Et voilà!

Last week I was very despondent about my dressmaking. I made a kind of very early stage toile for the bodice of my daughter's wedding dress. It wouldn't even fit on Missy - even with a side seam and back seam undone. It was clear that my toile was several inches too small. Although the front looked good, the side seam bent markedly towards the front at the bust area and the back seam was a long way from meeting. I understood why this was. My daughter initially wanted a bodice that would be laid over stretch tulle so I used a stretch leotard block initially which needed fabric with quite a bit of stretch. I made a leotard and it fit beautifully. However, and it's obvious, really, change the fabric to one with much less, or no, stretch, and it can't possibly fit. I was working under guidance of my tutor who hoped this toile would work given that I wanted a tight fit - but it wasn't to be. She didn't have time at the very end of the informal class to point me in a new direction although she did say we ewould need darts after all - it's perhaps indicative of how upset (internally - -n not visibly, at least I don't think so) that I didn't immediately understand what she was saying. I felt I had wasted many hours and lost a lot of hair and was pretty upset and flat, too, when I got home. I decided I had to work from the original, non-stretch block. I followed some instructions in Suzy Furrer's book and, in addition, moved the darts into princess seams. It took ages. In the end, when I looked at the pattern pieces, I was very doubtful about them. As I was going to be seeing my tutor again, I didn't take it further. On Wednesday, I saw Rory and took my wedding dress toile problems and showed her the toile on her model. She said I needed to make a toile from the original block and asked if I had it with me. I did, in a way. Problem is I'm very poor at labelling different pattern iterations, okay labelling in general. I must do better! Rory also pointed out that the instructions Suzy Furrer gives depend on the type of block you were using, how much ease etc - but as I was not using her block, these instructions could not be followed directly. So it wasn't surprising that following her instructions hadn't resulted in a suitable garment. Anyway, I was able to make up a toile. Standard bust dart and waist dart. Rory drew up what she had interpreted from my badly drawn designs and concluded, as I had felt earlier, that princess seams were the way to go. Here's the magic. All those hours I had spent carefully rotating darts! Rory drew the dart position we agreed on the toile. Then all I had to do was cut it out and add seam allowances to where I had cut the fabric apart. The bust dart stayed closed - indeed I realised that it gets closed when rotating it elsewhere. The waist dart gets cut out. Exactly as per dart rotation. But how much faster!! I couldn't believe it! I ended up with the same side panel and front panel that I would have starting with the flat pattern and rotating darts! It's clear that a combination of flat pattern cutting and draping is very useful - and as Rory says, will generally get you to where you want to go. Tonight, in class at college, we were doing moulage. Then Rory showed us how to make a bra pattern from the moulage. I thought the dart, from the moulage, could simply be kept there as had happened in the bodice block - but of course, it had only been pinned in place, not sewn. My homework for next time is a paper bra pattern. I modified a pattern for a lace cardigan. I had to increase the size as the pattern only went up to a 16. I probably graded up to a 20. I needed extra space in my hips and for my biceps. That was a couple of weeks ago but I got around to cutting out the lace this week. I found the lace difficult to work with as it wanted to slip all over the place, distorting the lines. Hopefully I managed it reasonably okay in the end. I decided to pin and then hand baste and found that the lower sleeve from elbow was very wide indeed. I also found that I had somehow stupidly cut out two left sleeves! Lyn advised me how to try to modify my sewing to take account of this error - I didn't have enough fabric to cut a new sleeve, despite it being narrowed by quite a bit. I'm hoping it won't take too long to sew this up. I'm probably going to overlock the seams, by the way, rather than do French seams as the lace is possibly too thick for the latter. Next week is midterm so I don't have classes but I do have some time to get up to date.

I have some photos so I will edit this post later - I don't have time to do that just now, just wanted to get my thoughts sown so I remember the process.

Dewsbury Yorkshire Spoolettes Meet-Up

I had a lovely time today at a sewing bloggers meet-up of the ‘Yorkshire Spoolettes’ in Dewsbury,  organised by Ali of Thimberlina, whom I had never met but felt I knew.

