just a couple of things

I’ve been meaning to mention:

After writing about station bars a few weeks ago, I felt compelled to visit the one at Manchester Victoria for old times sake. The view above eye level was just how I remembered it. Below, though, I encountered the evil Pumpkin. When I asked the barman if he had any ale on draught, he rolled his eyes and pointed to the bottles of Newky Brown in the fridge. Oh dear. The Centurion this was not. Thankyou, Lisa, for the link to this article, which sums up the sad situation in this beautiful space.

Also, following on from my chat with the marvelous Mrs Sew and Sew, I had to show you this fabric design I discovered in Drucilla Cole’s 1000 Patterns book. Look closely: those ’66’s refer to the annual ration allowance of clothing coupons, and the numbers beside each garment (ostensibly) refer to their respective coupon-cost. If the design is from the ’40s (as a reference in Cole’s book suggests) then this jolly fabric would itself have carried a cost in coupons . . . Cole doesn’t say much about it (her very good book is mostly an exposition of pattern design) and I am very intrigued by this fabric. If anyone knows anything at all about it, I’d be very interested to hear.

Thanks for all your entries in the bee-bag giveaway — I was particularly excited to see the comments of those who actually keep bees. How I wish they allowed hives on the allotment . . .

Katherine Emtage at Concrete Wardrobe

On Saturday evening, Mel and I popped in to the opening of the Spring collection at Concrete Wardrobe. I can’t believe I’ve not mentioned Concrete Wardrobe here before. It is certainly the best place in Edinburgh, and probably the best place in Scotland, to discover all kinds of original things both beautiful and useful from a wide range of superb designer-makers who are all either Scottish born or Scottish trained. Concrete Wardrobe is owned and managed by the very talented James Donald and Fiona McIntosh, and one of the (many) great things that they do is to support and promote the work of young designer-makers, like Katherine Emtage, who is currently their Maker of the Month. Here is Katherine celebrating her opening.

Katherine works with Scottish tweed (Harris, Borders, Mull) to create fabulous — and very contemporary — bags and accessories. One of the first things you sense about her work is that she has a genuine feel for her chosen fabric, and the intriguing possibilities of colour and texture it affords. The way she folds, gathers and quilts the surfaces of her bags not only make them uniquely sculptural, but really showcases the subtle depths of colour so characteristic of handwoven Scottish tweed. Here the waves, pods, and shadows created by the quilting make an apparently solid teal fabric flicker into life with the blues, pinks and yellows of its original individual threads.

While this quilted tote quietly demanded to be felt, some of Katherine’s other designs are much more flamboyantly tactile, like this next handbag, with its uber-feminine excess:

Katherine’s designs really make tweed tasty. Indeed, the sensory metaphors suggested by her careful and thoughtful manipulation of fabric were confirmed by the manner of their display in Concrete Wardrobe: her tweed accessories were set out on cake stands like tempting, edible treats . . .

delicious!

I love Katherine’s designs: some of her bags are modest and subtle, some are bold and exuberant, but all are playfully original. I had never associated roses and apples with tweed before, but now I do.

Get down to Concrete Wardrobe and see for yourself!

out with the old

You may remember that a year ago I decided to stop buying clothes for the duration of 2008. My decision to do this was sparked by a couple of things. I had been reading a bit about darning and mending and wanted to think about what repairing and caring for one’s clothes meant. Also, since I heard this very-well researched series of documentaries on the BBC world service, I had been increasingly bothered by textile waste — the sheer amounts of it, as well as the complicated politics of its disposal. I then had a moment of utter revulsion after seeing Florence and Fred’s Affordable Elegance advertisements, in which the disposability of the 20 quid dresses they had designed for Tesco’s was “cleverly” celebrated.

