Poiret pinafore

I've been working flat out for so long I can hardly remember what time off is! But I have treated myself to a couple of projects for myself, inbetween the cushion-bag-scarf making. I really wanted to get something done for the August / September Tie One On apron-making challenge. It's nice to have a change from what I normally do, and try out something creative purely for fun!

My first thought was of Victorian girls' frilly white over-dresses. I simplified this idea with a fitted top-half with empire line waist and curved sleeves. I love anything empire line, though I know this pinafore will make me look heavily pregnant! I decided to cut the skirt so that it drapes at the sides, inspired by Poiret-style skirts of the 1910s. I put pockets in the drapes too, as a pinafore really should be practical! The back is fastened with 2 large dyed-shell buttons I picked up in a vintage shop. The back is open, even though it doesn't look it in this picture. I cut the armholes deeper than a normal bodice, as this pinafore is designed to be worn over layers. The bodice is lined with an embroidered muslin. The flowery fabric is a vintage print I was given a while back. In this, the pinafore looks very cute. The fabric is a bit too stiff for the drapes to hang quite how I wanted them, so I think the next version will be in a softer fabric. Despite the cuteness of this one, I think this pattern could look very modern in a plain fabric, almost Japanese designer style. I'm thinking of something like a black silk crepe next time, or some of the lovely brown hemp / silk satin I am using for some of my products at the moment. I think I might wear this one, over trousers and a t-shirt. Maybe I should wear it at Origin so any blog readers who visit can instantly recognise me! There are a few more pics on Flickr.

Busy Blogger

Oh dear. Poor blog (and readers) are neglected. I have been running around like a mad thing since the trade show which finished a week ago. I had to write a project report and prepare and run a training day last week, the moment I got back from the show. It was a bit hard to switch from one type of work to a completely different one. But mission accomplished and the freelance project (which was consultancy on archive education) is now complete. It's been great but very time consuming and its a relief not to have it hanging over me all the time. The regular pay I will miss though!
I'm now full-on preparation for Origin. I have five more days left, and have less than half the stock I wanted to have ready, so I am working all hours getting it all ready. I will probably have too much, but thats better than too little, right?
Here are some work in progress shots.

Oh - the trade show - well, it was pretty quiet. Well, deathly quiet. Not enough buyers to go around, so when one came down our aisle, we all sat up straight, stopped chatting and lunged at them with cards and samples. It can't have been very nice for them, and it wasn't too good for us. In some ways its better not to be inundated with orders I haven't got a hope of meeting for several months, but its a bit of a shame. Still, I made some excellent contacts, have a few things in negotiation and two orders to sort out in the next few weeks - after Origin!
I'll be stocking some cushions - Garrick and Constellations- and some neckpieces at Fibre and Clay, a newish shop in Cheshire which sounds fantastic. I'm going to visit in a couple of months when I am up that way. I've also got another online shop interested in my recycled work - this range is proving really popular and I am working on ways of expanding and developing it. Well, I'm planning it in my head - it will be a while before I get as far as making anything new!
Back to the steaming sewing machine!

PS More work in progress pictures on Flickr - these ones are mostly finished products in fact, now I think about it!

Fabric Shopping in London

I've offered this information a few times so I thought it would be sensible to put it all together in one list. Please do email or comment with suggestions, additions and alterations!
This is not an exhaustive list, just my favourites.

Berwick Street Soho is the home of the best shops:
Cloth House (1) for fancy silk, jersey, felt, wool, embroidered and decorated fabrics, smocked and gathered fabric, metallic, plastic, pvc, silk velvet, leather and all manner of amazing fabrics you have never seen before. I recently bought silk tulle and admired several types of silk jersey. I get my felt from here that I use for cushions.

Just across the road is Berwick St Cloth Shop, which is best for silk dupion and organza, as well as a huge range of embroidered, beaded and other fancy fabrics, as well as amazing silk taffetas and bridal silks, brocades and masses more.

There is a similar shop just up the road towards Oxford Street which just sells silks, and seems to have much the same range as the Berwick St Cloth Shop (No website - 020 7287 2881). Press on north and you will pass Noel Street. Monday-Friday you can stop here and visit Kleins, a haberdashery heaven. It's a trade shop, so most of the stock is behind the counter, so ask for what you need and they will find it if they have it. I get bag handles and fasteners, as well as all the basics such as zips, thread, buttons, ribbons and corset hooks, boning, interfacing and masses more. Explore the website first to plan your visit, and even ring ahead if you are in a hurry.

