Tag: textiles

New York, the iconic bits

stitchesoftime2 Comments

As Ellen said before our visit, New York is the sort of place that you feel that you know before you get there. So many movies and tv shows feature parts of the city that they are all so iconic.

We did have a list of things that we wanted to visit, and it was very exciting to see things in real life that we have only seen on film. Although I visited New York about 18 years ago, that was only for a weekend, and being so near to 9/11 many things still weren’t open.

We stayed in a very lovely hotel, near to Grand Central Station, which is just as beautiful as it looks, even the ticket booths are masterpieces of art.

Our hotel was called Pod 39, and is similar to ones that I have stayed in before for city breaks, with a bunk bed layout and a small bathroom.

However the beds were very comfortable and the location was excellent. We weren’t really in the room much anyway, and the hotel had a lovely comfortable lounge with games and free hot drinks and water available so we spent some time there as well.

Our first day out was to the Statue of Liberty and the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and we could not have had a better day for it. Although it was cold, the sky was a wonderful blue which made for excellent shots of Manhattan from the ferry.

The Statue did not disappoint and the accompanying museum was excellent with really good interpretation, not only of the story of the build, but also looking at how the statue has been portrayed in all sorts of different ways since it was built.

There was a lovely quilt and a Barbie dressed as the statue, which Ellen suggested should be one of my next makes.

They had used the restoration in the late 1990s as a chance to show how the statue was made, with recreations of the moulds that were built for the casting, including a recreation of the statue’s foot.

I didn’t realise that she was bronze coloured to start off with and the green is the patina that has built up on the metal over time. I think it looks a lot better green, especially against the blue sky. We also saw the original torch, which had to be replaced due to its collapsing on itself.

The Ellis Island Museum was equally well interpreted, with lots of the stories of the migrants and their many reasons for coming to America. It was very poignant seeing the large hall where they would wait to be assessed before entry, and the postcards of the numerous ships that brought them from all over the world.

I have always had a huge interest in migration and people’s stories of why they leave their homes and having visited other museums, such as those in Oslo, that tell the story of those who left, it was fascinating to see where they arrived. Being part of a family who have migrated, and who now live all over the world, it is always really interesting to me to hear these histories.

Our second day was to Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum. Central Park is somewhere that I have been to before, and it never ceases to amaze me how large it is, and how great it is to have that space in the city. They also have the fattest squirrels I have ever seen!

The Met Museum was stunning, as we knew it would be. The scale of the collections is amazing, whole Egyptian temples, courtyards of castles from Spain, Tiffany loggias and windows and so much wonderful medieval art.

There were also some gorgeous early 18th century samplers.

However, the most stunning piece in the collection for me was this store of linen, buried with one of the Egyptian queens for the afterlife.

The fact that it is still around, thousands of years after being woven, such simple textiles but amazing that all that work of the weavers centuries ago still exists.

We also spent a lot of time just marvelling at all of the wonderful buildings, the Chrysler Building is a real favourite of mine, but I also loved Penn Station.

This beautiful building that was one of the ones represented by brass plaques in the pavement. I think it looks like it came from a Lord of the Rings film.

New York still had the skating rinks at the Rockerfeller Centre and Bryant Park, and trees and decorations everywhere, so it still looked very Christmassy.

We managed to tick off our food bucket list as well with pizza, bagels, pancakes, hot dogs and burgers, only failing to find a gluten free pretzel.

A brilliant trip and I am so glad that we were finally able to get there. These next few months are hopefully going to be full of us doing things that we have been planning for a long time.

I am loving my winter sojourn in Cyprus so far and shall be sharing the first set of pictures with you later in the week. I have been so lucky with the weather, so have been out enjoying the stunning coastline here.

Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Making lace while the sun shines

stitchesoftime4 Comments

We have had a fantastic morning joining in with the local lace makers’ day in the nearby town of Guardamar. One of our sewing group, Vivienne, has previously shown us her amazing tulle lace work and she organised the tickets for us to join her and the lace group she runs.

I had not heard of lacemakers’ days before but they are common in Spain, there is more information and a short video at the link above.

Whenever you go to the fiestas there are the ladies with their lace mantillas, so I knew that lace was very popular here but did not realise how popular it was still to hand make it.

Some of the ladies were making the mantillas, others panels or fans.

All of the work was amazing.

We particularly admired the group above who all had matching customised trollies to carry their lace making equipment in.