(textile waste now makes up 30% of rubbish destined for UK landfill sites)

The year is up, and here’s my summary of the project: During 2008 I have fashioned or refashioned for myself 7 tops, 5 skirts, 4 dresses, 3 sweaters, 3 pairs of socks, 2 shrugs, 2 cardigans, 2 hats, 1 shawl, 1 coat, 1 maud, 1 tank top, 1 jacket, 1 pair of gloves, and 1 scarf. Additionally, I have repaired and re-repaired the sleeves of sweaters, the seats of pants, the hems of coats, the heels of socks, the tops of mittens, and the feet of stockings. I made lots of things from patterns and kits and in doing so, have participated, in a vicarious sort of a way, in the design process of some really talented people. I also designed several items of clothing for myself from scratch, and have encountered my own limits and shortcomings along the way. This year of stitching and knitting and learning has been both enjoyable and thought provoking. It has certainly changed the way I think about the making, consumption and meaning of worn textiles.

(clothing myself in 2008)

Despite the apparently prohibitive terms I set myself (“you will not buy clothes”) this project was never about denial. As you may have gathered, I am someone who loves clothes. I mean, I really love clothes. The things I wear are a source of tremendous pleasure for me, and I regard dressing up in them (however foolishly) as a sort of creative act. So I was not about to deny myself that pleasure or that creativity, but rather wanted to think about focusing it a little differently. One other thing that the project was not was generically anti-consumerist. For I am undeniably a consumer. I exchange money for stuff. I do not regard The Commodity as the root of all evil and in fact I think that commerce — of ideas and words as well as things — is generally a very necessary good. So I did not deny myself the pleasure of clothes, nor did I cease to be a consumer. I bought notions and fabric and quite a lot of yarn. I continued to cut pictures out of magazines, read about fashion history, and dream about the qualities of fabric, and the possibilities of different outfits, just as I had done before. Raw materials, ideas and images continued to be rich sources of inspiration and enjoyment to me. And I had many, many clothes already. To be frank, I had no need of any more. But if there was something that I wanted, as opposed to needed, I would have to think about how to make it, about where the stuff to make it was coming from, and then about how to sew or knit it up for myself. So, in fact, the only thing that I stopped doing this year was spending a lot of time in shops, and buying a lot of clothes in them. And I can honestly say that I’ve not missed this in the slightest.

(handsome Romney. Diamonds Farm. Horam, East Sussex)

What I started rather than stopped doing over the course of the year is much more interesting (well, it is to me at least). Of course, I made things, and I thought about what I was doing when I was making them. But additionally, I also visited farms, crofts, mills and other businesses where fibre is spun, dyed, and woven into cloth. I have learnt how fabric is produced from animal or plant to finished garment, how and where it is sold, to whom, and why. My love of finished textiles has developed into an interest in the process of their production, and the history of those processes. I’ve started thinking in a new way about the importance of textiles to different local economies; about the provenance of materials; about how Britain’s regional fabric is a very literal thing; and about the ways in which different national, local and global histories are all woven up in, and told through, textiles. I’ve also met and learnt from lots of wonderful people who live and work with fibre and fabric. Through this, I have also started to regard the value of textiles very differently indeed.

Clothes are not cheap. Time and care and labour are all expended in the rearing of a British sheep, but the three pence the farmer receives for the fleece makes it hardly worth the shearing. At the other end of the production-consumption chain, 2 million tonnes of largely man-made textile waste is discarded in Britain every year. The quality of this stuff is so low that charity shops cannot re-sell it, and laudable schemes like Oxfam’s wastesaver find it difficult to re-use or recycle. Our cheaply bought and easily discarded textiles swell mountains of domestic landfill, or are exported in containers for other countries to deal with. In the Czech Republic, for example, the outbuildings of former collective farms are now filled, floor to ceiling, with Western Europe’s abandoned clothing. Meanwhile, in Sri Lanka, adults and children suffer the indignity and poverty brought by brutal employment practices that we should more accurately term indenture or slavery. And all to make a mountain of transitory crap that is daily bought and thrown away.

(Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani) exchanges his bed linen for his bike in the Bicycle Thieves)

Now, I am not making any great claims for myself here. I know that my 2008 make-your-own project was an exploratory luxury. While I could go on about how I have learnt new things about production, process, and materiality, I also know that fundamentally, this is the politics of luxury: of someone who has enough disposable income to spend on yarn and fabric, and enough leisure time to make things and (crucially) to enjoy making them. People do not have the time or money for such luxuries, and they certainly still need cheap textiles. But we also need textiles of durable, lasting quality. We aren’t pawning our good bedlinen (as in the Bicycle Thieves), we are chucking it out and buying another flimsy ten-pound duvet cover whose seams were sewn up by an impoverished ten-year-old on the Indian subcontinent. A recent consumer survey for Asda has apparently shown that supermarket shoppers now value durability as much as price where clothing is concerned. Asda is now changing its “George” ranges to reflect this shift in priorities. Wouldn’t it be nice if they added a guarantee of fair, non-exploitative labour into this mix?

I want to conclude with some inconclusive remarks about mending and representing mending. I’ve been doing a lot of darning this year, and have become very interested in the care and repair of clothes, as well as in the way that mended and re-made textiles are such rich repositories of personal and cultural memory. A lot of really good British artists are interested in this as well. I particularly admire, for example, Kirsty Hall, Celia Pym and Tabitha Moses, who all use the processes of mending or repair to explore the evocative and ritual nature of textiles. The work of these artists is rich with thought and meaning. But their practice is now one of the only ways, it seems to me, that contemporary audiences can look at made and mended things as public objects upon which to think and reflect. And sometimes, I am a little troubled by how the only way to approach the acts of women and men that were once quotidian and exceptionally ordinary is through extraordinary forms of representation, such as those that art affords. While the work of the three artists I mentioned is without exception, truly brilliant, there are certainly many other art practitioners whose work does little more than decontextualise familiar household textiles and the practices associated with them to very little end. I am naming no names, because this is something I am still thinking about . . . but I am wondering . . . could there be another way? Or if this is just a matter of there being Bad and Good textile art, as with any other form of art or practice. Anyway, there’s something to mull over further. (Any thoughts on this issue appreciated).

Scrap of linen check (1759) used to identify foundling number 13169. (London Metropolitan Archives)

Making and mending my own clothes will continue in 2009, as will the thinking about the making. But I might just have to buy myself the odd pair of pants, and also hope to have a bit more time for some other truly luxuriant crafty things that I enjoy and have not done much of in 2008 — in particular, embroidery. I also have a new and exciting year-long project for 2009. More on this — and on my lovely trip to Islay — anon.

oi!

No peeking! Yes you! You know who you are! You said you wouldn’t look! . . .

Actually, those who I’ve placed under a three-day blog embargo are good at keeping their promises, and if I don’t blog this now I probably never will.

The seasonal craft wagon trundles ever onwards. Very soon, it will grind to a halt, and so, my dears, shall I. For I have been making gift-stuff for what seems like an aeon. Ties! mittens! hats! cowls! You know the drill: every year I promise myself that I won’t get in this situation. I will begin in June, or I will just turn out fewer things. But somehow, whatever plans I make, these days toward the end of December always end up as variations on a theme. How well I remember the horror of arising before dawn one Christmas morning to seam up a man-cardigan. What seasonal fun ensued when when we realised it was a garment only Mr Tickle would have been proud to wear. A monumental cardigan! ho ho ho! This year there will be no knitting disasters, but I may well start to dream in cushion.

In this endless parade of log-cabin thingumabobs, I seem to have devised my very own version of Psyche’s tasks. Can I stop making them now? Please? Can I? Anyway, if you are female, or under 10, and in some way related to me, one of these babies will appear in your stocking. Unless, that is, I perpetrate a grim and unseasonal act of anti-cushion violence. I can’t actually rule this out. . . .

Henry Moore Textiles

It has been a very busy week! But one of its real highlights was visiting the newly refurbished Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh with my friend Melanie, and seeing their superb exhibition of Henry Moore’s textiles. Looking at his designs, and the 1940s upholstery and clothing fashioned from them, I got about as excited as I’ve ever been in an exhibition space. I’ve been thinking about, and experimenting with, fabric printing, and Moore’s notebooks and swatches made me consider process in a very different way. And his designs — structural, energetic, and surprisingly colourful — are also wonderful, democratic works of art.