Just past Noel Street is the second Cloth House which specialises in cottons and is amazing. I have seen organdie, corduroy, cotton velvets (in loads of fabulous colours), tie silks (I do mean silk for ties, not Thai..), Provencal prints, Indian prints, embroidered and appliqued cottons, Hawaiian style prints and masses more. Recently I saw a huge range of coloured Khadi and antique French linen. They also carry a wide range of vintage trimmings which are great. I love it. It's probably the best place for quilters in London, though by no means is a patchwork fabric shop.

Just round the corner is Liberty of London which should need no introduction to fabric fans. Their cotton lawn is stunning quality and the prints range from trad to contemporary and new fabrics seem to come out regularly. I like to pick up small pieces for bag linings and used some to line a wedding suit commission. What is less well known is that Liberty have a great yarn department and nice helpful knitting staff. There is a knitting group in the Arts Bar Cafe on the (I think) 1st and 3rd Thursday of every month. I used to go regularly and they are lovely, and the cafe is great! The shop is by far my favourite place in London to browse fashion and home stuff and generally lust after stuff I can't afford!

Stand

Just back from setting up my stand at the trade show which starts in earnest tomorrow morning. Luckily it's only just over an hour's drive, so I am home early. I took pictures partly as a record but also to agonise over this evening and possibly change the display in the morning. Actually, I think it looks ok and I might well just leave it.
The cupboard looks great, but is looking a bit battered in the flesh and might need repapering and painting before it does another show. I might need a bit of repapering too after this show!

On your marks, get set, go!

Well, nearly.... Trade show set up is tomorrow morning, and my planned day off today has turned out to be a 14 hour preparation day - hence a very brief blog. I am all set though, and have some lovely new stock (no time for photos yet!). Many thanks are due to my lovely student Siobhan who has been helping me out in the scarf production factory. We learned two things - working with silk dupion is great. Working with silk satin is not. Never again.
We also made - refurbished- this cabinet. Hard to imagine now, but it was scratched old brown varnish and now it's all lovely. Grey paint from Ecos and wallpaper from Laura Ashley. Isn't it lovely? I'm so pleased. It doesn't hold up to close inspection but looks pretty good from a distance!
This will be storing all my paperwork etc for the show. I'm excited to see how it will all look. Photos as soon as I get a chance after the show.

Happy hat

This cheery person is me, very pleased with myself for finishing my hat for the Whiplash competition. Those taking part have 2 weeks to make something for the monthly theme. This one was hats and gave me lots of trouble. I couldn't work out what to do, but eventually came up with the plan of buying an old felt hat and cutting a little retro style skullcap from the crown and decorating it with some kind of fabric decorations. I couldn't find a suitable hat, but found this one and decided it would have to do.


I took off the veil and ribbon and made felt and organza flowers to decorate it with. And I am rather charmed by it, and will be wearing it around town as soon as the weather gets cold enough!





The picture of me is by my lovely friend Amanda, whose photography is behind. She's a fabulous jeweller too.

I was amused by this picture that I managed to take of myself, before I opted for a much more professional photo!

Lace patterns

I've just been sent this link. Well, a link to another book in this online exhibition (about silk production) but I got sidetracked by this one on 16th century lace patterns.
I'm not a huge lace fan. I like the early stuff, particularly this type, but I don't know much about it. These lace patterns are lovely - lots of circular patterns which I adore. I really wish I had time to explore and experiment more with both techniques and designs. One day I would like to learn some lacemaking, stumpwork, proper cutwork and goldwork. I kind of know the basics of a lot of techniques, but I want to be able to do them all REALLY well. One day...

Whiplash hat project update: Velvet pillbox hat bought. Now I have to come up with something this evening, inbetween lots of other things I have to do this evening!

Full speed ahead

Does my lack of posting convey the manic activity that is going on behind the scenes at RuthSinger.com? Well it should. I spent a hot and sunny weekend at the V&A running a workshop in the garden making magic carpets. Well - pieces of fabric with symmetrical patterns drawn on with fabric pens. It was fun but tiring. Since then I have been doing more fabric-hunting and some of the colour ranges I so confidently posted about the other day have changed slightly, but not too drastically. I'm so pleased with some of the colour combinations (felt samples above) and can't wait to start cutting into the miles of cloth. However, I am delaying the gratification until I have done all my order forms, price lists and colours charts. Almost done! Fabric cutting will start tomorrow. Ah.