I love this circular design. I don’t think I could ever do this type of lace though, look at all those bobbins to keep track of! I am bad enough with two knitting needles and often start knitting backwards if I put a piece down.

There must have been about 200 people at the event, from as far away as Gandia which is about 90 minutes drive from here. We had a table and were working on our own projects, so we got the chance to meet, and practise our Spanish, speaking to some of the other women who came round.

I took English Paper Piecing. That really helps develop your language skills trying to explain how to paper piece! Lynn also took her work, she has made excellent progress with her cushion that started as a hexagon at our workshop a couple of weeks ago.

There were also some stalls so I took the opportunity to stock up on some more Christmas ornament fabric, and some embroidery thread.

I also picked up the cutest little fan charms. Many of the lacemakers were making fans and Vivenne did have some fans for sale, with an offer to design a pattern for me. However, I really need to finish some existing projects before I take up tulle lace, amazing though it is. I also got these very cute little lapel pins. I am going to leave one in my craft room and take the other one back to the UK to add to my seamstress Steampunk hat.

This is Vivienne’s fan, designed using characters from children’s books.

This is Sue’s beautiful lace stole, she is now making a fan to go with it.

This one was from another member of Vivienne’s lace group, Claudia.

The charity event where I was doing, ‘Guess the name of the Luna rabbit’, went very well yesterday and I sold the 50 guesses of the name really quickly. I have even got a commission to make another one when I come back in October. It was a lovely afternoon, celebrating the Jubilee and raising funds for the local foodbank.

Here is Scarlett in her Jubilee outfit, the winner also got three other outfits as well. I made all of these from the three Luna Books that I have. There was a shorts and top set, a sleeveless wrap dress and a short sleeved dress.

The jubilee outfit was a smart skirt and blouse set with a jacket and little red rose on the lapel.

I also made her some French knickers as my sewing group thought she needed undies! Apart from the red silk for the skirt everything else was repurposed charity shop finds.

We had an amazing week in Galicia last week, such a magnificent part of this wonderful country and so very different to my lovely, and now very hot, La Marina. There will be lots of stunning Galician scenery coming to the blog soon, just as soon as I have sorted through the 327 pictures I took!

I have just less than 4 weeks left now so really need to get stuff done, time has really flown by as it does when you are having such fun!

Hope you are all having a good time whatever you are doing, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

A very special dress and a pattern review – Simplicity 1045 dress

stitchesoftime2 Comments

This post has been a very long time coming, I first wrote it two years ago as my friend Sarah, the very talented knitwear designer from Marsden, had asked me to make her wedding dress. The celebration was originally scheduled for April 2020 and the dress was finished on March 16th, just in time for her to tell me they were going to have to postpone for a bit 😦 Poor Sarah finally got to have the ‘official’ ceremony in August that year with just two witnesses, but the party only got to take place this last weekend, two years to the day that it would have been.

I am so glad that she finally got to have her celebration, the theme was Lord of the Rings as she and her partner Alan are huge fans. I wasn’t able to go, as knew I would be back in Spain for Mum’s birthday, but Sharon very kindly sent me some photos and she looked amazing in the dress. I will hopefully have some more photos of every else at some point as well as everyone dressed up.

Sarah's dress - large 1

Sarah's dress - large 2

When Sarah first chose this pattern for her dress I looked for reviews of it but didn’t find any so I thought it might be useful to write one in case anyone else wanted to make it. I have also talked about fabric choices as well.

Choice of garments in the pattern

This is a good value pattern as you get different choices of sleeves and necklines. I made a combination of view A for the sleeves and the length of the dress and View B for the centre panel with braid and the cording loops. View A also has three panels at the front, but in the same fabric they are not as obvious.

Sarah's dress 1

Sarah's dress 2

Sarah's dress 3

Fabric choices

The pattern calls for light fabrics so we chose a beautiful blue polyester art dupion for the main body and a heavily embroidered grey silk for the centre panel. I trimmed the loose threads from the silk before using it.

Sarah's dress 9

The centre panel fabric did cause a few issues as it was quite difficult to sew the tabs for the front cording onto the panel. The tabs were made of the braid we chose for the edging and it was a really good match with the embroidery as it had the same kind of sequins but they were quite stiff to sew on.