There were about 18 of us. Some I immediately recognised from photos on their blogs - others I didn't follow and so didn't recognise. A few couldn't make it, which was sad. I feared being too old for the group but don't think that was the case. I was made very welcome and met a group of lovely ladies. I'm gutted to say I didn't take any photos - but a few were taken on the day.

We met in Kenny’s cafe, introduced ourselves, had a drink and something to eat. Then we had a fabric and pattern swap. I took quite a few patterns but not so much in the way of fabric with me as I feared having to carry it home again if no-one wanted it!  I'm particularly thinking of a piece of fabric I bought as a potential patterned MOB dress - what on earth was I thinking of? The colours don't work for me and I dislike the fabric and can't really imagine anyone else liking it.  I chose a couple of patterns, in my size, so I may use them later ‘atw’ - after the wedding! More excitingly, I was persuaded (you know - arm up my back etc)  to take a jacket length of beautiful Linton tweed, brought by Margaret of the Crafty Creek. 

The background is navy, which is my colour

I can't think of it just now but I promise I will make this up!!  I may have to compromise on sleeve length etc as being both tall and plus sized, I fear being short of fabric for the classical Chanel jacket. There were some patterns and some fabric left unclaimed at the end and I think Ali was going to pass these to a charity shop. So I wouldn't have had to take the fabric I mentioned back after all.

I'm doing a pattern hack of a dress with lots of drapes and tucks, the original made with a polyester jersey

Hack dress: Tucks on R shoulder, R waist, R skirt and styleline across dress

and I wanted to buy some viscose jersey as I really didn't like the polyester jersey I bought - and others confirmed my view that it was really too sportswear/ dancewear. That and possible replacement MOB fabrics as I'm not 100% keen on anything I have and feel that my Indian dupion silk, beautiful as it is, is perhaps a step too far with my current sewing abilities and the time I have available.

We went briefly to the market to the trims stall and I bought some turquoise bias binding (20p pm) and a royal blue beaded trim (50p pm). Very inexpensive.

Our next stop was Fabworks. I was fairly focused here. I bought some grey viscose jersey for the hack dress

and bought some lovely blue crepe back satin recommended by Karen of the Sewing Miserablist, as she has used it and can vouch for its quality.

This was also available in a gorgeous plum colour

I loved the dress Karen was wearing, both the fabric (though not my colours) and the style. The fabric was still available in Fabworks but unfortunately not in an alternative colourway. Here is a link to the dress and fabric; I'd like to make the dress at some stage and was delighted when Karen said it was available for download (she made it from the Burdastyle magazine) and to boot was a tall pattern - she had to shorten it;  I wouldn't have to. Fabworks didn't have silk organza or stretch lining.

We then went to Lucky Fabrics. I love this shop! And the tea, coffee or juice and biscuits put on specially for us! I was less focused here. I bought a grey fabric just because I liked it

This is quite heavy with a bit of stretch

ditto a floral fabric

I briefly thought MOB then thought a lovely summer fabric; jersey

- no immediate plans in mind. The self embossed stretch fabric I bought might do for the hack dress, though might be a little too thick.

I love this - I hope it works for the hack dress. If not, another more suitable style

Again, I wasn't able to get any stretch lining.

I moved on to the £1 a Yard shop, mainly thinking of buying stretch lining,  which unfortunately wasn't available there either. I was taken by a crushed red velvet (what!?)

More of a blue red in real life

 and copied Margaret’s purchase of a sewing related cotton, thinking of making a shirt. atw! 

 I didn't buy any additional lining fabrics as although very inexpensive, I decided not to add to my stash more than I had already! I already have several lifetimes of fabric in my stash.

Then we had a late lunch in Wetherspoons. As I wasn't driving I was able to have a pint of cider with my steak and ale pie, chips and mushy peas (Yorkshire caviare I was told today!). Then a quick photo and time to say goodbye - for now. I’ll be following new blogs, feel I've made new friends and feel inspired. Karen - I hope you got your car okay! Edited to say - I'm glad you got your car, Karen - what a relief. As Ali says, they'll get a good write up on her blog and a lot of kudos for staying behind.

I travelled by train as that I find is so much more pleasant than driving when it's raining and particularly as I started to read ‘The Forgotten Seamstress’ by Liz Trenow. 

