Winter storms

Over the past few weeks I have been spending much of my time out and about at shows and exhibitions, and finally catching up with friends after a busy year. The shows are now winding down but I have two exhibitions on at the moment and one outdoor market at the weekend with the Oxfordshire Craft Guild- eeeek! Yesterday we had snow, high winds and hail and I hear there is another storm approaching. I hope it passes before Sunday as the last time I exhibited outdoors it was a disaster due to the windy conditions; my butterflies were literally flying away! I shall keep a keen eye on the weather forecast over the next few days.

Beautiful stormy skies- but hopefully it will be bright and calm on Sunday

 

Jenny’s pre-raphaelite, earth goddess dress

Jenny married Rob this summer in a ceremony and party they called ‘Joyfest’. It was a whole weekend of festival style celebrations and sounded so wonderfully laid-back. Jenny gave me a couple of photos to share until the official photos are finished and a wonderful card that is so expressive (I have tried to convey it here, which is quite difficult using a keyboard and regular font/size restrictions).

What Jenny said:

Dear Vikki, this is an extremely belated “Thank you, thank you thank you!” card- I had written you a card B4 the “Joyfest”! but never got it to you so I just wanted to write this card post “joyfest” to say an absolute “heartfelt” thank you for helping to create what Rob described as “A Work of Art”! I felt absolutely wonderful wearing such an amazing, beautiful, special, bloody GORGEOUS dress! I loved it & love it & I had soo many comments about how gorgeous it was & where did I get it!

I now have it hanging in the living room where I can just “STARE” at it & know that I felt the best & most beautiful I could & EVER will! My wonderful garland is sitting in it’s own special place above the fireplace & I long to have the opp to wear it again! Thank you so much Vikki 4 all ur hard work together with Naomi for creating a timeless piece which I shall treasure 4EVA!

I look forward to sharing the photos with you!

Jen xxx                 

Jenny’s dress was a real collaborative project with several of us involved- Jenny of course, me and also Naomi. Naomi and I often work together and have great fun. As well as having a good natter while we work, it is also really helpful to have four hands when handling slippery fabrics! Jenny’s dress was made from a layer of silvery grey taffeta and an overlay of ash (blue-grey) silk chiffon and would have been very difficult to handle alone. It also meant we could each focus on the skills we prefer.

Jenny’s dress features vine embroidery I designed around the hem of the dress and creeping up the back of the puddle train. This was embroidered and then hand painted to produce quite a subtle effect. She also had butterflies and dragonflies in purples, blues and greys scattered over her dress. I made them on brooch pins so that she could remove them afterwards and keep them separately, make them into a collage or wear them as brooches, and they were also sewn to the dress in several places.

I made Jenny’s garland headdress using the same fabric as her dress, wrapped it in ribbon and embellished it with embroidered and hand painted vine leaves, butterflies and dragonflies.

I hope I can share more photos soon, I have seen a sneak peek from her photographer and it was beautiful! x

Autumn leaves

I just love this time of year. I’m not keen on the dark evenings and I often want to hibernate, but I love that feeling I get when I step out into the garden and take a deep breath of crisp autumn air that seems to flood my lungs and fill my head. I really love the beautiful colours of autumn and I especially love the way the birds hop around in the leaves in such a playful manner, flipping the leaves over their heads in search of bugs. It is like Natures last flourish before settling down into hibernation for a few months.

I am constantly amazed by the beauty of nature- it cannot be replicated or surpassed. There is no imagination on earth that could dream up creatures more fascinating, fanciful and ludicrous than some of the underwater creatures I saw on Frozen Planet last week- yet they are real! So why am I inspired to try and create beauty and represent nature in my own way?

Anyway, I have been developing my embroidered and painted leaves for a few years now but recently branched out (pardon the pun) into leaf and berries necklaces, which have so far proven very popular. I hope to make a new batch in the next week ready for my upcoming shows.

 

And I have to add this in whilst on the theme of marvelling at nature…. Today I visited my Grandad (or Pop as us grandkids call him). He is a keen gardener so we wandered around the garden looking at all the flowers still in bloom. But it’s November! And I was wearing shorts! Here is a picture of the most wonderful smelling rose, it smelt just like Turkish Delight.

Jo and her ‘swooshy but not too puffy’ dress

Ok I know I said I’ll try and catch up on things that have happened over the last month or so and I’m probably going to do it all out of sync, but it doesn’t matter, right?

Last week I received a lovely card in the post from one of my most recent customers Jo. She married Toby on 1^st October. Remember that beautiful weekend when temperatures soared and everyone flocked to Devon? Or at least it seemed that was what everyone had done when we were trying to leave Devon on the Sunday afternoon! What a perfect weekend to get married.

Jo’s dress was made from ivory regal silk dupion, with appliqué lace detail and hand crafted flowers and leaves. The flowers were embellished in the centre with pearls and tiny Japanese glass beads and hand painted to give a slight blush colour. The leaves were a pale green colour to add definition and a little colour to the dress.