Sarah's dress 6

Sarah's dress 11

The front seams needed redoing several times as they would not stay still. If I made it again I would use a less textured material as the embroidery was very difficult to stitch through in places although it is a gorgeous fabric. The dupion was beautiful to work with, it was very easy to handle and didn’t crease easily so didn’t need ironing.

The sleeves were made of  an organza with tiny sparkles on rather than a chiffon which meant they were a little stiffer. I think this looks good as they hold their shape more easily without having to hold your arms out all the time as the model is doing 🙂

Sarah's dress 8

They do take up a lot of fabric as there is a lot of waste on the layout. If you want to save money you could have shorter, narrower, sleeves and be able to get two cut out of each width. They would still be very pretty being a little smaller.

We bought extra fabric than that specified just to be on the safe side but due to an issue with the dye on the dupion ending up cutting all panels horizontally out of the width of the 60 inch fabric so could have got away with much less. The length was fine, although we had to cut 3 inches off each pattern piece to do that. My friend is of medium height but it was a good length with just a tiny hem.

Sizing

As with all patterns it bore little relation to shop sizing, I cut it out at size 16 for the bust as her bust inch measurement was 1/2 inch more than that for the size 14 and I am glad I did as it fitted really well. It gives 2 inches of ease on the finished measurements but there didn’t seem to be that much ease.

Sarah's dress 4

The waist was cut at size 16 as well although the inch measurement was a size 14 as the hips needed to be a size 18 and I didn’t want it to end up too tight on the waist. It is a very flowing design so does not need to be too specific in terms of the hip sizing.

Sarah's dress 5

I made a toile out of an old bed sheet which was a similar weight to the actual fabric and there were no real fit issues. I did take the shoulder seams up by half an inch to give a better fit on the bust line and cut half an inch from the bottom of the armholes after the final fitting as it was a little tight there.

Instructions

The instructions were clear, I didn’t need to really follow them in detail as the dress was very easy to work out, it has seven panels and since they are all different shapes it was clear what went where. There were no complicated techniques.

The pattern had two pieces for each sleeve which would have meant a seam on the top which given the sheerness of the fabric I didn’t want so I cut it out using only the back piece (as it was slightly larger) on the fold and it was fine. I used French seams as instructed for the seams of the sleeves. This was all hand stitched and I also inserted the sleeves by hand as the organza was quite slippery and the sleeves so large I thought this was easier than trying to get it all through my machine.

Sarah's dress finished 7

Sarah's dress finished 2

I wanted to line the dress which wasn’t in the instructions so we bought some lining fabric and made another dress for the lining. This was then sewn to the neckline then hand stitched into the armholes and next to the zip.

Sarah's dress finished 8

There was a facing as well which I made and attached as instructed but it showed through the dress fabric and looked bulky so I trimmed it back to 1/2 inch, zig zagged it and then used that to attach the dress lining to.

Construction notes

All body pieces were zig zagged after cutting before sewing up which was a good strategy as the blue fabric frayed a lot. The sleeves were not treated in this way, they did not fray too much when cut so I left them raw and the French seams and the rolled over hem at the edges hid the raw edges of the fabric.

We did not have an invisible zip due to wanting to match the colour exactly so I inserted the zip leaving an overlap each side which was then sewn with small stitches so that the zip was hidden.

I cut the cording loop tabs at 7 cm according to the instructions but they looked too big so cut 2 cm off each. The pattern also asks for 1/2 inch cord but that looked too bulky so it was swapped for thinner cord.

Sarah's dress finished 9

Overall feelings

This was a very easy pattern to work with, the only issues we had in construction were to do with a few glitches with the fabric. I am not sure why they split the sleeve in two pieces but other than that and the removal of most of the facing everything worked well. I would make the pattern again and think it would be suitable for someone with little sewing experience as it is a straightforward make.

Sarah's dress finished 3

Sarah's dress finished 5

Sarah's dress finished 4

Sarah's dress finished 6

Time taken was around 50 hours in total but about half of that was hand stitching so if you were machining sleeves, lining etc it would be far less. I hand stitched the hems on both lining and main dress as I prefer the finish and enjoy hand stitching but if you are just making a costume you might not do that and the braid could have been machined on as well.

I hope that this has been useful, as I make more things with commercial patterns I will review them as I find it very helpful to read other people’s thoughts about what they use before I decide which patterns to buy.