The character of the title was incarcerated in a mental hospital for having become inconveniently pregnant - I won't say any more as I recommend you read the book. I met one woman like this in the early days of my training, who had been incarcerated by her family for ‘moral insanity’;  such families wanted to avoid the disgrace and shame of having a sexually active (or just at risk of being sexually active) daughter. These women became so institutionalised that they were unable to cope with the outside world and unable to leave the mental hospital despite having been free to do so for many years, as was the case with the woman I met. Very sad. Such stolen lives.

https://blog.colettehq.com/news/colette-book-club-reminder#comment-185046

Coletterie is running a book club,  link above, and this book is this month's read, which is why I became aware of it.

I continued to read on the way home and finished it this evening.

Thank you,  Ali, for organising. I gather we have a month to show something we've made from out purchases! Hopefully, mine will be the hack dress.

I thought this map might be interesting to some

Some fabric stalls and shops, vintage sewing books and exhibitions at Bowes Museum

On Friday morning just gone, on route to Bowes Museum, I planned to go to the market at Chester-le-Street to pick up some fabric for my moulage class next week and have a look for some suitable MOB fabrics as the ones I have don't work as well as I'd hoped. There are a couple of good fabric stalls - they're different from each other and each has its advantages. There is also a Boyes department store which sells fabric and haberdashery. I hadn't worked out that the very heavy winds we've had would mean the market couldn't open because it wasn't safe. Sad. All those empty (permanent)  stalls.  I bought some practice polyester jersey in Boyes, and some glue to mend my boots (another story).

Later, I found a second hand bookshop with some great vintage sewing titles. It was a lot cheaper than Barter Books in Alnwick and I bought a few titles. You know how much I love books! Looking through these books, I've already picked up some great tips. I think my best buys were a Threads book from 1995 'Beyond the Pattern' - I recognise contributors like David Coffin but the others were,  I guess,  before my time; 

and Claire Shaeffer’s Complete Book of Sewing Shortcuts. 

One title which appealed to me originally doesn't work for me and I'll recycle that. And I accidentally bought a duplicate.  I've gleaned some great information about thread types and have come across what I consider to be,  for me,  the best explanation about easing and how and when to do it that I have seen. Previously I was confused;  now I see the light!

Despite my purchases, we ended up at the Bowes Museum in Barnard Castle  earlier than we had planned. David wanted to visit the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition and I joined him on that. The display concentrated on his portraits including self portraits.  None of his still life photographs. David had showcased Mapplethorpe as one of the photographers for his course, showing one of the still life photos for which he justifiably received great acclaim,  a self portrait (this one not in the exhibition) and a portrait of Patti Smith which was used on the cover of her debut album ‘Horses ‘ - this latter was also featured in the exhibition.

I wanted to see the Quiltscapes and Quiltline exhibition by Pauline Burbridge. These are inspired by nature for example, sand ripples,  wheat ears. I enjoyed seeing the process and handling the materials. I loved the Quiltscapes and would have bought one but for the hefty price tags - the one I liked was £15,000. There were a few smaller pieces but I was spoiled after seeing the larger ones (and they were still very expensive). We don't use quilts, so this would have been a wall hanging I guess. Though I have a beautiful machine embroidery wall hanging that hasn't made it to the wall yet so perhaps it's just as well!

We had a lovely lunch in the cafe there. Last time (first time) we were there was for the YSL exhibition  when it was very busy indeed - not so this time. David had chestnut mushroom and blue cheese tarts with walnut salad and I had a variant of Welsh rarebit with treacle cured local bacon.  Both lovely. David liked the look of the green tea and raspberry cake (green!) and enjoyed it but I found it too floral for my taste. I enjoyed my cappuccino cake.

Afterwards, we visited the New Light exhibition which showcases local North East artists and offers prizes in various categories. The exhibits were varied. They were mainly for sale and I absolutely loved one and would have bought it in a second - but it was already sold:

Poor photo and reflections, sorry.
Dunstanburgh, February Rain

I've found out a bit more about the artist, Debbie Loane and hope to visit her studio which is open the first full weekend of each month, between Hartlepool and York. 

I found this dice picture amazing.

Yes, the face is made up of individual dice.

