Despite living in London and being surrounded by posters advertising exhibitions and events that I want to attend, I’m very bad at actually getting around to going places. I did however manage to go and see Quilts: 1700 – 2010 at the V&A before it closed at the beginning of July.

As a beginner quilter with just a single patchwork block under my belt, I was inspired, over-awed and somewhat reassured by the exhibition. If it took 17 years for an eighteenth century master tailor to complete a quilt in just his evenings and weekends, there is hope for me yet. (We won’t talk about my reaction to the beautifully embroidered map of the English counties that had been completed by a nineteenth century 10 year old.)

I preferred the older quilts in the exhibition, those that were produced as quilts rather than as “Art”. I love modern art but apparently not when I go to see a textile exhibition. I think my favourite though was one of the modern ones, “Punctuation” by Sarah Impey. There’s a picture of it in this article or you can view more of Sarah’s work on Quilt Art. Given my blog name, it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that my favourite combined both words and stitches!

At the time of my visit, I resisted the urge to buy anything from the shop but, as you may have guessed from the pictures, that didn’t last. As a treat for myself for passing another actuarial exam (11 down, 4 to go!) I bought a pack of quilting fabric. The fabrics are limited edition prints created for the V&A by Liberty based on details taken from some of the exhibited quilts.

The pack I bought has 36 pieces in 18 patterns and while I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with them yet, they’re certainly brightening up my dining table!

This is quite possibly my favourite sewing project so far — pretty, pink and practical.

It is a simple square cushion sewn to a wristband that fastens with velcro.

I needed something quick and simple to regain my confidence using my sewing machine since I have a couple of large projects that I’ve been putting off. I think this has done the trick!

It’s getting harder to find decent second-hand bookshops in central London these days so we recently took a trip to Hay-on-Wye to satisfy our cravings.  I spent a fair amount of time rummaging through any craft books I could find and managed to pick up a few interesting additions to my library. I plan on writing fuller reviews once I’ve had the chance to read them more carefully and try some projects but here’s a quick look in the meantime.

Alabama Stitch Book, by Natalie Chanin with Stacie Stukin:

A collection of sewing projects for recycling and embellishing old t-shirts. I first heard of this book when the House on Hill Road blog reviewed the follow-up book Alabama Studio Style. Having now seen this book and the review of the second one at House on Hill Road, I think the projects in the second book are probably more to my taste but there are a couple of projects in here, including a skirt and corset top, that I do really want to try. All I need now are some t-shirts!

Designing Knitwear, Deborah Newton:

I’ve been getting more ambitious with my designing (I currently have a couple of lace shawls in progress) and my eventual ambition is to learn how to design clothing. I had seen this book recommended as a good guide to knitting design and, at a first glance, it certainly seems to cover everything you could want to know. In fact, at first glance, the sheer quantity of text and detail in this book is a little overwhelming. I think this is going to be a book that I sit down and read through rather than dipping in and out of. I’ll let you know how that goes later.

520 Quick and Easy Patchwork Designs, Kei Kobayashi:

The concept behind this book is simple: using folded origami squares as the basis for quilt designs. Take your square of paper, fold your shape, unfold the paper and use the geometric pattern of crease lines as the basis for your quilt block. My quilting has yet to progress beyond simple patchwork blocks but there’s a wealth of inspiration in here for anyone from the absolute beginner to the expert looking for something new. There is a large section on traditional American quilt block patterns, as well as variations on geometric patterns and some Art Deco and computer graphic suggestions as well. It is a design book rather than a how-to-quilt book so if you’re looking for detailed guidance on quilting, piecing and finishing quilts, this isn’t the book for you but if you’re looking for inspiration, there’s plenty of it here.

As a child, I loved rooting through my mum’s sewing basket trying to work out what all the different bits and pieces were and how they were used. No matter how much time I spent looking through that basket, there always seemed to be something that I hadn’t seen before.

That’s why when the salesman in the junk shop showed me that the sewing machine table drawers were filled with attachments for the machine and other craft-related paraphernalia I knew I had to buy it. I’ve already talked about the sewing machine parts but here are some of my other favourite bits.

Punchcraft tool — If it hadn’t been for the fact that my mum used to have a couple of punchcraft kits, I might never have worked out was this was. Punchcraft is a way of creating pictures on fabric by “punching” yarn or thread through the fabric to create little loops. (It turns out that the tool can also be used to make holes in leather treadle belts when repairing vintage sewing machines.)

