Liberty at the London Fashion and Textile Museum

A little light crochet on the train to London

So yesterday I took the train from my flat, rural Fenland home to the Big City, to hear a talk by Chinelo Bally at the London Fashion and Textile Museum.  I also got to see the Liberty in Fashion exhibition.  What to tell you about first?

I'll start with the exhibition, as that's what I saw first.  I have a bit of an ambivalent relationship with Liberty.  I truly love some of the Liberty fabrics but sometimes it's all a bit over-blown for me, just a little bit too far out there.  That said, the exhibition was fascinating, especially from a sewing perspective.  The details and construction of some of the garments, mostly dresses, on display was breathtaking.

All those little details, immaculate pintucks, embroidery and smocking.  Just beautiful and inspirational.  I must put more effort into those finishing touches.

Chinelo's talk was very good.  I haven't got her book in front of me to talk about.  I had already pre-ordered it from Amazon when I heard that I had won tickets to the talk - thank you very much to Frida at Pavilion Books.  Chinelo spoke about her book and Great British Sewing Bee and gave us her top tips for freehand cutting and dressmaking.  I can't remember them all but the ones that stuck in my head were:

Lose the fear - don't be afraid of cutting into the fabric or of your fabric choices.  What's the worst that could happen?  You can start again if it all goes wrong.

Measurements - we all know this one, but with freehand cutting it really is absolutely vital to get your measurements right.

Don't get hung up on not having all the gadgets - Chinelo uses a razor blade instead of a seam ripper (nice to know that even someone sewing for a living needs to rip seams out, isn't it?).  Look around your home and improvise if you haven't got a particular tool or gadget for a project.  She recommended the use of a tin of tomatoes as a pattern weight.  She's a very practical girl.

I'm looking forward to getting my hands on the book, fingers crossed it should arrive today.  In the meantime I'm wondering if I'll be brave enough to draw a pattern directly onto fabric and start cutting...

Tickets for Chinelo Bally's talk at the Fashion and Textile Museum? Yes, please!

I always enter those competitions on blogs, you know the ones, leave a comment and a winner will be selected at random.  Well lucky little old me, I won a pair of tickets to visit the London Fashion and Textile Museum for Chinelo Bally's talk launching her new book, plus entry into the Liberty in Fashion exhibition. #veryexcited.

I pre-ordered Chinelo's book just yesterday and I am intrigued, if slightly terrified, by her dressmaking methods, so it's fabulous to get the chance to go and hear her talk about it all.  Daughter number 1 thinks it sounds good, but it clashes with Scouts so she probably won't come with me.  (Scouts?  That's on every week!  Still, she's 12 and her celebrity crafter of preference is Kirstie Allsop.  Me, I like 'em all.)

I will report back, possibly with pics if I'm allowed to take them.  #winnerwinnerchickendinner.

31 shirts and talking to children about death

In the summer, I sat on the steps of my beach hut under a gloriously blue sky, listening to the gentle sound of the incoming tide and talking with my friends about what the terminally ill father could gift to the family he would leave behind on death, to give them something tangible to hold onto, something that would help them remember him.  It wasn't a sad conversation, at least not for my brave friends; more a practical discussion of the possibilities.  I mentioned that memory quilts were worth considering, especially as Dave was a great wearer of shirts of all patterns and colours.  They liked the idea, although Ange did say it would definitely be something that I'd have to make, she having no sewing skills beyond button fixing.

Last Saturday I collected 31 shirts.  Dave was in the hospice, at the very end stage of end stage cancer.  He was expected to pass within days.  Ange knew he would not be wearing those shirts again and she had decided that she'd like to use the memory quilt, or memory blanket as we were calling it, to lay it over his coffin and then bring it home to comfort her and the children.

I took apart, cut up and sewed for 5 days.  The finished blanket had to retain the 'shirtness' of each shirt, rather than being made up of identically sized, neat little squares, arranged in an organised pattern.  Rather it had to include all the little details that made each shirt special: the contrast stitching; the crazy lining fabric; buttons stitched onto velvet ribbon.  The pieces had to be large where the pattern was large.  I pieced it blindly from piles of squares and strips of fabric.  I had enough fabric from those 31 shirts to make a double sided blanket.  It was huge.  It was beautiful.

Making that blanket was an unexpected experience.  Cutting fabric is usually boring, but not this time.  The whole process was almost meditative.  Whilst my hands were cuting, smoothing, stitching, my mind wandered and I remembered that day, and other days, on the beach with Dave and his family.  Parties we'd been to, conversations we'd had, cups of tea we'd drunk together.  It was an honour to be trusted with such precious fabric and I know that the finished blanket will be treasured.  I left the blanket with Ange's mum who laid it on her bed so that it was there when she got home late that night from the hospice.

The next morning, yesterday, at 6am, Dave - who hugged better than anyone else I've ever been hugged by - passed from this world.  Ange asked that friends meet in the evening to celebrate his life and send some fireworks up to heaven.

I didn't know how to tell my children why we going there.  They knew that Dave was ill.  But how could I tell them that someone they knew, their friends' dad, was dead?  In the end, it was my husband who told the older two in a very straightforward way.  We decided that Issie, aged 6, didn't need to know.  I wish now that I had joined my husband to tell them, even though I know I would have cried.  Grief should not be invisible and I realise now that I had the chance to show my children that, to show them that crying is okay.  The children took it in the same straightforward manner they were told.  They enjoyed the fireworks and had a great time running around with the other children.  It was a fitting celebration of the life of the man who was called a friend by many, many people.