Unfortunately, most of the paintings, some of them huge, were presented in one of the rooms in three tiers but even for me the top pictures were difficult to see and light was glancing off them in an unhelpful way and some filming was going to be taking place and I couldn't get in front of the pictures that were blocked off.

Although I have so much sewing to do, it's important I feel to try and keep some balance in my life. On Saturday I managed a few holes of golf for the first time in many weeks; I desperately need the fresh air and exercise. I realised that I'm only now beginning to recover after having been ill for more than two months!

More fabric shopping (or attempts at least)

I had heard of a new fabric shop in Sunderland  - BST Fabrics in Southwick Industrial Estate (they were previously involved in baby goods) and we decided to detour there on our way home. The prices were excellent and I got some gingham for class cheaper even than the market. There was a great stock of fleeces, though I'm not in the market for those at present. They didn't have the types of fabric that I was after but they offer to look for them. I did buy some more practice fabrics for the bridesmaids’ dresses. It'll be worth going back in the future but probably not for my current projects.

Still on the look out for a particular fabric, we went home from BST via Dainty Fabrics in Washington. Unfortunately, no joy and I went away empty handed.

I then spent some time evaluating my design and fabric options.

On Sunday  I went to 1st for Fabrics in Benton (was out in that direction on another chore - returning a dress I bought in Boundary Mills but decided it just didn't work). No joy there, either. I had already looked in the other local options - Fenwick and John Lewis, both in Newcastle city centre. I'm not keen on the fabric market stall in Grainger Market and find it difficult to get there when it's open, so I haven't tried that.  Another local option, in Wallsend this time, is totally hitty missy. I've seen others with fabulous buys but I haven't managed this. I'll probably pop in on Wednesday as it's across the road from Rory and Dan's studio. I've recently heard of another new fabric place - I don't have details but plan to find it,  you can be sure of that! There is also a sewing machine shop in Whitley Bay which carries fabric; I haven't been for a while as they don't cover my machines so I'm not sure what their fabric stock is like and I'm not too often out that way these days.

A fair bit of travelling between these different places - that's why I always tend to tag them on to something else. BST Fabrics is fairly close to college but closes at 4pm which is really too early for me to get there. If I was also visiting my Bernina dealer,  Tully’s in Sunderland city centre (doesn't sell fabric), which closes at 5pm, that would work.

My problem is I don't want to buy without seeing and feeling the fabric. One of the fabrics I want is viscose with elastane. I want to copy a RTW dress I have which is 92% polyester and 8% elastane, but using the more breathable fabric option. No joy anywhere with the viscose jersey but I did pick up some poly elastane with the right composition - trouble is, it's much too shiny for my taste. It'll do to practice the process; I have two sessions next month on ‘Pattern Hacking’ with Dan and Rory at their Centrefront Studio in Wallsend. Dare I order viscose jersey on line?

I'm going to Dewsbury next week on the Yorkshire Spoolettes meet-up organised by Ali of Thimberlina. I'm an honorary Spoolette despite not living in Yorkshire.  This is my last chance before going the online route, I feel.

Tonight, I worked on the bridesmaid dress pattern and did a toile. Really quite successful and I'm feeling a lot better about it! I'm going to start on the wedding dress first toile on Wednesday. In class on Thursday, it's moulage.

Sleeve and Back Crisis - hopefully averted!

The pressure of the wedding sewing is starting to get to me. To be honest,  it's more the pattern making than the thought of the construction. I'd be more than happy to take a pattern and make it up. No decisions. No problems. Certainly no designing. I don't mind the minor alterations required - not even FBAs!

I've been struggling with the design of the bridesmaids’ dresses. We have an inspiration photo,  which I can't show here, but it has a pretty open back. That itself causes issues as there just isn't the fabric available to provide support so the open parts gape.

Worse, the girls were keen to have a boat neck at the front.

Boat neck plus open back = disaster! There is just no support available and the shoulders fall off the sides.

I have Suzy Furrer's classes and her book, 'Building Patterns, The Architecture of Women’s Clothing', which I like and use. I carefully watched her video on how to create a boat neck and carried out the steps on my pattern. The video was more detailed and I have included a photo of my pattern alterations on one of the patterns (Joanne's). The diagrams below are from the book, not specifically about boat necks, though the video section was.

