a seamstressing interview

I got interviewed by in house magazine Parklife for their interesting hobbies feature. Unfortunately since we redesigned Parklife to look prettier we have less room for photos so although I've reproduced the text here, I've also added quite a few more piccys (as well as the one of Lisa and myself on the morning of the wedding that accompanies the original). Enjoy!

I've been making clothes since I opted to take a textiles GCSE at school. My school specialised in the arts and our textiles teacher gave us quite a lot of freedom in what we chose to make and we also had the luxury of having state-of-the-art technology to hand (a sewing machine that can do embroidery from your doodles anyone?).
After leaving school I was quite tempted to take a creative arts course but my parents insisted on A-levels, so dressmaking became more of a a hobby with me spending quite a lot of time hunting out materials from our local fabric store and online and matching them with patterns to create items of clothing I wanted but couldn't find in the shops. This is probably the most exciting bit of the process - getting inspiration from various different garments and combining ideas.
The focus of my sewing efforts changed direction slightly a couple of years ago when I got my first 'serious' sewing machine and found myself getting more into formal dresses. I set myself the challenge of doing on a year and instead of just copying the patterns I also wanted to start altering them. The first dress I tried this on was a purple evening dress. This dress is actually made with upholstery fabric - I live in terror that one day what I'm wearing will match a chaise lounge or sofa, but the material was a reduced remnant and I just fell in love with it.
Friends started to notice my wardrobe expanding and the masses of material lying about my house and I got approached to do commissions, first mostly alterations (scary because you are messing with other people's work) and then later the most exciting commission of my life, making a wedding dress. I'd never done anything like it before. Design and construction of the actual dress was more like architecture/construction as there were many layers and you had to build the overall 'shape', and probably wasn't helped by the fact the corset top had to be hand-boned. I also didn't realise how much emotion would be involved in making the dress match the brides expectations -fortunate this was for one of my best friends, so she was really clear about what she did and didn't want.
I did survive the wedding dress and have recently done another wedding commission (this time making cravats and hankies for the groom and male members of the wedding party so they matched the bridesmaids) and have just taken on another commission for a Jane Austin dress to be completed this autumn. After that I suppose i should really address the large pile of remnants in my fabric stash...

Lost in Austin

Okay there were going to be photos of this weekend's activities there really were till I woke up horrified I had forgotten to alter my alarm clock and ended up flying round the house in a panic, trying to get out the door as fast as I could, and forgot the cable. Doh. Well for the moment I'm going to have to try and illuminate the weekend in words. On the Friday I took as my day in lieu (from a very dull meeting ages ago) as I still had half a dress to finish, several cakes to make and a gig to attend in the evening. The cakes were done fairly early on in the day but due to various things not going the way I planned the dress was finished at 6.30 on Sat morning (I had to wear it Sat afternoon, oops). I went off to see LAU (they are Scottish and very good, if you like your folk, or even if you don't you should buy their Cd's, did I mention they are very good? :-). The Cornerstone is possibly the classiest venue in Didcot and was very nice. Fi tells me that Eliza Carthy is playing there next month which can only be a good thing. I attended in the end with accordion player and jolly nice chap Nick (hereafter known as accordion Nick & not to be confused with Fi's Nick, or Nick Spangle) who's girlfriend was away in the US on workee so he came to get himself out the house and stop missing her, awwww.

Sat morning after a very early start for some of us (the hem was finished thanks to very strong instant coffee, hurrah) we bundled into the car and headed for Lyme Park, as soon as we had left Oxfordshire it started blowing a gale and the rain started to fall. Which wasn't great. This weather continued all the way up, the winds increasing in their ferociousness. We got to Lyme Park and met up with the rest of the Hen's (some of whom were sensible enough to drive down in plain clothes and frock and bonnet up at Lyme). First up was the ladies luncheon in the cafe (very nice it was too, I had the estate's own venison). We then took an extensive tour of the house (lovely but we weren't allowed to take photos) and the garden's (freezing but there were some very good photos). After an hour or two of that during which some of the party appeared to turn blue we retreated to the beautiful Cressbrook hall (http://www.cressbrookhall.co.uk/home.htm) where we had rented a self catering cottage for a night. Once installed, back in civvies and much warmer we sat down to an evening of the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice (yes that was indeed the theme of the weekend) after a couple of episodes we broke for dinner each of the girls providing a course (the hastily assembled chocolate and chestnut cake (recipe by Hugh) went down very well indeed).