I will be back in a while with more travel pictures, in the meantime, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Spiritual stitching

stitchesoftime1 Comment

One of the things that was so brilliant at Exeter was the level of information given about all of the textiles on display. As well as a dedicated display of ecclesiastical garments in the centre of the cathedral there was information all around the site about the work.

The Company of Tapisers was formed in 1933 and although the individuals are anonymous there was a real sense when visiting of the human hand behind the work.

Some of the interpretation was very poignant as with this beautiful banner piece of the Virgin Mary.

This was a stunning and very unusual piece, seating along the length of the chapel telling the history of Exeter.

Everywhere there was so much lovely work, from kneelers to altar frontals. It really enhanced the experience for me to be able to read the additional information and I gave my thanks to the staff after the visit.

One thing that I am passionate about is the human story behind textile creation. The novels that I am writing are all based around individual pieces of textiles and the women involved with them. The history of textiles is the history of people, whether it be to celebrate, or simply to keep us warm. It is just so fascinating to me how all of these things are made, and why they are made.

I am so pleased that I have so many friends that share my passion for textiles, and that Ellen is so keen. She has made some stunning things recently, one being a very lovely crochet cushion cover that I am keen to learn how to make as I think it would look great in my new van.

I went to her crochet group last night and that was lovely. She is helping to run workshops with a friend of hers, Vic, who is a very talented creator so are you are in the Nottinghamshire area I can thoroughly recommend Made by Torty B. Her workshops can be found here and are great for beginners or more experienced crafters.

It will have to have a very good sort out of all of my new craft space soon as the machine will have to be found a new home and there might just have been a few purchases made while I have been in the UK. Some storage shopping is on the cards I think!

I hope that you are all enjoying life. I am so looking forward to the next few months of beautiful spring and summer weather. I have promised myself that there will be a new outfit for Whitby and a new dress for Tewksbury so need to get organised and fit all that in.

Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting and commenting, it is always lovely to meet my readers!

The ‘Glories of Bombay’ Steampunk outfit

stitchesoftime7 Comments

It was wonderful to be at an actual event last weekend, although the weather was not that good we had a great time and I will share more pictures of all the wonderful costumes in my next post.

I wanted to do a separate post all about the jacket and hat though as I am very pleased with how they turned out. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, based on the wonderful fabric from Bombay Stores that I bought at Christmas, but it turned out much better than expected.

I used the pattern that I had previously used for Amanda’s wedding jacket but made it much shorter without the points and did not add buttons, partly as I do not like doing buttonholes, but I think it suited the outfit to have it open.

The tassels were from stash, cut from an old Christmas table runner and there is a hook and eye behind them. I also added a brooch from stash when I wore it.

The sleeves were double layered with the organza over the satin. This was partly a practical solution to the fact that as the satin was from the bargain section and only £1.25 a metre it was quite creased. I think it worked really well though and really makes the jacket.

All of the motifs were cut from the tunic set and stitched on, as was the band at the bottom.

The hat had the same organza used for the removable band and some more motifs and beautiful jewels. This was all pinned in place.

I also made a matching mask, I will include pictures of that in the next post, there were lots of wonderful creative masks made by my fellow steampunkers and it was wonderful to see that we could have an event even with all the current restrictions. Huge thanks to all at the Ministry of Steampunk for arranging it.

I got back from Ellen’s on Tuesday and have been doing a little bit of knitting and sewing, Ellen has very kindly made me a wrist pincushion which is something that has been on my to do list for ages. It co-ordinates so well with all my other sewing accessories.

I have been making some more masks as there was great excitement this week as I actually went back into work! I went in on Thursday and had my first teaching session yesterday which went well. A little strange with me wearing a visor, no handouts and all the of the students sat on individual tables 2 metres apart but it was good to be actually back in the classroom with the students. I have made a few masks but need a week’s supply and a range of colours so that I can co-ordinate with outfits 🙂

I have a quiet week ahead so hopefully I will be able to make good progress on the knitted animals. I have finished the romper, a dress and another pair of dungarees so will share those with you soon.

I hope you have a good week ahead, take care, stay safe and thanks for visting.

A thing of beauty

stitchesoftime7 Comments

I have recently re-subscribed to Today’s Quilter magazine, this was actually pre- pandemic and it has been lovely to have the delivery every month, plus some useful free gifts like templates.I had stopped as I seemed to have a lot of quilt magazines already but I will pass them on once the charity shops re-open so someone else can share the love.