Showing front neckline

At Christmas,  I had the first basic toiles and a front boat neck version for the two bridesmaids to try; the back was a standard back. Reasonably successful and I marked the changes required.

I attend a Sewing Bee with Dan and she is helping me think about the dresses now, for which I'm extremely grateful as I was really struggling.

Joanne, my middle daughter, visited last week. I was able to take her briefly to the class and Dan fitted the toile. There were a number of issues related to the boat neck and the open back, which I had now created for Joanne’s visit. Helpfully, Dan pointed out that the bodice was too long - it looked much better when pinned shorter. I thought I knew where I was going.

I had made a sleeve but found it took full and puffed and we didn’t like it. This was a sleeve from a pattern I'd made previously - Simplicity 1418 - which I thought would have worked. It didn’t. So Dan also went through how to create two types of  cap sleeves and roughly pinned one on one side, using the sleeve I had created. The other side was sleeveless and finished. I rather liked the sleeve she pinned and so decided to make a ‘proper’ version later - I haven’t got around to this as yet! Dan says that a cap sleeve can be added later, so I don’t need to worry about that at the moment, particularly as we’re thinking sleeveless at present. That could change! So many things have changed already.

We originally preferred the sleeve on the left

I have some photos of the toile, which I'm not publishing. As Joanne has returned south, that's what I have to work with.

As I can’t show any photos, I'm including the step diagrams instead.

Alison, my oldest daughter,  visited over the weekend (nice to see my grandsons). As I've been pretty ill,  I hadn't had a chance to make the alterations to the toile she tried at Christmas. I did some quick pinning and hacking when she retried it! We identified some serious flaws and I realised I’d have to completely redraw the pattern

I also read about how to contour for a low back in Suzy Furrer's book and while Alison was attending a function on Saturday,  redrew the pattern and made up a new toile. I quote here from Suzy Furrer and show her diagrams:

“If the back neckline depth is level with or lower than the base of the armhole an adjustment needs to be made to the back bust ease. If the back neckline depth is level with the depth of the armhole, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 3/8". If the neckline is midway between the armhole and the waist, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 5/8". If the neckline depth is at the waist, bring the back underarm/bust seam in 7/8".

This adjustment will prevent the back from gaping and wrinkling. The more skin exposed, the tighter the garment should be. This is a negative ease situation. This adjustment is only done to the back, not the front. The adjustment is in addition to the 1/4" taken off the sloper to reduce ease at the bust.”

In addition,  I decided to follow instructions on how to make a cut on cap sleeve using Tanya Whelan’s book Sew Many Dresses sew little time; the ultimate dressmaking guide. I haven’t used this book as yet but have read through and it seems interesting but I can’t review it as yet. I have other sewing instructional books but wanted to use this one as it is modern and I thought more suitable for these dresses! The all in one cap sleeve was a suggestion from Alison who likes this type of sleeve. It didn’t work - my fault entirely. Perhaps the problem here was that the sleeve pattern I used wasn't one of the ones in the book (the book comes with patterns). I used the sleeve pattern from my original block for Alison - worse, I hadn’t altered the sleeve pattern in line with the bodice alterations - the armscye had been altered because of the contouring required. Anyway,  the back part of the sleeve looked okay, just like the diagram. I wasn't at all sure about the front as it didn't look at all as per photo in the book,  no matter how hard I tried. I sewed it up. The armhole was so tiny that Alison said even if she lost so much weight that she became skeletal it still wouldn't fit!

This is where I went wrong! The back was fine but the front awful.

I’m including the diagrams from the book to show the process. I haven’t included the actual instructions - you know that this isn't intended as any kind of tutorial (perish the thought!) but rather to make up for my lack of photos! The one instruction I realise that I didn't follow as I didn't fully understand the way it was written was to make the top of the sleeve front match the back front. Mine didn't.

Looking from the front. front/back shoulder seam along the top.
 Additional fabric inserted measures nearly 2" at sleeve edge

On one side I inserted a patch (or gusset?). I've shown a photo of that here. I slit open the other side and was going to see how much fabric was required but we ended up hacking the sleeve off completely. I mean hacked!

