Author: Ruth Singer
-
The Unofficial Downton Abbey Sews
Last week I had a short and ineffective battle with creating a simple 1920s-ish dress for an event. The dress was an utter failure, although the fabric has now been recut into something much better, to be made in less of a rush! I wore an original1920s coat and simple skirt and blouse instead, inspired…
-
Old Textiles at October’s Sew Sociable
This month’s Sew Sociable will be all about old textiles. I’ll be giving a talk about my love of antique textiles, about museum collections, about my own collection of textiles and how I take inspiration from them to create my own textile art. Anyone coming to the event is enthusiastically encouraged to bring along their own…
-
Pleated dress and hat decorations
In my research into manipulated fabrics, I have often come across trimmings created using pleated or gathered ribbon, most often on hats, although sometimes on garments too. 18th century dress trimmings are usually made from self-fabric (strips of the same fabric the garment is made from) rather than ribbons. Box pleating is common, as are…
-
Community sustainable textiles project
I recently completed a short project for Sustainable Harborough using natural dyes and local plants to create a textile wall hanging for the local library. They asked me to propose a workshop for a town centre activity day which local people could join in with and result in something attractive and informative for display at…
-
Postcard from Chateau Dumas 2
I had a wonderful week teaching at Chateau Dumas. The place really speaks for itself. A beautiful and magical place. With a chateau chat. Perfect! Chateau Dumas Postcard 1 – Dye workshops More postcards to come: the gardens, the brocante and more on the workshops.
-
Show Season!
I’ve barely unpacked all the goodies I bought at the Festival of Quilts (last month) and apparently it is almost time for the Knitting & Stitching Show** – with the local Big Textile Show* in between. Festival of Quilts at the NEC Birmingham is always a favourite of mine – it is an hour away so…
-
What’s in Your Shed? Exhibition at Snibston
This week I finally got to see my work Tool Shed on exhibition at Snibston, a museum a few miles away from me. Apparently this work inspired the whole exhibition project, which is really nice to know. My work is exhibited in a purpose-built shed, inside the giant museum shed-style building. It’s great that my dad was…
-
Postcard from Chateau Dumas 1
I’m not long back from a glorious week teaching at Chateau Dumas. It is as wonderful as it looks. I’ve never had such a luxurious teaching experience! The Art of Textiles course covered masses of creative techniques over the course of 6 days and we started with my experimental and freestyle approach to natural dyes.…
-
Natural Dye: local plant bundles
After a year or so of experimenting with natural dyes, I’ve had plenty of disappointments alongside a lot of happy accidents, although very few ‘turned out just how I planned’. I am not a precise, measuring, recording, repeating kind of dyer. I read a lot about dyes and then I experiment, break the rules, mess…
Ruth Singer 