As we were leaving, I hugged Ange and she thanked me again for the blanket.  "Dave would have been proud," she said.  Bless you, Dave Stocker.  You will be missed.

Me-Made-May 2015

I'm in!  I have pledged to wear at least two me-made items for every week of May.

It's been crazy around here, with the cough and cold that won't quit, school holidays and a quick break in Norfolk.  I know I've neglected my blog, but the children are back to school next week and I can stop being Mrs Tickle and concentrate on other things, at least between 9am and 3pm.  I've been sewing and knitting and can't wait to post about the fabulous new outfit I've almost finished for a party this weekend.  Way out of my usual wardrobe comfort zone but I am very, very pleased with it.

To find out more about Me-Made-May, look at So, Zo's blog or click the button top right of this page.

A stitch off the old seam

Some days my children severely test my faith in my parenting skills.

And then there are days when I really do think I'm getting it right.

Like the day Sewster came home from seeing her friends, told me how she liked a top one of the girls was wearing and asked if we could make one. Yes, make one.  How wonderful is that, that her first thought was to make one, not buy one?  

We yoked the strength of eBay (because we live out in the sticks where it's hard to find good fabric unless we first journey by car or train for 45 minutes).  We looked on Pinterest until she pointed at a picture and said "that one".  We laundered the fabric and took measurements and then proceeded, without a pattern, to make a beautiful kimono style top and a sash belt to cinch it in at the waist.  I did the tricky application of binding around the neck, but Sewster sewed all the seams and the hem.

Busy sewing.  She was shy about
posing in the top, so it's an action
shot instead.

Then she said that what made it really cool was that no one else would have one like it.

And then she wore it to a birthday party.

Yes, I'm definitely getting at least this bit of parenting right.

The cherry on top: she just asked me if we could make something similar with shorts to match for her to wear as pajamas.

This beautiful daughter of mine, who thinks of making her clothes, not buying them, is absolutely my inspiration and a reminder to look for the possibilities not the obstacles.

Knitting and an ambitious plan

Life has prevented sewing for the last week, but I do need my little fix of making every day, so I've been knitting instead.

We snuck away to Norfolk last weekend and I had several lovely hours (whilst hubby slept on and made the most of the child free lay ins) over Saturday and Sunday morning watching Downton Abbey and experimenting with some lace patterns.  I was still playing early this week, but yesterday I settled on the perfect pattern.

Kernal by Bonnie Sennott

I'm not making a scarf though, or not exactly, more a scarf inspired sort of cardigan-ish shrug thing.  I know what I mean.  I'll keep you posted with my progress.  I plan to use the lower border lace pattern for the front and the main panel pattern on the back.  I know, hard to picture.  But I have this beautiful yarn.

The beginning, a front.  It will eventually
be blocked, of course.

The photograph doesn't do the colour justice - think fields of wheat in glorious sunshine, a vibrant variegated yarn ranging from sunny yellow to almost orange.  It's a blend of 80% acrylic and 20% mohair from Stylecraft called Senses, in ochre.  My local yarn shop doesn't have much lace weight yarn but they had this and it's inexpensive, a good place for me to start I thought.

So, the ambitious plan... I know I'm not the only one who can't find the clothes she wants in ready to wear.  I know that I'm also not the only one who's fallen into the trap (too many times) of making up beautiful dresses from beautiful patterns that then languish in the wardrobe because they're more suited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace than they are to the school run or cleaning out the chickens.  And I'm definitely not the only one who has to alter just about every pattern and grade between two, sometimes three and even occasionally four different sizes to get a good fit.  

It seems sensible, given all of the above, to move on from other people's patterns to my own. I have very definite ideas about what I want to wear and I know enough (well, I probably don't, but it's never stopped me before) to get started.  And I will, of course, document all my efforts here - every glorious success, every learning-from-my-mistakes failure and anything that falls into both or neither camp.

Words of advice are welcome.  

The butterfly dress

Little Miss Pink wearing the blue
butterfly dress

Yesterday was a slow work day (I work from home, freelance transcription) so I used the time to make the costume Little Miss Pink needs for her school assembly next week.  

The instructions from the teacher were that the children should dress as animals, although we shouldn't stress too much about making/buying as they would be making masks in class and could just wear leggings and tees in animal-ish colours.

Little Miss Pink insisted that she should be a butterfly and somehow convinced her teacher before suggesting that we sit and look at Pinterest together (she's 5! am I spending too much time drooling and dribbling over the wonder and beauty of the Pin-iverse?).  So we looked and looked some more until finally she announced that she'd like a blue (blue! not pink! at last) butterfly dress with wings "on bracelets".

I can do that, I said.

A painted wing, drying on newspaper,
which was a terrible idea as it stuck to
the back of the fabric...

I made a straightforward dress with a self lined bodice and back zip, then stitched the two (from a distance, with a squint) identical wings parallel to the back seam, about 1" away from it.  The wings attach to each wrist with some thin elastic.

My sewing skills are massively marginally better than my ability with the fabric paint, but when you step back it actually does look like a butterfly, so I'm pretty pleased with it.  Not as pleased as my fluttery little girl, of course.

Not a great photo, but the smile makes
up for it.

Fabric: polycotton

Paint: Dylon fabric paint in white, fuschia and silver (which is glittery and sparkly, perfect)

Headdress: inexpensive fabric and wire flowers, twisted together

Pattern: self drafted from a dress that fits well for the bodice, gathered rectangle skirt and hand drawn wings