I wasn't happy at all with the toile fit. I have a number of photos - though it turned out I didn't have all the necessary photos - no photo of how the side seams lay.

I sent a lot of photos to Helen. I indicated the problems I was having and suggested changes - largely providing more fabric and therefore more support. I think I anticipated some objection to my suggested changes. That didn't happen.

I came to some decisions and can’t afford to change direction now. I have to get on with it! No more procrastinating by writing blog posts!!

Last night, I went to Dan’s sewing bee.  Of course, no Alison but I was able to take the photos.

I was keen to get advice on how to deal with the problems. Interestingly,  once again the bodice waistline was a bit low - I seem to have difficulty working out where the waistline should be.

The shoulders were falling off the shoulder line and I thought this was entirely due to lack of support - however,  Dan showed me that the shoulder was too wide in the first place. She also recommended a change in the design lines.

We also discussed how to construct the facings and generally make up the dress.

So, I'm going back to the original toile - it was too difficult to start to work with a partly altered one. I got confused almost instantly. Despite having to remake all the alterations made previously, it's worth it. So - alter shoulder width, alter neck width, add fabric to back, shorten bodice,  modify design lines. Make facings. Quite a number of changes!  

After the class, I had a telephone discussion with Helen and I feel a lot happier - not despondent about going back to the original block. I'm visiting the girls in 3 weeks or so and hope to have a full working toile in an appropriate fabric made up by then. I have 3 sewing bees with Dan between now and then for any further advice I need.

On another note,  Helen told me that she successfully wore the tartan pleated skirt I made just before Christmas to a Burns Supper. Final blog post with photos here

Naturally she wasn't wearing her Christmas hat and slipper socks!

Okay - quick sewing room tidy (I have been working on it, honest!) then I need to get things ready for golf tomorrow - I'm feeling better enough to try a few holes, I hope (and maybe a few on Saturday if I survive!) - then a teams bridge match at my house tomorrow afternoon. I'm back at college on Thursday evening but hopefully might get some sewing done on Friday - unless we go to Bowes Museum to see a couple of exhibitions there - we postponed from a couple of weeks ago as I was ill. This weekend can be sewing, certainly

Solved! Somehow I've started following myself and want to stop!

Okay, I love followers and love comments but I draw the line at following myself!  I don't know how it happened - it certainly wasn't deliberate.  This morning I got an email giving me further blog suggestions, similar to my own, which I had somehow started following.

It's interesting, however,  to see how my blog looks on Bloglovin. Big photos don't work as they're out of focus. I've seen that on Bloglovin before - the photos are fine if you click through to the original blog post.  I'll stick to medium in future,  though.

Anyway,  I tried to unfollow me but that's not an option - the icon against my name is to follow me rather than unfollow me!
I don't know if it's confused because I use two email addresses and multiple devices.

Do you have any advice?

Do please comment.

Thank you. Anne

Update - sorted out. Thanks,  Marianne. I still don't know why it happened in the first place,  though!

Weekend in London; Fabrics of India, Fabric browsing in Soho, Liberty in Fashion

Fabrics of India

Last Friday David and I travelled down to London by train and visited the Fabrics of India exhibition in the Victorian and Albert Museum. We also intended seeing the Julia Margaret Cameron exhibition. In the end only David saw that as I spent a lot longer in the Fabrics of India exhibition than I thought I would. The JMC exhibition consisted of her portraits of famous people and showed how she managed to master and move beyond the technical aspects of photography while it was still at a very early stage in the mid to late 1800s.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Fabrics of India exhibition. I won't completely review the exhibition here - for one thing, it has now ended and others have already adequately reviewed it (see for example Kate at Fabrickated). The exhibition was more extensive than I realised and so I spent a long time there. It was very busy which is a disadvantage of going at the time I did.

The exhibition,  and the accompanying book,  set out to provide an overview of the textiles of India (using the term India in its previous very wide sense to include many parts of Asia). The V & A hold the greatest collection of Indian textiles in the world but had never held an exhibition (not had anyone else);  indeed many textiles in the exhibition had been brought out of storage for the first time ever since they were acquired in the 19th century!  One piece of textile on display had never been unwrapped - not even yet.

