Happy New February

Hey folks,

We are well and truly into the new year now, and whilst we’ve all been trying to learn how to do winter again (why are we always surprised by the cold?) mostly working from home has been a real boon. January always makes me feel like I’m waiting for the year to happen and with lots of projects on the go at once I’ve had to work out which baskets need the most eggs.

So, what the heck have I been actually doing and what will 2012  look like for Our Josephine?

Well, I have been planning classes for the fantastic Vanilla Workshop, making felt wonders for children’s classes at Fringe and creating new classes for Liberty Sewing School including one for gentlemen. I’m also working away on top-secret exciting things that I’ll save for when they are real things and not just things I really hope will work out!

Ta’ra for now!

Our Josephine x

The Craft Rant Tweet

So folks, I’d just got in from workies and in keeping with tradition whizzed through my twitter feed to see what had occurred whilst I’d been enjoying to wonders of the wool shop.

Those of you who know me will have heard me banging on about the crafty world, the skills that I envy and the handmade things on sale that make me want to scream. In bed last night, following a satisfactory stint of embroidery, I was snooping around twitter and having  a look at what Christmas makes had been going on. In response to something I’d seen I tweeted:

“Agh! When will people stop making rubbish crafts! Just stop it! Do it properly or buy things from indie sellers who know what they’re at!”

I wouldn’t ever reveal what I was responding to, I am fully aware that my taste is not shared by everyone but I do think I am entitled to an opinion and again I don’t expect everyone to agree with me. So, I thought I should make my standpoint clear- then we call all talk about it, agree to disagree and get on with making what we want safe in the knowledge that the white elephant has been addressed.

We of course have to distinguish between crafting at home, for yourself and your kin and for peace of mind. This of course is brilliant and necessary and something I totally encourage when I teach and when I meet people who want to get in to making things. I have worked in an environment where creative activities were used as therapy and from personal experience I know that being able to create something is the best possible feeling when life isn’t going well.

I see it a bit like cooking. I have just had some homemade soup- it tasted nice, I’d feed it to my friends and family but I wouldn’t try to sell it. For me making anything is like that, there are things that I will make for myself etc but I wouldn’t sell or teach others to make- but seeing as it’s my job, there are things that I would and I always seek feedback to make sure I am teaching and making to the best of my ability.

When I first started out sewing I made some ungodly nonsense which I attempted to sell, it wasn’t great and people didn’t want what I made- a few years on anything I make to sell is given lots of thought, executed using skills that I have taken time to learn and sold at prices that reflect my work.

So, handmade is popular- this is a given. The handmade universe is vast, with people making terrific things and selling them, people making terrible things and selling them. The good handmade stuff is usually totally underpriced for the hours of work and design that has gone in, and the rubbish stuff is ten a penny and for me cheapens the whole experience. At the same time there are companies churning out products that are meant to look homespun but often just look like the result of a fight between stuffed fabric hearts and a hot glue gun.

If people insist on selling cheap looking tat or leading unfulfilling and slapdash craft workshops- people might stop making, and they might stop buying handmade and that would be awful.

That’s it- rant over, just don’t get me started on crafts on TV or magazines- gah!

Rag Rugging and Neighbourly Secateurs

Today I learned two things:

The first was how to make a rag rug.  If you’re a crafty person familiar with North London you might have had the pleasure of visiting Fringe@studio108. It is an ever growing creative hotspot which this month features an exhibition of the work of Emily Twomlow: a wonderful artist who produces tactile works of art including rag rugs inspired by nature, and using British wool and other materials including computer wire as embroidery thread! Today Fringe hosted a free drop-in workshop where Emily showed enthusiatic participants rag rugging techniques and, unable to resist learning a new skill, I joined in. Using recycled textiles, a hook or prodder and some hessian or holey cloth we worked fabric through the little holes, chatting away and feeling a general sense of peace that made it perfect for a Sunday afternoon; and I meandered home drinking a can of R Whites lemonade in the winter sunshine.

