End of week round up

New and Exclusive to the Royal School of Needlework, a range of threads that have been carefully selected by the RSN and developed in partnership with Au Ver à Soie ®.  Established in 1820, Au Ver à Soie Paris has been producing the highest quality silk threads, pure silk, spun silk and metallic threads for over 200 years, and is the world market leader in fine silk yarns.

Go shopping at https://royal-needlework.org.uk/product-category/shop/equipment-supplies/

London Sewing Machine Museum will be open on Saturday, 4th May 2024, 2:00 pm – 5:00 pm. The museum only opens once a month. It’s an offshoot of a company that makes its living selling and maintaining sewing machines — mainly the large industrial models today — but the owner, Ray Rushton has built up a huge collection of vintage models and in the Millennium year, he opened up the collection to the public. Entry is free, although a donation in one of the charity tins is appreciated. A voluminous booklet about the museum’s history is freely handed out.

The London Embroidery School is offering an on-line beaded coral class at https://londonembroideryschool.com/product/beaded-coral-online-class-part-1/?mc_cid=ebb273caa6&mc_eid=d9d5bb6202 £30 for a two part programme without kit.

Textiles and Ecology. Sadly, nothing much has changed since this short film about fast fashion/recycling and green washing was produced 7 years ago. See what you think at https://aeon.co/videos/this-is-the-final-resting-place-of-your-cast-off-clothing

Dyeing: As you walk up the stairs to the Design gallery of Young V&A, hung on the wall you’ll see an embroidered quilt dyed gold, deep purple, rich brown and cornflower blue. The quilt was made by the Young V&A collective, a group of 15 young people aged 11 – 22 working together with artist Scott Kyle, textile artist Memunatu Barrie and natural dyer Hanna Whiteman. Over the course of four days, the group explored making and mending, recycling fashion and collaborating with nature, making dyes from plants and fruits. This colourful linen formed the base of the quilt that now hangs in a display called ‘Design makes things last longer’.

For the dyes Hanna recommended: orange – carrots, onion skins or paprika; yellow – dandelions, sunflowers, pomegranate skins, turmeric, lemon peels, or peach stones; pink or red, – beetroot, lavender, red onions, avocado skins and stones, or even cherries; purple – red cabbage, blueberries, black beans, or blackberries;  green – with spinach and mint leaves; brown -walnut shells, tea, or coffee grounds.

Careworn, an exhibition by Sophie-Nicole Dodds

Goldsmiths Textile Collection invites you to the Constance Howard Gallery for an exhibition of the work of Sophie-Nicole Dodds.  The exhibition runs from 24 April to 14 May 2024 – Mon-Fri, 1-5pm.

A collection of prints, drawings, and handmade garments by Dodds will be exhibited alongside historical objects from the Goldsmiths Textile Collection. Presented in an archive-based format, the exhibition aims to facilitate a dialogue between objects and processes within the domestic space, emphasising both the act of wearing and care within the making process.

Dodds trained in Bespoke Tailoring at the London College of Fashion before completing the MA Design: Expanded Practice (Fashions and Embodiment) course at Goldsmiths in 2020. Having worked extensively with the Goldsmiths Textile Collection during her MA, she further developed her interest in and work with collections and archives through an ‘Illuminating Objects’ internship at The Courtauld Gallery, run in conjunction with the Science Museum. In 2022 she completed the postgraduate Year of Drawing scholarship at the Royal Drawing School and has since been returning to Goldsmiths to run drawing workshops with MA Design students and to continue her research with the Goldsmiths Textile Collection.

Textile in Art

There is a small but fascinating exhibition currently on at the Serpentine Gallery (at the top of Exhibition Road, London – in the park). Yinka Shonibare has taken Dutch wax textiles as his stimulus for decorating statues of well known colonial figures as well as creating some quilts, though to me they are more like examples of textile art. Visit https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/ The exhibition closes on 1 September 2024.

African Bird Magic (Mauritius Fody and Comoro Blue Vanga) 2023.

Further, he has created a bronze image of the fabric itself.

If you can’t get to the exhibition, download the Bloomberg Connects, you can see small images of all the work on display. https://www.bloombergconnects.org/

Discovering Britain’s cultural tapestry at UAL’s folk costume exhibition

An exhibition in the London College of Fashion brings us the world of carnivals and dances from Olde England and also the 1970s restorations of lost traditions and modern interpretations that mix in multicultural influences. It shows traditional dance costumes as works of creative art as well as telling the story of the traditions they represent.

There are a few choice objects, and the Marshfield Mummers costume, made from old shredded newspapers. A record of Morris dance costumes across the UK fills walls with dolls — each decorated by a different dance troupe and one of the costumes on display was worn during the 2012 closing ceremony.

Apart from the main display, next to the café, there is a room showing films of folk dances across the country. And downstairs you can see a row of display cases, mostly telling the story of the pearly kings and queens and how they adopted costumes of suits covered in buttons

The exhibition, Making More Mischief: Folk Costume in Britain, is at UAL: London College of Fashion at the Olympic Park until 22nd June and is free to visit. It’s open Tuesday to Saturday between 10am and 5pm – just go into the college building and the exhibition is easy to spot.

End of week round-up

The new programme of workshops from Hand and Lock is now available at https://www.handembroideryshop.com/collections/new-courses?mc_cid=75ff3a2a64&mc_eid=5758fbd692

Rather than single workshops, they seem now to have moved to to series format so, for example, the £310 fee for the Decorative Ornamental Lettering workshop (see image) spans 6 sessions of 2.5 hours. I would be interested to receive feedback on any H&L course if readers participate.

In the run up to this year’s Festival of Quilts, there is a call for 5″ cards which then go on sale at the Festival. Even if quilting is not your thing, I thought you might enjoy the short video of how the cards are put together. Visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omcgiAaC5Yw

I loved Mary Corbet’s story about her Three Roses in Gold and silk embroidery. You can find all the information on how the original was embroidered, along with stitching tips and all the materials used, here in the Tudor-Style Rose project index. The original rose is also detailed in this e-book on the Marian Medallion project, which covers the entire Marian Medallion project (where the small rose is featured) step-by-step. It’s a Massive e-book, over 200 pages, and packed with tips and techniques for this type of goldwork and silk embroidery.

And the RSN has announced the launch of its new Collections website – the first 100 items are now available to view online. Visit the New Website.