A Turkey Rug Wool gauge — used for cutting lengths of wool to the right size for rug-making. You wind the wool round and round the gauge and then your scissors or knife slide down the groove to cut the lengths. I’ve never tried rug-making so I’ve no idea what you do after that!

Buttons — none that are particularly exciting but you can never have too many buttons!

Hooks, clasps and pins — I love that some of these (and some of the buttons) have small pieces of fabric attached, showing that they’ve been saved from old clothing.

Screws, picture hooks and curtain hooks — It’s always reassuring to see that other people end up with weird collections of DIY oddments in their craft stuff.

Blue sequinned triangle — part of a fancy dress costume, perhaps?

One of the first things I did with the sewing machine was to empty the drawers and sort the contents into sewing machine parts and everything else. The first picture below shows what I first thought were all the sewing machine related parts (not including bobbins, screwdrivers, needles and the lint brush since those didn’t require any research to identify).

My next task was to work out what each of these was. Two things made this reasonably straightforward. Firstly, the sewing machine came with its manual, which has pictures of most of the parts in use.  Secondly, this is a Singer machine. All Singer parts are stamped with “Simanco” and the serial number of the part. A quick trip to Google to search for serial numbers and most of the rest were identified.

The harder part is going to be working out how to use them!

Below is a full inventory of the attachments I have with pictures and serial numbers in case this helps anyone else trying to identify parts.

(more…)

Steven and I took a day-trip to Whitstable yesterday to celebrate my first day of freedom after the latest batch of exams. It was just supposed to be a nice trip in the car with some lunch, a wander round some shops and then home again. Except that one of the shops, a small junk shop right on the sea-front, had this:

A 1940s Model 15K Singer treadle sewing machine and treadle table in what appeared to be almost working order.

And, yes, that is our lounge that it’s now sitting in.

The advantage of buying a Singer machine is that there is a lot of information out there on how to identify and date them. Looking up the serial number of our machine on the Singer website, I identified the type and learned that it was one of a batch of 300,000 built in Clydebank, Scotland between November 1945 and August 1946. In fact, I spent almost the entire evening reading about the history of the Singer Manufacturing Company and the factory in Clydebank.

I love the detailing and aesthetic of these machines and have been admiring them from afar for years. It’s so pretty that we decided it would look great as a piece of furniture even if we never got it working, although both of us thought we’d like to see it sew something at least once. However, the more I read about these machines and how good they are for sewing and, in particular, quilting, the more tempted I am to get it fully set up and learn how to use it properly.

I don’t think it will be too difficult (famous last words!) to get it working properly again. The machine needs a new belt (already ordered), a good clean and some oil, and the woodwork needs some restoration. The ironwork just needs cleaned. The worst part is going to be removing all the dead spiders from the inside.

The other advantage of getting it working is that it came with a wide range of different attachments for hemming, quilting, and attaching cord and bindings that would cost me a fortune to buy for my electric machine. More details of those and the other contents of the table drawers to come in my next post.

A post-exam wander around the craft and design sections of the bookshops on Charing Cross Road today turned up a wonderful little volume entitled “Pattern Sourcebook: Japanese Style. 250 Patterns for Projects and Designs.” The book is a collection of Japanese pattern designs in nine different categories, including plants, creatures, geometry and, of course, waves.

The book comes with a CD with JPEG and PSD versions of each of the patterns and, best of all, purchasing the book permits unrestricted use of any of the patterns for any purpose whatsoever without any further fees or need for acknowledgement or credit. Many of the patterns are set up so that they can be tiled in all directions.

There is a sentence or two accompanying each design with a short explanation of its origin or symbolism. The translation from Japanese is a little quirky at times but not enough to be distracting.

The patterns are purely patterns and no instructions are given on how to use them but I’m already in danger of being overwhelmed by ideas for ways to incorporate the designs into knitting and quilting patterns.

To sum up, if you’re interested in Japanese patterns and styles or just looking for a new source of inspiration, I can highly recommend this.

Details

• Title – Pattern Sourcebook: Japanese Style
• Author – Shigeki Nakamura
• Publisher – Rockport Publishers

The last time I took any sort of organised sewing class was back in High School. I enjoyed my home economics classes and still have some of the things that I made (including an elephant whose ears I sewed on upside down) but I wouldn’t be in a hurry to go back and do them again.