Jo also wore a hair band that I made using the same style flowers, leaves and lace and additional sprigs of pearls to compliment her dress.

What Jo said:

My dress, my beautiful dress! How can I thank you enough? It looked gorgeous and I felt gorgeous and it had full approval from the groom- I believe his words were “stunning”?

Thank you so much for all your care and hard work. I’m sure I must have been one of your most indecisive customers but I felt that you ‘got me’ and fully understood what I was after even when I didn’t (something swooshy but not too puffy maybe?!) I really did enjoy the whole experience- it is something quite special.

Huge thanks and best wishes, Jo

Thank you Jo and best wishes for a very happy marriage x

A quick hello…..

Well, so much for writing a regular journal! I thought I might find it difficult… see first post. A lot of time has passed since my last entry and a lot has happened too. I shall try and catch up by adding lots of entries over the next few weeks. The reason for the long pause is that I had planned to switch my blog over to my website. Sounds easy, right? Errr, no. There are probably plenty of people out there who could do it in a flash but it was confusing me so much that I have decided to resume on here and tackle it at a later date, whenever that might be! So since my last post I have been on holiday in the Italian Alps, shown at several wedding and craft fairs, given a talk to Windsor and Maidenhead Embroiderers Guild group, completed all the 2011 wedding dresses, worked on a commission for the Royal Ballet, started sending out Christmas orders to galleries and shops and gotten engaged. Phew!

Please look out for the catch-up posts to follow soon x

Kelmscott: Craft, Art and Arts and Crafts

This week I returned to Kelmscott to resume my run of summer craft fairs at Morris Memorial Hall. I can’t believe it’s that time of year again! You’d think I should know how long a year is having experienced thirty one of them already, but no, I’m always surprised at how quickly it passes by. It felt like only yesterday that I was there last, especially the moment I walked in and saw the familiar faces of other traders.

This summer is a little different as I currently have the help of my Mum, which is brilliant!  Mum often helps me at craft and wedding fairs but this week I left her to take charge while I continued to work. I made her sandwiches and took her there to help set up, had a chat with some of the traders and then headed back to work feeling slightly guilty for abandoning her there but confident she would do well.

Mum with my stand

I like going back to Kelmscott as it’s a reminder of how my life in Textiles all started. Kelmscott is a lovely little village on the upper reaches of the river Thames in Oxfordshire, home to the famous Arts and Crafts designer William Morris and inspiration for my first ever textile project whilst at primary school. It has also been used as the location of two of my photo shoots, the last one inside the Morris Memorial Hall.

Sam modelling dress in Morris Memorial Hall

Kelmscott Manor is now open to visitors on Saturdays and Wednesdays during the summer season with craft fairs held at the Morris Memorial Hall. The manor is a beautiful building filled with wonderful tapestries, paintings and crafted furniture. The house is also important in the history of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, one of my favourite Art movements of all time. William’s wife Jane was the muse of Dante Gabriel Rosetti and features in many of his beautiful paintings. I have also recently discovered that Jane’s mother grew up in the same village as I did, only 150 or so years earlier.

'The Day Dream' by Rossetti (1880) Portrait of Jane Morris

Morris Memorial Hall was endowed to the village by May Morris as a memorial to her father. The hall has its own fascinating history and was designed by the Arts and Crafts architects Ernest Grimson and Norman Jewson. The hall was officially opened in 1934 to coincide with the centenary of William Morris’ birth and was attended by George Bernard Shaw and Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald among many others.

For more information about the village of Kelmscott, see www.kelmscott.org.uk

For more information about Kelmscott Manor, see www. Kelmscottmanor.org.uk

The Wearable Art Festival

The weekend was one of carnivals and festivals. On Saturday morning I drew back the curtains to see a troupe of men in kilts and wielding bagpipes, preparing to lead the Witney Carnival procession into town. We sat in the garden watching the procession pass by, waving to kids and admiring the creativity of some of the outfits, the bravery of some others, and noting the disappointing entries by businesses (mostly estate agents) that made no effort and simply drove their cars behind the procession. I especially liked the very shiny steam engines and their puffing clouds of steam.

On Sunday I exhibited at the Wearable Art Festival in Painswick, a gorgeous village near Stroud in Gloucestershire. It is only the second year of WAP but it was incredibly well organised and attended.

Painswick

The festival featured a Wearable Art contest, with several categories. I had hoped to enter but realised I didn’t have the time this year and so decided to exhibit as a trader instead. There were stalls scattered everywhere around the narrow village streets which meant the day had a wonderfully relaxed and friendly feel rather than being overcrowded and there was also a lot of live music and performance art. The main stage was in the churchyard and featured all the catwalk shows. For pictures of the festival entries see the WAP website www.wearableartpainswick.co.uk

I met lots of friendly people and had a fantastic day out! I shall definitely show again next year and intend to enter the competition too, so I’m looking forward to finding out the categories.