When I got home I wasn’t expecting to learn a thing- but lo! so it was that my decision to chop down some path-crossing twigs that had annoyed me for weeks caused me to find out something else: my neighbour is helpful.

There I was with my red-handled big Ikea scissors, hacking away at the offending branches and looking forward to a pot of tea when my neighbour came out. He was carrying things back and forth to his car and, following our first exchange of pleasantries, kept peering at what I was doing as he carried on his own work. Finally his inquisitive stares ceased and he presented me with a pair of secateurs. I love it when people are kind like this, all his noisy guitar practice is forgiven and I just hope he thinks I did a good enough job with them when he sees the hacked-back bushes beside the house.

If you like to learn things, then do come along to my new workshops – it feels brilliant to find something out and pass it on, and I am just as lovely as my secateur-giving neighbour. You can find my classes at Vanilla Workshop and Liberty – I can’t wait to get my sew on.

Ta’ra for now! x

New Classes for the Lasses (and the lads).

Psst… I should be doing my Rosemary Conley* fitness DVD  but I am far too impatient to wait to tell you all about the new classes I’ve come up with for Vanilla Workshop.

Firstly there is the Sewing Basics class, this all-dayer is going to be so much fun. For folk who don’t sew I’ll be making the world of stitchery make sense. They’ll be lots of information on the day about the proper way to do things and because I can’t help myself there will be the odd daft aside, oh and some great Christmas making tips that will give the festive season a homespun twist.

Then- for those who can sew and want to develop their skills into clothing splendour, there is my Beginners Dressmaking class.  Here keen stitchers will gain all the skills needed to make a lovely pair of pyjama bottoms and will get to grips with the pattern terminology that can be a bit daunting when you haven’t the foggiest what a dart is or where you should be aiming it. Again this class is an all-dayer, so they’ll be plenty of time for questions and many cups of tea.

I encourage you heartily to come along and unleash the sewing genius you know you really are- I am so excited I’m off to do my star jumps!

*Rosemary Conley is queen of the grapevine and my fitness guru.

‘Tis the season to be thirty.

Last weekend I welcomed in my thirties with a jolly party, some quality family time and talk of all the exciting projects for the year ahead.

Setting up a new home, and indeed the space where I work, meant I left my twenties having just drawn breath from sorting through lots of boxes and organising my fabric stash. Now on the cusp of the next big thing,  keeping my notebook and pencil close and looking for inspiration, I am mistress of my own time and slave to the Really channel.

I am so looking forward to getting back into teaching again, with classes at the splendid Vanilla Workshop in Greenwich and a happening little Christmas happening for Liberty Sewing School. I am thrilled at the prospect of meeting new people and passing on the sewing skills that make every day just a little more joyous. There will be links aplenty and much self promotion in the coming weeks.

Ta’ra for now!

West Ealing WI and a whole lot of new home joy.

This week has been a bit of a bonza one. On Monday I moved house and getting my priorities straight set about organising my new Our Josephine workroom- with the exception of a few boxes it is done and I am so pleased to have a whole heap of sewing projects in mind too for Sunday afternoons.

On Tuesday there was no time to dally as I had an important engagement. The ladies of the newly formed West Ealing WI had invited me to host an activity at their first meeting. If you’ve never been to a WI you won’t know that there are sometimes forms to be filled in- and as the wonderful attendees signed up for membership I fiddled about with fabrics.

Demonstrating how to make a simple corsage was terrific, West Ealing is one creative hub. Some folk brought their own fabrics and mixed with the Liberty prints I used every finished article was different. I am yet so see any of the snaps from the night, I was too busy having larks- but will of course stick up here when I do.

Next week sees the opening of Fringe @studio 108 and the Knit and Stitch show- so there will be a whole lot of handmade nonsense going on- keep your sewing kit close folks!

 

 

Moving, just keep moving.