(Barbed wire. Ascher c.1946. © Henry Moore Foundation.)

Moore’s little-known textile designs really capture his socialist principles. For he felt that art should also be the everyday, might be appreciated by all, and could enrich everyone’s experience of both domestic and public space. Many of his designs feature abstractions of the small wonders of industrial design — the humble safety pin, for example — and celebrate modern daily life in a manner both exuberant and idiosyncratic.

(Treble clef, Zigzag, and Oval Safety Pins. Ascher 1946-7. Ascher Collection. © Henry Moore Foundation)

Moore produced many of these textiles for Czech exile Zika Ascher when war-time travel restrictions separated him from work on his large sculptures. Though the scale and medium of the designs could not be further from that of Moore’s enormous bronzes, the particular techniques he used, as well as the repeating motifs on Ascher’s finished rayon fabric, show a highly sculptural approach to form.

(Family Group. Bronze Maquette and headscarf. 1945. Photograph Matt Pia. © Henry Moore Foundation)

Moore used a combination of wax crayons, pen and ink, gouache, and different watercolour washes to draw out and highlight his designs. The finished effect, when transferred by Ascher into screen-printed motifs, is full of depth and texture. Both Melanie and I were transfixed by Moore’s Family Group design, which was displayed alongside his familiar bronze maquette. Seen separately, the various motifs each seemed to convey a slightly different visual approach to the bronze’s organic forms. But, as images on fabric — repeated motifs busy with light and movement — they also suggest a process of reduction and abstraction that the finished bronze does not convey. This design made me think differently about both screen printing and sculpture.

(Irina Moore making curtains from Moore’s design, “Horses Head and Boomerang.” Photograph E.G Malidine. © Henry Moore Foundation.)

Seeing Moore’s designs being actually worn by women — in the form of neatly tailored dresses and ubiquitous 1940s headscarves — was just amazing. There were also some fantastic domestic interiors, featuring upholstery, bedspreads, and curtains, such as those being sewn by Irina Moore in the photograph above. These fabrics suggested something distinctively modern about both Moore and Britain in the years immediately following the Second World War. In his designs you can read the dogged optimism of the era of the welfare state and the Festival of Britain, as well as the laudable desire to combine high culture with industrial design — to put public art to use in the service of the everyday.

Anita Feldman and Sue Pritchard have produced this book to accompany their wonderfully curated exhibition. I highly recommend it.
See the Henry Moore Foundation website for further information about Moore and the exhibition.

instructional

Thanks very much, everyone, for all your printing tips and suggestions! I’ve ordered the books Kirsty recommended, as a sort of modern supplement to my Dryad Handicrafts Leaflets, which I immersed myself in again last night. Any of you who have encountered the Dryad leaflets will know that there is a particular joy in reading them, which comes from the way their authors combine a seriousness of approach with a genuine pleasure in their craft. The prose is also just wonderful. Last night I particularly enjoyed the account of potato printing in leaflet no. 57 which begins: “Select a crisp and closely grained potato . . .” and concludes: “the slight irregularities which come from the softer nature of the potato are by no means unpleasant.” But my favourite read was leaflet no.146, “Wood Engraving,” written by the aptly-named Douglas P Bliss. Here is a man who quite simply adores wood engraving, and wants the beginner-engraver to adore it too. He waxes lyrical about the history and practice of engraving, and the “quite remarkable pleasure of working with well-ground tools and a fine box-wood block.” He is also keen to assure the reader of his craft’s ease and portability: “You can put all your tackle into a small box, clear off to the country, if you so desire, and get on with your engraving snugly there. This writer has engraved blocks in the public room of a hotel in the Isle of Barra in the Outer Hebrides.” How can you argue with a man who takes his craft down the pub? Seriously, I HEART Douglas P. Bliss.