April Quilt Mag

This month’s magazine had a special feature and a pattern by Sarah Fielke and when I looked at the picture of an amazing Liberty log cabin quilt I remembered that I had bought the book a while ago. I met Sarah when she was doing a European tour in July 2016, on my son’s graduation day actually, and ordered the book straight after that.

Sarah Fielke Book 1

The book, Old Quilts, New Life,  is a wonderful combination of a history of quilting book and interpretations of the quilts. There is a reproduction version and an interpretation one for each of  9 quilts from the American Folk Art Museum.Below are some of my favourites and I love the different interpretations like the two colour one that just uses one of the flower motifs from the older quilt.

The quilt that I spotted in the magazine is called Liberty Belle and it has to be one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I finished another Liberty log cabin last weekend and so I now have two of these blocks.

Sarah Fielke Book 2

I was thinking that I might just put them with all of the other Liberty blocks but now that I have seen this I might be tempted to just do a quilt of all Liberty log cabins as it is so gorgeous.The nice thing about using Liberty is all of the fabrics look so good together.

Liberty log cabin final 1

These blocks are very different to the other blocks that I have made as there is no white in them so I was wondering if they would go. We shall see, it would mean I have to purchase some more Liberty, (oh dear 🙂  ) ,as I have run out of longer pieces for the outer borders. However I may have a lot more time on my hands this summer and at least this keeps me amused as the blocks take me such a long time to complete.

Liberty log cabin final 2

I have found a new supplier of Liberty as well from the quilt magazine. Not that I really need a new supplier but I love the web site for Duck Egg Threads  as it has such a fab design. I have so much Liberty that I don’t know the name of each fabric but this site has them organised by colour and names them so you can easily order the colour you need.

Duck Egg Threads site

I think I am going to have to order some from them just to thank them for that as a resource for us Liberty fans.They also have a Liberty monthly fabric club that they will be re-starting once they can do deliveries again so I might just have to subscribe to support a small business!

I have also made this week’s Riley Blake Block Challenge blocks, two Friendship Star blocks using this very useful tutorial, which shows you how to make them in multiple sizes. These are very quick to do and I am very pleased with the matching of the seams on these. I am clearly getting better at this compared to the last block challenge that we did five years ago where points and seams were all over the place!

Friendship Star block 1

Friendship Star block 4

Next week’s block is the Economy Block so I am going to make two of those as well.I am officially back at work now, (that just means sitting on the sofa with my computer rather than my needlework box!), as no-one is going anywhere soon in the UK unless they need to.

However, I am finishing work at 4pm each day, taking advantage of the lack of travel time which means I can start earlier, so am having a few hours of sewing each day which is lovely. I do miss my colleagues but realistically we would have been finishing term anyway in the next couple of weeks so life is not that different for me at the moment anyway.

In that respect I am very lucky as working from home is a peaceful activity unlike many of my colleagues who are trying to do it while homeschooling children, sharing workspace with partners and being interrupted by cats and dogs who wonder why their humans are suddenly around all of the time.

I hope you and your family are all ok, stay safe, take care and thanks for visiting. It is lovely to see my visitor stats each week and to have so many more people following me now. I am feeling very loved so thank you 🙂

 

 

 

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

stitchesoftime2 Comments

This quote sums up mine and many other people’s week here in the UK as we enter a period of social isolation. The good things though, are many, and it is important not to lose sight of that.This lovely photo was posted on the local Facebook page by a local photographer to cheer us all up.There have been blue skies and Spring flowers.

Marsden Spring

The sense of community here in Marsden is wonderful, with people helping each other, ensuring we have food available in all the shops and arranging deliveries from local shops and businesses for those who need it. I am so glad I am living here, as even being on my own I am not concerned if I do get ill as I have lots of support.

There are some very sad things of course, not least the actual virus, but also that we are now an online university for a while so I had to say goodbye to all of the students very hastily on Tuesday. Luckily we had a really nice week last week with the Year 2s and they only had a couple more weeks of input so it is not too bad for us. It will help me a lot health wise not to have to get up at 6 am and get the bus in the rain so I am very, very,  grateful that I have a job where I can work from home.

We are also not going to Japan to see Jake at Easter, we were still hopeful up until Tuesday but realistically knew that it could be cancelled at any minute and at least the travel restrictions mean we can claim on the insurance. We hopefully will be able to re-schedule that for Aug/Sept time so I am looking forward to that.