I am supposed to be doing very important things, like organising my world of sewing stuff or employing the sewing stuff in the very useful pursuit of sample making. So, of course instead of those things I am writing to you.

Having had a few off days of not much shakin’ I have had a bonza day of much merriment and much charity and junk shop trawling. I think I am probably at my happiest when doing this- really, the only thing that would have made today better would have been if I could have had my dear Seb to confer with over all the lovely things I cooed over.

I am now the proud owner of a table, purchased for a fiver and complete with some odd coffee like stains on the underside. It needed one hell of a clean, and now it needs the blessed magic of Annie Sloan furniture paint- which I will do tomorrow and pray that the sun shines.

Looking forward to moving house is all well and good but shifting my bum into packing up my things when I like looking at them so is such a flipping faff- want to magic everything into the new place, just as I imagine it to be, without any need for putting it in a box.

When you work from home the longer your home is in boxes the less you can work- and I really like my workies so I had better get a wriggle on.

Everybody, summertime love.

There is something wonderful and terrifying about August. Things go a bit quiet and September almost feels like it’s not going to happen. Working on Christmas during the summer feels strange but is so neccessary- and I know that it will be October in the blink of an eye.

As much as the beckoning of Autumn and the prospect of putting on my favourite coat thrills me the sunshine is the only tonic that overshadows the one that accompanies Gin. Here be my favourite images from the Summer.

Time to Unpick the Past

I am back home for a fortnight, and having spent days going through a decades of my belongings and donating them to the local charity shop I now find myself with a pile of old frocks and cardies ready for some hot unpicking action.

The quick unpick, or seamripper if you prefer is one magic little sewing tool. I am so enamoured with mine that last night I slept with it on my bedside table. In the past I would have cut and ripped garments apart with no knowledge of how i’d put them back together. Now I am proud to say that I do know what I’m doing and am so happy to have several things to play with here.

What astounds me is just how generous old seam allowances and hems were- I thank you makers of the past for enabling me to let out that frock and take down that hem to make things fit me properly. I will of course post pictures of my new creations- sadly my camera battery expired during a particularly cute photo session featuring the family cat whose escapades in the garden were too lovely to miss.

I have got another 10 days or so off and as this is officially my summer holiday l I have taken up the pile of Country Living magazines saved by my mother so that when the sewing makes me weary I can curl up on the sofa with a fluffy blanket and indulge myself in thinking of the home I will have- once the dream move to the coast comes to fruition. As this dream is a way off I am instead planning the layout of the flat my chap and I are yet to move in to- he really doesn’t know how much I think about this.

So darlings, once I have some delightful images to share I shall do just that. I am keen to show you my charity shop spoils- including a tweed blanket for just a £1 and vintage buttons for 4p!

Ta’ra for now!

Our Josephine

 

Where is this craft malarky going?

The Mother Superior in The Sound of Music says “When God closes a door, somewhere he opens a window.” And she was not wrong. It seems that in the closure of The Workshop lots of new opportunities have opened up. This is great of course, and exciting, and terribly scary.

August is a bit of a quiet month in Crouch End, so as I am left to sit and contemplate I am a little on edge. Yes it is lovely to have a holiday and time to sew again but- where is the money coming from? Gah!

Thanks to twitter I can keep up with what’s happening with creative folk all over the world, however it seems that the wonderful people who bring fantastic things to the high street are having their bottoms kicked from here to haberdashers heaven by the economic woes.
This isn’t just an issue for workshop spaces, it is the case for colleges too. It is awful to think that the places that teach the hardcore skills are having to cancel courses through lack of take up.

Looking at how dedicated people are to their crafts and reflecting on the benefits they have, especially in a time of great stress and mental demand, it seems criminal that places of great soul and colour are going to continue to lose their spaces and be once again forced online or into pub back rooms just because they are not a massive money spinner. Sadly it seems that heritage is worthless in our times.