Another great thing about the Dryad leaflets, as Jeanette pointed out yesterday, is their suggestions for simple pattern repeats for the novice block cutter and printer. Their designs are all bold lines and primary colours and are very pleasing indeed. Heres another one

and . . .

oops, how did that ram get in there?

more printing experiments next weekend, I hope.

indigo

I have really enjoyed seeing the wonderful printed fabrics Jesse exchanged and received in her swatch swap (flickr group here), and I really wanted to participate. But I’ve never printed fabric before, let alone cut out a lino block (eek), so I thought I’d approach things from a rather basic level first, using a rubber stamp. I bought some fabric paint and plain, medium weight calico, and had a go yesterday with a stamp I acquired in a set of stationery.

It took me a while to discover the right proportion of paint to block, and a little longer to think through the block spacing, but soon I was printing away very happily. I found the look and colour of the final printed fabric very pleasing: I like blue on white generally, but indigo on calico is a winning combination. It recalls, for me, the very particular look of American nineteenth-century household linens. When I see an indigo printed fabric, in fact, I tend to think of Deborah Norris Logan (notable for many things, including her design of a wonderful indigo print that I had the pleasure of seeing here)

After drying and fixing the print overnight, I made a few kitchen things with the fabric this morning: above, a place mat; below, a tea towel.

I made a few napkins too.
Much as I like these indigo butterflies (and I do) I really want to try cutting and printing my own design. There are good instructions for this sort of thing in my trusty collection of Dryad Handicraft Leaflets, but, as I am such a novice, I wondered if you had any suggestions for me (particularly as regards materials). Should I just start with a homely potato and work my way up from there?

all change

Today I put away my summer clothes, and removed the winter ones from storage. I always find it a bit depressing having to encounter the berloody tights again . . . but it is nice to see warm winter dresses, sweaters, and coats. Anyway, before I pack the summer stuff away, I thought I’d show you various garments I sewed and knit myself over the past few months which, for one reason or another, I didn’t get a chance to blog about. You will note that there is something of a red theme going on — this wasn’t intentional! And apologies for what’s going to be a rather picture-heavy post.

1. Dotty Dress.

I was finishing the lining of this dress when I wrote this post back in June. I was reasonably pleased with how it turned out, so don’t know why I didn’t blog about the process more. It is a “very easy” Vogue pattern (V8319) and was reasonably straightforward — as I recall, it only took a few evenings to make. The only downside about the dress is that it came out slightly large. I was nervy about the rep Vogue patterns have of running small, so made myself the next size up. And then the dress was difficult to take in after I’d finished because of the precise way the body and cap sleeves taper together. But I am being pernickety – it is not too baggy, and I like the pattern very much. I may use it to make myself a winter dress –in the right size this time. I bought the pleasing dotty fabric from here — a site that I try not to look at too often as their stuff is just too damn tempting. Heres another picture. You can blame Tom for the hysterical gurning and throwing of shapes.

next up we have:
2. Boat skirt

I made this back in early June, using some Cath Kidston furnishing fabric I’d been given and some lovely red grossgrain ribbon I received in the badge swap (thankyou, Philippa!). I followed the basic instructions in this book, adding lining and facings to the formula. Its a good fit, quite sporty. I like this skirt very much and have worn it lots over the past couple of months.

And another skirt:
3. Summer swallows skirt.

I bought this Japanese fabric as a birthday treat to myself from the wonderful Rosa Pomar, whose stock is always so lovely — top quality and exceptionally well chosen. I like skirts like this with a lot of fabric — the width of the bottom is about three times that of the top. To make it, I just followed the instructions for a basic pleated skirt in this book, adding facings to the formula to make the skirt hang a bit better. I spent a long time matching up the waves and swallows on the pleats — this was well-worth the effort I think. Finally, I found some wide, black, broderie anglais edging on ebay, and added this to the bottom. Bingo! A skirt for wearing with a sticky-out petticoat underneath. And though its perhaps more of a summer garment, these swallows are going to hang around for winter too.

