February 2012 – JANET HAIGH: HER BLOG

It takes a lot of lovely textiles to make a good wedding! Think about it ….. the dress – obviously, the veil, the bridesmaids’ frocks ( it’s rare to see a good bridesmaid’s frock – Pippa Middleton’s proved the rule)! But there are also the garters, the waistcoats, the ties or cravats, the suits, then the the napiery, and the flowers -so think silk ribbons…..

GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA — hand embroidered silk flowers

Well yes of course you thought I meant the bouquet and I do, eventually; but just for now I have embroidered some silk flowers onto a cupped corset for a wedding gown that has made me realise that we can develop all kinds of different products perfect for sumptuous weddings and everlasting memories, not forgetting the Hen Party.

I have been working with Lisa Keating, who conducts out very popular corset making courses, and together we have invented new designs for the ultimate romantic wedding that you can make yourself at Heart Space Studios– or maybe send someone else to make it for you. The ribbon embroidered wedding corset and skirt are made to measure – this is the ultimate in hand – made retro chic.

We showed the dress at the latest Vintage Wedding show held in Bristol last weekend.

Heart Space tutors had made several accessories that we can teach people how to make in short classes ..small beaded hearts and hair accessories, buttonholes and party favours.

We feel that is is a good way for a Bride’s family and friends to get involved in making a bespoke wedding, and much of it can be made with recycled and vintage materials. Debbie Bird came up with a lovely idea for making bouquets made from old love letters…well who writes those these days? But it will still work using a romantic novel or a book of love poetry – I recommend John Donne for the most unashamed ideas on what it is like to be in love .

At the venue after I had set out the samples of what people can make with us with Heart Space, I took a good look around the rest of the stands, absolutely fascinating, so many really desirable things…starting with the cakes…..

I was delighted to find the Chocolate Delores stand with wedding cakes that all looked like they were made from fabrics – and they were made from chocolate…how fabulous is that? those swirls of white chocolate just look like tulle and look at the sprigged rosebud pink print on the wrapped cake.

Other stands were more conventional using real lace, beads and silks, there were so many good ideas for textile jewellry that I wanted to get the makers to come and do workshops for us at Heart Space, some may come and teach with us in the future.

the Lilygrace stand was full of hand made fabrics beaded and embellished by the maker, Hazel Mathiot was actually stitching pieces at the fair. I particularly liked her very richly beaded wrist band, a case of the “more is more” school of design.

There were lots of lovely embroidered lace accessories throughout the whole show, mostly head dresses with embroidered lace stitched onto Alice bands, Bridezillas were particularly stunning

in fact their stand was mesmerizing so many lovely desirable things, really all this vintage wedding stuff brings out the hidden girly in everyone….

even me!

Heart Space Studios is one year old this week, so we repeated our first ever class, Making Fabric Beads with Patricia Brownen, and the results are as desirable as always. This is one of our most popular classes and the original report also receives many hits on this blog, so I thought I would show the successful process of designing and making the beads.

Patricia always brings in lots of lovely fabrics and unusual materials, as well as her own jewellry, as inspiration. She uses a simple device for designing and making a whole set of co-ordinating coloured beads for a single necklace: – picture postcards.

Students get to choose from whole range of different postcards, from impressionist paintings to modern textiles, anything where colour is paramount and abstract images are better than figurative, but you could make your own inspirational cards…..

There are 2 types of bead made in the workshop, one involves rolling pipe cleaners with fabric and threads and then stitching through the roll to hold everything into position, the second type is rolled felt that can be needle felted and wrapped and secured with coloured threads.

These 2 simple systems used to make the beads means that choosing colours and experimenting with textures is a an exciting and immediate process.

To ensure colour co-ordination several rolls of pipe cleaners can be made together before rolling onto a wooden skewer to form separate beads.

Making the beads is really easy – peasy and playing with the different scraps of threads ribbons and tiny glass beads is a real textile maker’s pleasure,

Working to the postcard colours ensures a good range of co-ordinating beads, below are samples of both the wrapped felt ( white long bead) and pipe-cleaners( 2 blue knobbly beads.)

The long felt beads can be made in very subtle shades when they are needle felted first with scraps of fleece.

At the end of the day’s session everyone displayed their beads with the inspirational card,the class discussed the next steps – making more at home, then stringing them together.

Patricia showed the group a simple stringing system using a pretty toning ribbon.

I was so impressed by the results of the colours achieved by working with the postcards that I have made a small selection of the finished beads and their cards. They almost formed a rainbow – soft blues and turquoise…