Unlike the class that I attended last night. Under guidance from Steven, his mum bought me vouchers for the Make Lounge for my birthday. To quote their website:  “The Make Lounge offers contemporary craft workshops with a stylish, social twist – perfect for embracing the ‘make do and mend’ ethic in a fashionable way!”

I took one of their intermediate sewing classes, the zippers clinic. We learned how to sew in regular zips and invisible zips and then made a little zippered oilcloth pouch. Here’s mine:

And with the zip open, just to prove it works:

There were wine and nibbles on hand and the atmosphere was fun and friendly. I had been a bit nervous about turning up on my own but I had a brilliant evening. I had enough vouchers for two classes so I’m already booked on the reversible handbag class next week and I can’t wait!

As well as their sewing classes, they offer crochet, jewellery-making, needle-felting, leather-working and lots of others with even more being added all the time. I realise I might be starting to sound like an advert but I promise I have no connection with them other than being a very satisfied customer!

P.S. I still haven’t finished the last two Double Vision squares and here are a couple of sneak peeks at why:

So I didn’t actually do any quilting on holiday but I certainly learned a lot about how it’s done in Hawaii. As you might expect, quilting is a not a native craft in Hawaii but was imported by missionaries.

Despite huge amounts of temptation, I managed to restrain myself and came back with only two books on the subject. Unfortunately, I also managed to resist the urge to go into any of the many fabric shops we saw so I don’t have any beautiful Hawaiian fabrics to show you.

The first book is Hawaiian Quilts: Tradition and Transition. A bilingual (English and Japanese) book that was written to accompany a touring exhibition of vintage and modern Hawaiian quilts. It has a good description of the history and progression of quilting in Hawaii right up to the modern day but my favourite section  is the beautiful pictures of the quilts that formed the exhibition. Some of the vintage quilts can be seen online at the Bishop Museum website or there’s a glimpse of two of the modern ones below.

The second book is The Pillows to Patch Quilt Collection: The Hawaiian Way. It is a beautifully illustrated quilt pattern book full of quilt squares and applique patterns based on Hawaiian motifs. Other reviews say that the instructions are clear and easy to follow, even for beginners, but I will report back after my exams when I actually have time to try them.

The picture shows a section of the table of contents. I’m already enjoying planning a quilt with this book; I just hope making one is as much fun!

Two finished projects to show you today, one knitted, one sewn.

I finished the teddy bear baby blanket. I washed it but didn’t block it in any way, just hung it up and let it dry.  It was knitted in Sirdar Country Style DK, which is a machine-washable wool/acrylic blend because I don’t think the friend it is intended for is likely to be handwashing blankets after the baby is born. However, it washed very nicely and is now very soft and snuggly. I just loved this pattern; it was straightforward and quick to knit but the combination of stocking stitch and reverse stocking stitch is just so effective. The best part of this project is that the baby isn’t due for another 2 months so I can wrap this up and put it away until it is needed and I won’t need to subject myself to the usual frantic week or two of knitting that takes place just before or after the birth!

Second project was a roll/case for my KnitPicks interchangeable needle tips. Despite being only my second sewing project in about 16 years, i.e. since home economics classes in school, it’s entirely my own design. No pattern, no tutorial, just work out what needs to go where and try it and see what happens. This did, of course, result in the odd hiccup. For example, see the small loop of ribbon attached to the left-hand side of the roll in the bottom picture? It’s now a design feature (and I may even have come up with a use for it) but was originally supposed to be the ribbon for keeping it all together when rolled up. Unfortunately, my brain has yet come to grips with the inside-out back-to-front thinking that’s needed when sewing things up and then turning them right way out and the ribbon ended up beautifully sewn in between the lining and the cover.

I’m so pleased with the way this turned out in the end though. It takes all my tips, plus some crochet hooks and my sewing and needle gauges. The striped flap (shown lifted up in the picture) keeps everything from falling out no matter how thrown around the roll gets in my bag and everything is just so much better organised and easier to find than in the pouch that they came in. I’m considering making another one, incorporating the lessons learned from this one and some ideas I’ve had since and if I do, I’ll put up a tutorial on how I did it.

The more I use this striped fabric the more I love it; things made from it are just automatically appealing and make me smile when I see them. I’ve got some left which I might make into a holder for my interchangeable cables or a pouch for my stitch markers since there is nowhere for them go in here. Do I really want an entirely co-ordinating set of knitting project and notions bags though?