Today I have to go and pick up a lovely vintage pinny / dress I found yesterday but didn't have enough cash for. I am also hunting a second hand felt hat to reconstruct for Whiplash, but alas, this late bout of summer has sent all the winter hats off the shelves of the charity shops and there none to be found. It's getting a bit late, I may not achieve this task by the deadline.

Inspiration

Inspiration does come from all over the place. In the past my inspiration has mostly come directly from historic textiles and fashion that I have studied. It still does in some ways, but the longer I spent as a full-time textile designer, the more I find inspiration strikes from all over the place (and often keeps me awake half the night!). It struck last weekend in Dorset, when I started thinking about seaweed. I hadn't actually seen any seaweed at that point, but I was thinking about detached applique and what kind of interesting shapes you could make from -basically- dangly shapes attached to fabric. So I went to the beach to find the kind of seaweed I was thinking of. One of these days I will start some work on applique based (very loosely) on seaweed.

Sometimes when I try and explain my odd inspirations, I am met with blank looks. It's not always clear how dinner plates or seaweed can lead to fabrics, let alone evening dresses, but they do.




This bag and the other things in the same Dragon range were actually inspired by dinosaur toys and then developed after seeing some railings. Things move on, shift around and change. I have further ideas of things to do with these felt scales, and other shapes cut from felt. In a few years' time I may well still be using something derived from the dinosaur toy but a long-way detached. I like having this kind of follow-through from ideas I had years ago and I hope it will keep happening, as my work changes and develops into new things.

Bag ladies

Just a couple of the bags made by students last week. Another really talented group. This purple bag was made by someone who had never done ANY sewing before. I was hugely impressed by the way she worked so hard to get it absolutely right and made a lovely bag.

I've spent the last 24 hours in some kind of fabric buying panic. I need to get small amounts of fabric (well, 10 metres or so of each colour) for my new autumn ranges for the trade show next week and Origin. I had chosen the colours I wanted, but the wholesalers I went to yesterday don't have what I want. I tracked down some hemp/silk which I want to use for one of the colourways (they only have one of my preferred colours) but they have none in stock! I need to use fabrics that I can easily buy large stocks of, as I need to be taking orders. And I need it to be as cheap as possible without compromising my requirements or quality. It's being a whole lot harder than I thought and I wish I had started buying fabric when I chose the colours weeks ago. I am also working on Spring / Summer colours, as I need the samples for them for the trade show too. I think I have just about sorted it, but I haven't got to the ideal solution, just one that will do for now. It's all a learning process, but it's a stressful process I could do without right now!
I am however, getting excited about all the miles of fabric arriving next week and getting on with sewing up new stuff!





For the trade show I am presenting four cushions: Garrick, Mantua Frill, Doublet and Constellations. These three scarves: Mantua Frill, Polonaise and Dragon. These three bags: Fat Dragon, Dragon and Jacob.
Most of these come in 4 colourways for Autumn/ Winter and 3-4 colourways for Spring / Summer. It adds up to an awful lot of fabric!



Origin is a bit easier in some ways. I am showing Garrick Cushion, Fat Dragon Bag, Mantua Frill Scarf and Neckpiece.
One of yesterday's successes was finding a source of coloured silk organza, so now I can make the neckpieces in a range of colours to match my Autumn / Winter colours.

Oh - the colours are for the silk ranges:
Silver / Grey
Chocolate brown
Aubergine
Peacock Blue

The Constellations Cushion has year-round colours of:
Lime and Cerise
Red and White
Blue and Cream
Rust and Pink.

Jacob bag comes in Natural Brown and Natural Cream and the Dragon bag comes in whatever nice vintage fabric we like this week!

Phew. You can see why this makes my head hurt just keeping track of it all!

Lovely Dorset

One of the great things about running workshops around the country is that I get to visit some stunning places. Having a car has made a huge difference to what I can get to do. Last weekend after teaching in Dorset I spent a very windy night camping and then the next day exploring the Dorset coast, which I don't think I have been to since I was a kid. It's not that far from where I live, but it's a long drive and this summer has been too busy for any non-work-related jaunts. This is real coastline, not like Brighton's pebbly and rubbish-strewn beach. It's nice to live by the sea for the sense of space it gives, but I prefer real coastline like Dorset, Norfolk or Northumbria to urban seaside. But give me hills, woods, rivers and canals too! I belong in Yorkshire, really I think.