The textiles included pieces that I associate with India but the range was much wider. As well as very old pieces,  over 1000 years old, there was covering of modern Indian designers - who often design in collaboration with European designers or fashion houses.

So too did the exhibition cover the impact of textiles on culture and politics within India and way beyond its borders (see too Kate's post) 

The fabric that I will likely use for my MOB , a dupion silk,  was brought back from India for me by my friend Veena.  She took a piece of David's tartan and tried to match/tone the blue in it as I wanted to highlight that colour in the kilt rather than clashing completely!  She brought me two blue dupion silks,  one green (also in the tartan) shot silk and a purply blue and green saree. I look forward to using all of these fabrics.

(This is not a photo of my actual fabric,  rather a photo from Wikipedia as is definition;  my fabric is more of a cobalt /electric blue) 
Dupioni (also referred to as Douppioni or Dupion) is a plain weave crisp type of silk fabric, produced by using fine thread in the warp and uneven thread reeled from two or more entangled cocoons in the weft.

I wasn't able to take photographs but I did buy the exhibition book which has lovely photos of the exhibits and the explanations. There were a few film clips including one on indigo dyeing (I thought of Kate then), one on embroidery and one on printing block cutting. David and I have become interested in fabric printing since having some fabric printed. I wanted David to write about that process but he probably won't do so, so I may, at a later date. I was also very interested in the process of Ikat, particularly double Ikat - I couldn't believe how complex these patterns were. Likewise,  I thought I knew what ‘tie dyeing’ was - didn't we all try that in the 70s? However, the textiles we saw had such amazing complexity that I would never had guessed this was the process. There was also an amazing embroidery technique - unfortunately I forget the name and can't find it in the book, so far,  at least. The first section of the exhibition,  covering the materials and the making of them was far and away the bit I liked best.

Fabric shopping

I was staying with my daughter Helen and future son in law A in their new flat in east London. They’ve just had the kitchen replaced and a partial wall knocked down and are very pleased with the result though they have some way to go before they have completed all they want to do. We hadn’t  seen the flat and they were excited to show it off. We loved what they've done.

Our plan was to fabric scope/shop on Saturday in Soho,  before moving onto Joel and Sons and then Goldhawk Road  for some cheaper practice fabrics. I'm making A a waistcoat and he wanted to choose the fabric and is also involved in the choice of fabric for the bridesmaids. This meant he ended up being with us for rather longer than I'd hoped and we got less done than we wanted. Mind you, Helen and I were both somewhat ill so that didn't help! We didn't buy the final fabrics but have a fair idea of what they will be. We didn't get to Joel and Sons but H will visit there on Saturday coming. I bought some  fabric potentially for my backup MOB outfit, though I found it didn't really work for what I had in mind after I got it home, so I've abandoned that idea. More fabric in the stash.

Liberty in Fashion Exhibition

On Sunday I was originally travelling back early to allow H and A to get on with their decorating. However, I saw that there was a Liberty in Fashion exhibition on at the Fashion and Textiles Museum and decided to go on Sunday and get a later train home (David had to go home on Friday night - I had an open ticket). Helen decided she would come with me.

Kate has also covered this exhibition in two posts ( here and here)  so again I won't go into it in any detail. Liberty has had a large contribution to British fashion,  both in its own work and its impact on the work of other designers and this exhibition celebrated that,  showing the evolution of design, patterns and colour by era.

I was able to take photos (only on my phone and without flash so they're not great I'm afraid)  and with some of the exhibits,  I could get really close and personal looking at design and construction detail. I appreciate that though I'm not a great Liberty fan though the fabric I bought,  mentioned earlier,  was a Liberty lawn.

A had gone overnight to a function in Cambridge but was due back for lunch;  at that point we were going to show him the lining we bought for his waistcoat and some additional samples of bridesmaid dress silk fabric from Goldhawk Road, bought on Saturday. However,  the exhibition was smaller than I thought and it took us less time to go around so I decided to go home without meeting A for lunch. The train journey was busy and an hour longer than usual because of engineering works, all I didn't want to hang around longer than necessary.

All in all a nice weekend. But it's always nice to get home!