middle brother and his other-half, and my youngest brother and his daughter. Evelyn and Hannah wanted to learn how to make these coiled pots, so we had an impromptu session on how they’re constructed. It’s wonderful having art and stitch enthusiasts in the family. Seeing us sitting on the floor, heads bent together and absorbed in our own world, prompted theatrical mutterings from the men of ‘When shall we three meet again…’

We also had a lovely walk up to Chanctonbury Ring in the spring sunshine. When we were up there, we suddenly realised that it was almost exactly 50 years (!) since we three siblings were last all up there together. Here’s a photo of us last weekend: and one taken 50 years ago, with youngest brother being pushed (and pulled) up the South Downs Way in the Royal Chariot.

20140413_144353_AndroidI liked the gnarly shapes of this tree in Chanctonbury Martin and Tim 'guddling' in a beech treeRing – I can see it in soft manipulated felt with some highly textured stitching. It reminded me of one of my brothers’ less appealing pastimes when they were small. They would poke sticks into the dark crevices between tree roots, pulling out the dark, rotting leaf-mould and splatting it around in their hands. The leaf-mould was called ‘Yok’ (a word that can also describe anything squishy and slightly smelly and, well, ‘Yokky’). The whole process, for some reason, was called ‘Guddling’, and it had to be done with special ‘Guddling sticks’). These little time-warps are so strange.

 

The Great British Sewing Bee

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Thank you everyone for your emails, and encouragement for the new website and blog. I’m pleased that people are starting to find their way here. I’m told that it can take several weeks for a new website to be ‘found’ and indexed by the googlebots. I picture them as rather grumpy little earwigs. The lazy critters are probably curled up together under a stone, so they need people to stir them up and send them scurrying. If you’re a kind soul who would like to help them find me, then you could do several things to help. You could add me as a ‘link’ to your own website or blog, you can ‘pin’ me (ouch!) or you can add a link to this website on Facebook or Twitter. Apparently this is what gets the googlebots really excited. When the critters wake up and do their job, it will be great to start getting new visitors who have stumbled in here through other routes. If that’s you, do say hello.

I think this might improve my time-management.

This might improve my time-management.

Tuesday today, and for the first time for weeks there’s no new episode of The Great British Sewing Bee. Like so many fellow embroiderers and sewers, I’ve been glued to the series. As well as showing great technical sewing skills, and flair for fabric and design, I thought it was a lovely demonstration of people refusing to be forced into competitive conflict. There was none of the false friendship, followed by back-stabbing, that seems to be ‘entertainment’ in most reality TV. Even when Great British Sewing Bee contestants were working under time pressure, if one person had a problem then someone else would help them to sort it out,. Imagine someone stumbling in a race, and the leader pausing to help them to their feet – how refreshing! As well as enjoying the sewing, I enjoyed the humour and banter that went on while they were working under such pressure. It’s interesting how many people watched it and talked about it, which just goes to show how popular sewing is. What did other people think?

 

 

‘…a heaven in a wild flower’

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To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.  (William Blake) 

People ask me why I’m setting up a website and blog. Sometimes I burble something about creativity and joy, but I often trail off in favour of the ‘sensible’ reasons, such as ‘I hope to develop my textile art more professionally’ or ‘I plan to offer work for sale’. Occasionally I talk to someone who ‘gets it’ straight away, which encourages me to carry on with my rather vague and half-hatched ideas (thank you Holger in particular, for insight and encouragement just at the right point). 

Dali's clock

Dali’s clock. What a sensible way to organise time.

Anyone with a passionate special interest may know the intense pleasure of being totally, ridiculously absorbed. I find that a strange thing happens when I’m involved in art or stitch. The annoying, insistent logical left brain gets blocked, and the more diffident, easily intimidated creative right brain finally has space. Irritating things that get in the way are quite simply shut out (clocks, timetables, sharp or jagged noises, and all the insistent things that bleep, ping, flash, ring and insist on our attention right now). Time quite literally seems to stand still; but at the same time, in a way that I don’t understand, an hour can expand to become a day. Whoever decided that the day could only have only 24 hours in it is tricked into allowing some secret extra hours to slip in. You really can go to Narnia, have adventures for months, and get back in less than a minute. There is time to really look. Eventually something from the so-called ‘real’ world forces itself back in, and the volume of the ticks and tocks gets turned up again. But something wonderful happens when you share this total absorption with other people. The two worlds become less separated, and it is easier to cross from one to the other. I’m grateful to my fellow students on the City and Guilds Stitched Textiles course at Missenden Abbey for their shared obsession and absorption in minute details of important things, like colours, textures and shapes. I appreciate things that other people share on their websites or blogs (images, ideas, original work, thoughts and observations). So it’s time to add my own offerings.

Kevin, the magician who set this website up with me last week is away travelling, so I’m like a brand new driver out on the motorway with no instructor. I promised to try not to break the website while he’s away. I did manage to delete the whole Gallery instead of one image, but thankfully I found a way to reinstate it. Please bear with me if strange things happen. Anyway, I’m glad you’ve found my blog, and I’d love to know who you are and how you got here.

 

Goldwork embroidery: 3D floating fossil rock

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This embroidered floating fossil rock was a Goldwork piece for the City and Guilds Diploma in Stitched Textiles (Embroidery). It uses traditional metal thread techniques. Silk and viscose velvet was dyed with Procion dye, and the ‘veins’ in the rock were machine-stitched with Madeira FS20 thread in black and gold. The goldwork fossils are stitched with traditional metal thread techniques (leather kid, jap, purls and pearl purl) and the fabric is then scrunched and tweaked into the 3D rock. It floats on electro-magnets, using ‘Levitron Fascinations EZ float’ technology.

I hope you enjoy it.