And finally:
4. Mary Traynor

I knitted this little top while hanging around in hospitals, waiting for surgeons and physiotherapists to finish doing what they were doing to Tom’s hand. The yarn is so lovely to work with — it was quite a comforting thing to have in one’s hands. Mary Traynor was my maternal grandmother — a champion knitter who spent every summer in lacy tops of her own making. She is to blame for my knitting, and lacy summer tops remind me very much of her.

The top is my own design: bottom-up, in-the-round raglan; spiral shell lace pattern; crocheted edging. It took just one skein of ornkney angora 4 ply. That’s right folks! Just 50g!

I love this yarn so much — so light and sugary, and it knits up a dream. The finished top turned out well, but it is wee — almost too wee. My thursday night knitting comrades laughed heartily at the size of it when they saw me making it — the combination of the lace pattern and a 40cm circular needle meant it looked contracted and near-dollsize, but it blocked out nicely, and does fit me — just. Here it is being blown around on the promenade near Funchal.

ye gods, was that really just last week? The weather is so crisp and autumnal here that Madeira seems a world away. So, anyway:

Design: Mary Traynor (my own pattern)
Yarn: Orkney Angora 4 ply. Red. One skein. Ysolda, and her lovely beret, are to blame for my yarn choice.
needles: 4mm addi turbos
ravelled here

Swapping round the warm- and cold-weather wardrobes has reminded me just how many berloody clothes I own, and that, aside from the occasional pair of tights (groan) that I really do not need to buy any more. I’ve found real pleasure in making and wearing all the things I’ve sewn and knitted so far this year, and am looking forward to revamping my wardrobe with handmade items this winter — tweed suits and knitted dresses, here we come.

And for those of you who were kindly asking after Tom: things are starting to improve. Madeira really did wonders for the healing process: he was told the other day by the woman we call “badphysio” that he was doing remarkably well “for his age”. (Note: we only call her badphysio because she’s rather dour and hardchrist, not because she’s at all bad at her job). The poor hand is still incredibly painful–now the tendons have healed, they have to be stretched and punished to prevent him having a claw. He has no feeling in the fingers, and the injuries are still rather fragile. But the evil splint can now be taken off during the day, and he is allowed to go running and hill walking again. This is very good news indeed.

tourist

“. . .as this place differs so vastly from anything thou hast ever seen, I make no doubt thou will be agreeably entertained with the many romantic prospects, whimsical houses, pleasant cool gardens, and amazing precipices. . .” (Deborah Hill to her son Richard, Funchal, Madeira, May 1st, 1743)

My only previous experience of Madeira was through the letters of Deborah Hill and her relatives — eighteenth-century Quakers who, like many other merchant families of their class, made their fortunes in the transatlantic wine trade. Though they are more than 250 years old, Deborah Hill’s letters still convey an accurate impression of Madeira — both in terms of the insistent presence of the British on the island, as well as it’s “romantic prospects and amazing precipices.”

Our idea was to enjoy these prospects through some serious mountain and levada walking (the levadas are an incredible architectural system of canals criss-crossing the island and carrying water from the cloud-capped mountaintops down to the vineyards and plantations) but Tom’s accident rather scuppered these plans. So instead we engaged in some less precipitous but no less restorative activities — involving lots of sunshine, tasty food, low-level walking, and (for me) lots of swimming too.

We really enjoyed Madeira’s colourful fauna . . .

. . . and flora

. . .and I have a fondness, bordering on an obsession, with Portuguese cuisine. There are many, many things I like about it (tisanes, for example — the Portuguese make a fine cup of tea) but my two favourite things are grilled sardines and custard tarts (pasteis de nata). I tend not to consume these items simultaneously, (though who knows what I might do in a moment of gastronomic over-excitement) but I did manage to eat both on a number of separate occasions while we were away.

(tasty grilled sardines at O Barqueiro. So very good — I bored Tom with sardine raptures for days)

(you see here several varieties of pasteis — coconut, walnut, apple, almond– but the custards, pictured to the top right in the first photo, are my confirmed favourite)

The range and quality of fresh Madeiran produce is really amazing. I shan’t go on about the four different varieties of passion fruit we tried or the wonderful straight bananas, but certainly our Scottish neeps and tatties were made to seem rather dull and prosaic in the face of such abundance.