The other lovely thing has been all the support from crafters and other businesses sharing free stuff or reduced subscriptions. I have signed up to several things while I am at home more so am hoping to find time to improve my quilting skills amongst other things. I will now use some of my leave to have a staycation in my craft room!

We had one last trip out to buy fabric before isolation and went on a visit to a lovely fabric shop Oh So Sweet near Barnsley. All of us wanted things for isolation projects and also wanted to give this lovely business a boost, they do have a website so hopefully people will keep shopping as we would not want to see small businesses going under.I loved the fact that they had hand written receipts, made it feel very vintage.

Sew Sweet stash 10

Of course I do already have a little bit of fabric 🙂 but I also did not want to miss the opportunity to spend time with my lovely friends as we will only be having virtual contact for a while. Also I have just taken delivery of 5 new Barbies from Ebay and they need some nice clothes, so I bought a lot of small scale prints to make beautiful Spring dresses for them and some lovely white on white prints.

Sew Sweet stash 5

Sew Sweet stash 6

I am thinking of something like this gorgeous version of a Dior classic from one of my favourite designer doll sites, Diane on Whidbey Island. This picture is from her blog and there are so many other wonderful things on her site to inspire me.

Diane's dolls 1

I also bought this vintage fabric notions print, I have quite a few versions of these now and they make great baskets to sell at Yarndale. I made the two below a couple of years ago, and they make great gifts for stitching friends.I will now have much more time for crafting over the summer as well as all of our re-enactment events up until July are now cancelled.

Sew Sweet stash 3

Vintage fabric basket 1

Vintage fabric basket 2

I bought some more cream lace for pouches as well. This type of lace looks lovely with denim and linen pouches as in the one below.

Sew Sweet stash 2

stitching-stuff-bag

So lots of disruption and I am so sad for all my self-employed friends and traders and all the musicians at festivals and everyone who is going to be affected. Strange times indeed but thankfully I have my crafting to keep me busy and a lovely home to enjoy. I am very, very  lucky to be in this position and will be doing all I can to support small business and food banks from home.

Take care of yourselves where ever you are and thanks, as always for visiting.

 

 

Watch while you work

stitchesoftime2 Comments

I am on the final countdown for the celebration dress, it should all be done by the end of tomorrow, fingers crossed. I had a very lovely day yesterday watching various things on Netflix and hemming the sleeves. It was the best kind of day and very welcome after a somewhat fraught time at work recently. All ended well though, with a lovely week where the students did lots of different activities and we held a conference that I organised which went smoothly, thankfully.

I am now looking forward to a final fitting of the dress this coming week and on to my next project! I am continuing with the Barbie wardrobe but will also be cutting out one of my Steampunk outfits as the next big project.

I have been accompanied during my many hours of stitching in the past months by some new inspiration in the form of podcasts and vlogs so thought that I would share them with you as they may be of interest. This post will concentrate on the vlogs and I will do another one later on the brilliant podcasts out there for anyone interested in sewing and fashion.

It is due to watching one series of vlogs that I came to be making the celebration dress really as my friend was looking at buying her celebration dress from the internet. However I have seen quite a few vlogs warning how things don’t sometimes look at all like the pictures and that the fabric and manufacture is very sub-standard.

Bernadette Banner is one of the first historical sewing vlogs that I started watching and she had an awful experience with someone using her photo of the reproduction medieval dress that she had painstakingly hand sewn to sell a very shoddy reproduction. This kind of practice is just awful and far worse than merely selling dresses that look nothing like the photo on the model. You can see what happened here as she bought a copy of the dress to examine. Picture from Bernadette’s blog with all credit to her for the 250 hours it took to make the dress.

Bernadette Banner 1

Bernadette is so wonderful to watch, she has a lovely way of presenting and talks a lot about hand sewing techniques, so I have learnt so much from her. I have been very inspired by her makes, the medieval dress especially but also her wonderful Lady Sherlock Holmes outfit that she made for Costume College last year. I love everything Sherlock and am currently watching Elementary and really enjoying that take on the stories.

Angela Clayton was introduced to me by Ellen and she is an amazing seamstress who both creates her own patterns and uses other vintage ones for a variety of different periods of costume including very recent fashions.