Next morning (earlier than we thought because of the hour) my friend Helen and I got up early as she was desperate to go for a walk up the mountains. I'm not sure how we managed it but we somehow ended up on the wrong side if a river and found we couldn't get back to the house. Oh dear. Cue eight mile unintentional hike (it wasn't planned but it was beautiful and thankfully I was wearing sensible shoes) and us going 'missing' for two hours (there is no phone reception in the middle of Derbyshire up the side of a hill so we couldn't let the rest of the girls know about the river, oops). We got back and had a little stroll round the formal gardens of Cressbrook before returning to the car to head South. It was about this point that my friend Emma suggested we call in to see her Mum and Step dad who live in Matlock (my godfather who looks very much like Rubius Hagrid lives there as well). So we called in on them for a cup of tea. Their house is Amazing Emma's step dad is an artist but used to work in the building when it was a cowshed. The local council approached him about converting it (it was a bit of an eyesore) and it is now the most beautiful space. He works mainly in bronze and is a big fan of birds so there were all these beautifully tactile bronzes around this gorgeous space (I will post the link here once I've located it). After catching up with them it back back in the car to return to Oxford and a furious scrabble to find out who won the boat race (well done boys :-). Last night all I managed to do was a bit of ironing have a bath & straighten out my spinning and it was time for bed (pesky hour) but what a fantastic weekend!

Make it stop!

Why is it in life stuff always seems to come along all at once? Its like you are plodding along, doing okay and then time just changes, you haven't got enough of it and there is physically just too much to do. Well a lot has happened so I guess I should recap. Work is horrendously busy, we had a big meeting last week where our bosses basically admitted we had way too much to do but they would like us to attempt it anyway (?!?). I'm working really long hours and have a terrible feeling I'm taking it out on Mel (I'm sorry I don't mean it, it will get better, thanks for listening to me rant). However this weekend I'm going to make her some ginger and dark choc cookies (yes they are as good as they sound) which I made for all the people who contributed to the creative issue of my magazine (I thought there would be some left over for Mel but there weren't, how bad did I feel?!?). The recipe is from a cookbook I got the other weekend in local book haunt Mostly books, and all the proceeds go to rescuing battery hens, good work.

I've also been trying to sort out the last of the friends stuff for Oxford folk festival (which is in, yes count them two weeks, eeekkk) whilst desperately trying to finish my article for knit today (have to send sheepish email to my editor today informing her that I'm still struggling with getting/uploading the photos, I may have to see if Olie (who's son was delivered on Monday, a boy called Korben, 10lb 9oz, congratulations to the B's but you've got to feel for his poor wife) can be bribed with more knitwear). (I've only just finished the last lot and I am dying to knit something for me).

Tonight I really have to start tacking one or both of the Austin dresses (at least cutting out the pattern). The other material is being purchased by Helen this weekend so I'm hoping we can cut all the pieces out on Monday evening and then we can start tacking (individually or together). I'm meeting Louise for a obscenely early cup of coffee tomorrow morning at 10.30 (she really does early mornings whereas I like to stay in bed till at least 10 at the weekends so as to recover from the week). I'm then going back home weeding the front garden and digging the veg patch (my mum sent me a fantastic Alan Titchmarsh book about growing your own veg but it has one of those things to do this month things and I haven't done any of the March ones). Sat night is my first (and last?) Nightshift assignment at the Jon Boden gig at the Jericho (which just happens to be an OFF fundraiser :-). Sunday should be writing up gig, finishing off aforementioned spinning article and very probably lots of sewing. And so ends another week...