Knitted Naughties

So - what do you think these are? I would have thought it was clear, seeing as they are on a cake stand.... Iced Gems of course. My knitting group are working on a knitted tea for Hove Museum's Knitting Week extravaganza. Being as I am, I can't just follow the (admittedly fantastic) patterns that were circulating for battenberg cake, sandwiches etc. I had to create my own. So the prototype Iced Gem was born. And apparently they look like nipples. I tried out some sausages on sticks, but without the stick, they look like turds (according to my mum - thanks!). New improved version in progress. I'm contemplating palmiers and cheese straws next. Might have to go to the Ritz during afternoon tea for inspiration.

It's nice to have little tiny creative projects on the go, especially silly ones. I have no shortage of creative ideas (guess that's why I am a designer not a manager any more - see yesterday!) but alas, not enough time at the moment to get stuck into the bigger and more serious ones. This blog is almost a record sometimes of the wild ideas I have and never get started with. I started off in May talking about smocking. Have I done any? Nah. I have helped someone else learn it though. I got sidetracked today by this post on Soulemama and have been pondering making my own patchwork hexagons just to try out some of my ideas. Yet another to add to the mad-ideas-to-try-one-day list.

I had grand plans for more work for the exhibition in Stafford but I have had to admit defeat and a larger list of more urgent things to do. I made up a couple of purses and pincushions, but I think actually the pincushions will be saved for Christmas presents, as they aren't my core product range and only confuse the message. So no more of that! It's hard to focus and go for a less-is-more approach sometimes, but I am learning.

A planning kind of day

I finally got stuck into writing up my business plan today. It's about time - I have two meetings on Thursday to discuss it! It was strangely enjoyable. I do actually like this kind of thing, and I almost miss my old job sometimes. I was adult education officer at the V&A until just over a year ago. I didn't get to do a lot of strategy and planning, but when I did, I really enjoyed it. So it was nice to exercise my brain in this direction again. I had another session on my training course last week, which was focussed on cash flow forecasting and it was a great relief to discover that this isn't anything terrifying at all. Plus of course, I did lots of budget planning when I was employed, so figures don't scare me. I actually love doing invoicing and filling in my account spreadsheet. I suppose it must be to do with my mathematical genes (my grandfather's work. No, I don't understand a word of it).

I'm also pleased with myself for sending out a hundred trade fair invites and Origin leaflets, as well as a load of press releases. There is something scary about sending press releases - we makers seem to live in fear of the scorn of journalists, for some reason. Of course I don't see the response to my press release, and they are always perfectly nice on the phone! It's illogical, but apparently quite common to have the fear. I suppose we are so dependent on their liking and featuring our work, that they hold some kind of power over us.

In other news - I have set up a new Flickr group for fabric manipulation, so anyone who does it, please join and put your pictures in!

I love canals

A little aside just because I want to share these pictures that I look a couple of weeks ago on the Wey navigation. So actually this is canalised river, not actual canal, but it's near enough and it has narrowboats!

This is the other side of me, away from contemporary craft and design, I suppose. I love being outdoors and I love boating on England's canals and walking in uninhabited places.

Dreaming of handbags

Don't get me wrong, I do love teaching handbag-making classes, but I have now done three in the last eight days and the nearest was 100 miles away, and I am getting a little exhausted with them! I was relieved that this weekend's was the last this year. However, it was such a success they have asked me back to do another in Dorset in October! Here are some of the results from last week - I'm getting behind on my image-uploading!
The striped one is by one of teenagers and the hessian is by one of the adults. As usual, loads of great stuff produced, and yet more this weekend, which I will show next week.
All this teaching, combined with lots of admin, means that my own creative work is on a back-burner. I do keep having creative and exciting ideas for new designs when I am lying in bed (or in tent, as I was last night!) instead of sleeping. It's an improvement on worrying about work, but it's still not helpful when I need to sleep!
I'm really looking forward to getting some creative studio time - but alas, it's probably going to be a couple of months. I can't complain too much - lots of exciting things happening. It's now 2 weeks until the Design Edge trade fair. This week has got to be serious focussing on practical issues such as order forms and press packs, as well as some fun bits like selecting spring season colours. I'm teaching at the V&A all weekend too, so it's going to be a while before I get another day off. I had one today, exploring some glorious coastline in Dorset, but it was followed by nearly 5 hours driving to come home, via a gallery to pick up work. In the next couple of weeks I also have to write a report and a resource pack for the freelance archive education project I have been running all summer. Once that is out of the way I have to prepare stock for Origin, which is just over a month away! I'm tired just thinking about it!