Angela uses a sewing machine for her work so I have been learning so much about the importance of toiles, fitting, and how to construct costume from different commercial patterns which has been really useful to me for Steampunk.  I love this Edwardian blouse, I need more blouses for Steampunk and I am tempted to try and make something like this using some of my lovely stash of vintage lace. All pictures from Angela’s blog.

Angela Clayton 3

It is unlikely that I will make much more medieval kit now apart from occasional shirts and I do have a peasant dress to finish this summer but I love seeing her reproductions from all periods that I can use as inspiration. This one is just stunning!

Angela Clayton 1

She has also produced a series of patterns for McCalls and I am very tempted by the walking outfit here, I love the shaping of the waist on the jacket and the sleeves. I have to be good though and use my current patterns for this year’s outfits before I buy any more.

Angela Clayton 2

The last one I will mention in this post, although there are many more I have yet to listen to fully, is Morgan Donner. She is a member of the SCA, a re-enactment society in the USA who do lots of crafts from all different periods so her vlog is fascinating.

Morgan Donner 1

She makes the most beautiful garments and accessories and gives really detailed information, it has been very useful to see her posts on making medieval shifts, hose etc. And she has the most amazing hair, I love her hair 🙂 and all the different styles that she does with it. All pictures from her blog.

Morgan Donner 2

Morgan Donner 3

She has also introduced me to the term history bounding which is wearing historically inspired clothing as everyday wear and now I have joined the history bounding group on Facebook there is no stopping me for inspiration for day wear. From her blog I traced down the source of some fantastic material inspired by one of my favourite pieces, the Elizabethan Layton jacket below that someone has used to make this dress.

Layton Jacket

The fabric has been reproduced and made available on Spoonflower. I do now have two samples of this one and the blackwork inspired from the same designer and one day may be tempted to order enough yardage to make something with them. I think the Layton jacket one would make an excellent Steampunk waistcoat.Someone has actually done a pattern similar to the Layton Jacket , thankfully it is only available from the USA with high shipping costs or I may have been tempted!

So thank you all of you historical costume vloggers out there, I have been entertained, kept motivated, educated and inspired and there are many more resources out there that I have yet to explore.

I hope that you have all had a good week and are planning nice things for the week ahead. We have a quieter time at work over the next couple of weeks and then I have some leave planned over Easter so I am really looking forward to getting underway on lots more projects.

Take care and thanks for visiting.

 

 

 

The treasure trove that is Bombay Stores

stitchesoftime5 Comments

A couple of days before Christmas Ellie came up for a short visit and we decided to go and do a bit of fabric shopping. I am trying not to buy things and to be good but I do need to make several new Steampunk outfits and I just do not have enough yardage of any one fabric to make all these so I thought I would treat myself to some for Christmas.

We are lucky enough to live near Bradford which has the most amazing Asian fabric shops, our favourite being the wonderful Bombay Stores which we have visited several times, notably to buy Amanda’s and Kerry’s wedding fabric. As well as fabric they have Asian wedding dresses so we always have a quick look at that section to marvel at the beauty of these. They also sell amazing bags, shoes and jewelry, this video gives you a quick overview of all of the fabulous things.

I adore the Asian dresses, if you are not familiar with them then I have found a couple of Pinterest pictures for you to admire. The colours and the embroidery, beads and crystal are amazing and there are so many different colours available as well as traditional red.

Asain wedding dress 1

Asain wedding dress 2

We were really lucky that day as they were having a sale – brocades at £1.25 a metre and satins, organza and lining fabric at 75p a metre! I had been planning just to buy a sari set to get enough fabric to make one outfit as these are very good value at between £20 and £30 depending on style but instead got a total of 35 metres of fabric plus silk and embellishments for under £40.It was indeed a very happy Christmas to me 🙂

I am taking my inspiration for the first outfit from a few sources. I love this outfit by Yaya Han, who is a cosplayer and model and wanted to make something peacock inspired. I have not bought this pattern as it a little too fitted for me so am planning to use one of my other Steampunk patterns.

Yaya Han Peacock costume

I have also found some lovely hats like this one below and I love the colours they have used so wanted to have a peacock hat as well.

Steampunk Hat 1

I also have a set, bought from Bombay Stores as a present by Amanda, to say thank you for making her wedding coat. I did not have time to make up before her wedding so it has been in the stash ever since . It has a fabric for a full length tunic with the most amazing embroidery as well as fabric for lining.

