DIY Couture: a launch party

Last night saw the long awaited launch of Rosie Martin's very first book - DIY Couture: Create your own fashion collection. I was lucky enough to be invited to the party (which was hosted by The Make Escape; a new monthly craft-along held at the Hackney Attic) as Rosie had featured my shoes from way back when throughout the book. As well as seeing Rosie again, another highlight of my evening was meeting Karen and Tilly, both incredibly talented seamstresses whose blogs I have followed and admired for years - but I think I may have slightly overwhelmed them with my starstruck ramblings... Sorry guys!

Rosie's philosophy is simple and inspired: eliminating the need for a pattern, she gives clear visual instructions showing you how to cut and sew 10 basic items of clothing, including wardrobe classics such as a circle skirt, a hoody, a pair of trousers and a Grecian dress.

Despite being an avid sewing pattern afficionado; having collected vintage patterns for the last ten years, been delighted and inspired by the new crop of contemporary sewing pattern designers, and, oh yes, having just launched our own brand spanking new sewing pattern company, I am still a huge fan of DIY Couture.  Just as I love leafing through my boxes of neatly packaged patterns, unfolding that delicate tissue paper and spending blissfully meditative hours precision-sewing, I can just as often be found ducking into my studio late at night, grabbing my scissors and some fabric off the shelf and getting stuck right in ad hoc.

What I love most, however, about DIY Couture: Create your own fashion collection is how Rosie so beautifully illustrates the versatility of home sewing, inviting us to reinterpret her instructions according to our own vision. From one set of ten staple shapes she has created eight collections, each so different from the other that you'd be forgiven for thinking they were completely different designs altogether.

Rosie's book is available to buy now from Amazon, and you can also buy her individual instruction booklets direct from diy-couture.co.uk.

Finally, the Big Reveal!

Some of you may have noticed a bit of unusual activity round these parts... Infrequent posting, sly hints at big things a-brewin'...  If you had imagined that for the last nine months I had been scheming and plotting, working late into the night, designing, sewing, writing, basically carving out my dream job - then you'd be right!  I give you... (drumroll please!) ...By Hand London.

By Hand London is an independent sewing pattern company aimed at beginner and intermediate sewists. Designing patterns inspired by the stylish women we know and admire, our brand is all about championing individual style and celebrating strong femininity. Released in bi-annual collections, it’s your own customisable fashion line!

My business partner Charlotte and I will be launching our very first collection of sewing patterns in October 2012, and until then we will be documenting the process on our brand spanking new blog, byhandlondon.wordpress.com, where we will also be talking about fashion and individual style, championing the ladies we love and are inspired by (and the boys too!), as well as sharing as many DIYs we can muster, and believe you me, the "DIY ideas" list is looooong! Having just gone live last week, the blog is still pretty bare, but swing by for a DIY fringed belt tutorial, some delicious ice pop recipes and a DIY bandeau top tutorial. I value and appreciate the opinion of you, my wonderful readers, above all, so I would be eternally grateful for your feedback and advice.

While I will be saving my more fashion/style/repurposing ideas for the By Hand London blog, I will still be posting here, with a focus on home, family, my recipes (sorry Marie!), knitting & crochet, bloggers challenges and my personal projects & makes. Basically keeping my home and working lives on separate blogs!

I can't even tell you how excited I am to get really stuck in, I have never felt so creatively alive and inspired! I only hope that our blog and sewing patterns which will be launched in October (yes, there will be a party!) will be met with the same enthusiasm and excitement that Charlotte and I feel.

PS. To all you talented sewists: as we approach the launch, we will be offering up a handful of copies of our patterns to be road-tested. To get your name in the hat, please leave a comment below!

Fighting Crowds of Grannies...

...stocking up on supplies and overdosing on inspiration, this weekend at London's Knitting & Stitching Show at Alexandra Palace.

Quilting cottons at The Eternal Maker

Romantic chevrons at Colinette

Knit-kits at Handscape Knits

Chunky, rusty ribs at Sublime

Liberty quilting bundles at Sunflower Fabrics

this evening...

...I am, as ever, in bewildered awe of my beautifully talented little sister [anyone get the Four Weddings and a Funeral reference?  Probably just my sister...] after seeing her MA final exhibition...

Self-Satisfying Stitching

Other than watching my son grow/develop/learn/flourish etc, there is very, very little I find more satisfying than making stuff.  Similar to the feeling when you get the craving to buy a new dress or pair of shoes, and you take a whole day to go shopping, to treat yourself, and you ram the changing rooms with outfits to try, slowly whittling down your selection, which gets a further whittling when you get to the till, and then you practically float home with your new purchase(s) thinking about how you're going to style it/them up differently for all the various occasions... Then you get home... and I always found that the heady satisfaction I got after I had been shopping would evaporate just as fast as the shopping experience had come and gone.  But when you make something yourself from scratch that whole craving-searching-acquiring-enjoying process has to be so much more prolonged that, naturally, it is so much more pleasurable.  I could compare it to the difference between a one night stand and Tantric sex.

Shopping, like a one night stand, is over incredibly fast, and you rarely get what you really wanted.  Making a dress, on the other hand, like Tantra, focuses ones attention on the finer details, taking time over every layer: finding the perfect pattern, choosing the fabric, the little buttons, a lace trim possiblement... Delightfully drawing out the whole experience, and then slowly, carefully, it all comes together for one final climax, that only continues to go on and on after the piece is made... Every time you wear it.

Last night I wore the dress I made on Monday to the 5th birthday celebration of Estethica, London Fashion Week's answer to sustainable fashion (which I, and my label Nina Dolcetti, have been a part of since 2008).  My dress turned out beautifully, it felt so crisp and Spring-y in a mis-match of pastel shirting cottons, but lacked the perfect accessory... So while my son napped yesterday afternoon, I used up the last of the Laura Ashley curtains left over from these cushions and made a clutch bag with a celluloid tortoiseshell frame I found on eBay.  And I have to admit, as I was getting ready for the party, I felt very pleased with myself.

Jane Brocket Book Launch

I recently started reading Jane Brocket's blog Yarnstorm after accidentally finding one of her books, The Gentle Art of Quilt-Making, in London's Liberty.  I was supposed to be buying yarn for all the various headbands, hottie covers and snoods I was making as Christmas presents, but I was so captivated by the colours, the prints and satisfactory big-ness of these quilts that I soon found myself, book open in hand, wandering over to the delicious and delightful Tana Lawn fabrics...  Needless to say, I bought the book, enough fabric and batting to bequilt a small army and I am proud to say that I have almost finished my first proper quilt (although I have to admit that I am on the verge of abandoning the tediously infinite running stitch in favour of my machine... but more about that later).  

So when I read that the same woman who inspired me to take the plunge into patchwork was going to be writing a book about knitting, and launching that book in one of my favourite yarn shops, Loop, I had to swing by.

Jane was every bit as lovely and gentle as her book titles suggest, and her first knitting book does not disappoint.  No page wasting with beginners instructions and diagrams (which if I'm honest were of no use to me when I was learning the basics - thank you YouTube!) just 40 great projects; approachable and adaptable, accompanied by warm scene-setting introductions.  I will be starting with the 'string of pearls' cushion covers... just as soon as I've ticked some things off my list (currently standing at: finish quilt for V, Cavalier Capelet, redecorate doll's house, finish oilcloth placemats... and it goes on).

'string of pearls' cushion covers

The Gentle Art of Knitting is available from Amazon.