(farmer’s market in Funchal)

Being sedentary sunshine tourists was a new experience for Tom and I — our holidays are usually a bit more, um, strenuous, and are spent in Britain or Ireland. I am not really very fond of being a Brit abroad, and I find it particularly weird and difficult somewhere like Madeira or the Caribbean, where there is evidence of the British exploitation of local resources and labour everywhere you look (I’m thinking of eighteenth/nineteenth-century commerce as well as contemporary tourism). It is perhaps possible to assuage such cultural-imperialist guilt through an appreciation of – and engagement with – a foreign landscape, such as that which one gets from walking. But it is hard to throw off one’s tourist-ness when one cannot get up into the mountains. And it is well-nigh impossible to stop feeling like a guilty British tourist when one is surrounded by large numbers of other tourists — dare I say it — of a certain age.

I do not often spend much time with large groups of British octogenarians, and I don’t wish to sound churlish or mean, but there are a few observations about their group behaviour that unavoidably and repeatedly strike one in such situations. The first is just how berloody grumpy they can be. This constitutional grumpiness seems to lead them to assume that, even in the peaceful, beautiful and near-idyllic settings Madeira affords, that everyone else is having a slightly better time than they are. In a restaurant full of elderly British tourists you can literally feel the pairs of beady eyes darting about suspiciously: did those people get served before me? Are they perhaps sat at a better table? Another impulse, closely associated with the assumption that everyone else is having a Slightly Better Time Than You is to ensure that you are Having the Best Time You Possibly Can Under the Circumstances. This impulse leads individuals whose usual pace is probably under half a mile an hour to move at incredible speed when it comes to being the first on a bus. Normally, this would have amused me, but it was actually rather stressful when accompanied by someone with a still painful, serious and rather fragile injury. I was strongly put in mind of comments toward the end of this post in which a heavily pregnant person is repeatedly bombarded by a marauding elderly mob eager to get to the quilting fabric.

Still, being a tourist has its benefits — one of which is being able to acquire a couple of metres of some superbly cheesy, but also pleasing, fabric that only a tourist would buy.

Do you think I can get away with wearing a skirt made from this stuff? I do hope so.

More about Madeiran embroidery tomorrow.

birdie

I almost fell off the not-buying-clothing wagon — I purchased fabric and notions in a kit, which one cuts out and sews at home. Does this count? Nearly, but not quite, I reckon. Anyway, said kit came from Clothkits. I remember the original Clothkits very clearly from when I was a kid. Ma made a lot of our clothes back then, and while I’m pretty sure that none of them were ‘actual’ clothkits, there were certainly a lot of their catalogues hanging around being oohed and aahed over. (You can get a flavour of the full-on 70s feel of their garments here .)

Anyway my clothkit skirt arrived this morning. Wot a treat. I was in near raptures when I opened the package. Its just so bloody tasty. I had to make it up right away. The pieces are printed directly onto the fabric:

and it comes with zip, thread, instructions and a Liberty print lining:

The instructions were very clear and straightforward. In just a few hours, I had a skirt. This skirt made me seriously happy making it (so satisfying). And yet I am (if possible) even happier wearing it. It is a very jolly skirt. Just check out the lining and facing:

how jolly are those buggies on the lining?

Anyway, we just went out for a pint (to what, to my mind, is the best pub in Edinburgh — and also, happily, my local) and I got Mr B to take some pics. Here is the skirt from the front:

And the side:

and the whole shebang:

How nice to have lovely, long, light, Scottish evenings again.

So I heartily recommend the big-birdie. The pattern covers a good range of (5) sizes, and is a good fit; the fabric amounts were generous, and the instructions completely failsafe (I inserted zip, and attached facings and lining without breaking into a sweat or (what’s more usual) making some sort of bobbly, wobbly, rumply mess). But it’s the quality of the fabric and design that really swings it for me — a super matt baby-cord cotton exterior, a very appealing print by the wonderful Jane Foster, and a tana lawn lining. And everything made and printed in the UK.