Raj fabric 2

I bought the turquoise fabric with lining and the turquoise and gold organza in the picture below intending to just use that but they all go so well together that I am going to use all of them for an outfit which will be a turquoise jacket embellished with embroidered motifs.

Raj fabric 3

I also bought some small pieces of silk in peacock colours as well as these gorgeous jewels to make peacock embellishments. I think they will made wonderful decorations for my purple top hat which I plan to wear with the outfit.

Raj fabric1

The other part of the haul was 10 metres of this amazing brocade plus some gold lining fabric.

Bombay stores gold

 

I was not certain which pattern I was going to use for that however my lovely Steampunk Seamstress Squadron Facebook sewing friends alerted me to a 50% off Simplicity pattern sale last night so I bought this coat pattern. I am think of making a fairly straight skirt to go with this coat as an evening outfit for the ball at Lincoln Asylum event in August.

simplicity-military-cosplay-costumes-pattern-8769-envelope-front

I also was lucky enough to have some fabric and a bag of very cute charms for Christmas from my brother Ben and sister-in-law Amanda, I love these patterns and am going to save the charm pack and fat eighths ones for a future quilt as I think the autumn colours are gorgeous. One of my retirement plans is to make lots of quilts for different seasons for my bed.

Christmas preseent fabric 1

Christmas preseent fabric 2

I have lots of things that I have made over the past couple of months that I have not posted about yet and some other plans for evening making as the outfits will have to be weekend work, which thankfully I have so many more of this term! I have just finished knitting a little hat for my great-niece Ava, now to knit some dinosaur spikes to go on it.

I hope you are all having a fun weekend with lots of nice crafting or other things planned. Thanks as always for visiting my blog, I have just upgraded my WordPress subscription to get rid of all of the adverts as they were becoming very irritating so hopefully you will all enjoy your visits even more now.

Take care and I will see you all soon.

More of the same but different

stitchesoftime1 Comment

I am having a very good Bank Holiday weekend, it is a bit like the very best version of a Groundhog Day. The weather has been so beautiful here, glorious sunshine three days in a row in Yorkshire! This is a minor miracle so people have been going a bit giddy and there are folk out in summer clothes and a fair few cases of sunburn.

We have had two BBQs already, we are making the most of it as we didn’t manage to have even one at home last year. In fact our old BBQ had rusted so badly it was no longer safe to cook on so we have not replaced it and are using one of our little portable camping ones instead which cooks really well.The chairs are showing signs of wear as well so if we do get a decent summer it may be time for new ones 🙂

May BBQ1

Jake and I spent a few hours getting rid of all the dead plants in our pots that have not survived the five months of snow and I bought a few replacements locally but need many more. It was so beautiful outside with the hills looking beautiful in the evening sun. It makes such a difference to have good weather.

May BBQ2

I have been busy in the craft room as well, making more pouches with the Liberty. I have made another Churn Dash block and used the new Liberty hexagon print as well. I make sure that every bag or pouch is different in some way so that they are all truly unique and love playing around with different fabrics.The larger pouch has an ordinary zip and is made with this tutorial from Jedi Craft Girl  and the lace zip one is from a tutorial at Emkie Designs.

May pouches 1

These are made using recyled denim for the main body as well as I like to reuse where I can. That offsets the fact that I may just have bought a little more Liberty this week. Well it is so pretty I just couldn’t resist.

cat-sewing

I really like the way that the hexagon print works in this bag and am very glad I bought it, I first saw it last year so have been really restrained only getting it now 🙂

As well as being unique my creations are sometimes imperfect, I didn’t notice until I had completed the block that there was a bit of a mismatch on one of the corners of the block but by that stage it would have been really difficult to alter it. Hopefully the pretty fabric will distract the recipient of this gift  from noticing.

Someone once told me that Islamic carpet makers always weave an imperfection into their work as only God is perfect. I don’t know if this is true but I think it is a nice way to think about those little imperfections that are part of hand made things.

I am looking forward to the rest of my last day of the three with more of the same crafting, may make another Churn Dash block this afternoon or may experiment with something else. I am also going to have more washing drying outside, my 5th load this weekend! That may not sound exciting to some people but it is a bit of a miracle here.

Then we will round it off with more BBQing. We have to make the most of it as the forecast is rain and low temperatures for the end of the week but Jake has set us a target of having 20 at home BBQs this summer. We shall see how plan works out!

I hope you are having a lovely weekend as well and have a great week ahead, take care and thanks for visiting.