The Bath Crafting Cranny

Marion Foale talk

Alas, I can't make it - but there's a fabulous talk coming up by Marion Foale at Milsom Place.

If you go, please report back or write something up for this space! :)

Wool and the Cumbrian floods of 2009

I was listening to this Radio 4 programme earlier today...can it really be nearly a year since the floods hit? It made heartbreaking listening :(

There is talk of a surreal situation whereby the stock of a small wool shop (located near to the point where the river banks broke) was flooded out, unravelled and tied the entire town together.

Apparently it caused problems as it hindered the rescue boats but, in a sense, the imagery of the whole town being physically bound together (as it must have been in spirit) is quite lovely.

Thimble pie, anyone?

I've been browsing a friend's vintage sewing and knitting magazines today - had a happy lazy Sunday here.

Thought you might also like this recipe I spotted for a thimble pie...what a lovely idea! :0)

(If you are in a baking mood, click on the image to enlarge and read...)

 

Seamstress/tailor job vacancy

For any of you nifty needlers out there looking for work!

EXPO: Fashion Fantasies: fashion plates and fashion satire, 1775-1925

I always pop to the V&A when I'm east - even just to potter about the beautiful corridors, gaze at the wonderful Victorian toilet tiles (left) or have a coffee in the Gamble Room (right). The Fashion & Jewellery collections are vast and exquisite [but will be shut from mid-Nov 2010 til Spring 2012!!! :( ]. 

Whilst we were there we saw the 'Fashion Fantasies: fashion plates and fashion satire, 1775-1925' expo. (I had to ask 3 members of staff where it was as no-one seemed to know...so I guess it's not that popular - but it's a wee gem in my opinion! It's in Leighton, room 102 (which is acutally a corridor).)

A lovely little collection of satirical fashion giggles - here is my favourite:

Punch kept a long-running campaign against the crinoline, claiming it was an example of female frivolity and excess. Here a fashionable woman confronted by the ghost of the over-worked seamstress who stitched her enormous and elaborate dress. [The Haunted Lady, John Tenniel (1820-1914)]

Legs with attitude

Brilliant idea! From a Spanish company, but now available in English...

Fashion fun

Me and Him Outdoors are off to London Town this weekend (to see this and eat our body weight in macarons from here) but I'm making time to pop into the Fashion and Texile Museum to see the expo about Horrockses Fashions Limited. I am, needlesstosay, delighted...it is no secret that I am 1950s-bonkers...can't wait!

Another thing on my list is to see the expo on 'Fashion Fantasies: fashion plates and fashion satire, 1775-1925' at the V&A...will keep you posted.

Alas, with train tickets already booked, we are missing the Savile Row Field Day on Monday...am gutted!

Go if you can, please, and report back! It's on my list for next year, so I must be patient...

 

 

Cotton & textiles BBC programme

If you have a spare 90 mins, I'd really recommend watching this programme about this history of cotton and textiles: 'All Our Working Lives'. The first hour is a replay of the original 1980s episode, with the last 30 mins being an update of the years since.

Beware: it's remarkably moving. The footage of the men smashing up the unwanted weaving machines was almost too hard to watch...but then, as the daughter of a Lancashire man, it was always going to feel close to home for me...

It's astonishing to think some 700 miles of yarn were produced weekly at each mill back in the day: and all these mills were concentrated in a few square miles around the NW of England. 

(For those of you not able to watch it, I'll watch it again with a notepad and pencil and write it up here in due course...watch this space please..!)

Row counter and tape measure :)

Last year a lovely vintage row counter (inside this wee waxed-paper packet) came into my possession. It is my favourite colour (Cornishware blue) and had a teeny-tiny tape-measure in the middle of it...

Does it sound like an overreaction to say that it's transformed my life..? Never again will I be found rootling around the house for a ruler, or using the quirky thumb-joint-equals-an-inch trick on the train...

I cherish it dearly...