Category: History
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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…
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Fabric Manipulation : Stitch & Slash
Would you believe that ripped jeans of the 1990s are simply harking back to the 16th century? For a brief period, it was the height of fashion to ‘pink’ or slash luxury fabrics to create pattern and to reveal yet another fancy fabric underneath. That’s where the term pinking shears comes from, although they appear somewhat later.…
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Family Stories
After my Grandad died (aged 96) in late 2012, I cleared out a huge amount of textiles from his house, along with masses of curios and generations of junk that he had kept. His second wife’s family ran a small laundry business, and it was the ex-laundry buildings where Grandad kept all sorts of interesting…
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Trapunto Quilting
Trapunto, Italian quilting or stuffed quilting is an old and rather under-appreciated technique which I am a huge fan of. Unlike ‘normal’ quiting, where two layers of fabric have a layer of wadding between them and are stitched through all the layers, Trapunto uses two layers of fabric and the stuffing is only placed in…
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Embroidery commission for Jan Garside
I recently completed a small embroidery commission for my friend, the weaver Jan Garside, who I’ve collaborated with before. She asked me to make some pieces based on Elizabethan embroideries at Hardwick Hall for a commission she was working on. Jan & her finished pieces. Find out more about Jan & her work here. This…
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Exhibitions at Waddesdon
There’s textile delights aplenty at Waddesdon Manor at the moment. I particularly wanted to see Sacred Stitches, an exhibition of ecclesiastic textiles from the Rothschild Collection which is reviews in Embroidery magazine (July / August). I love Medieval church textiles so was excited to see examples that have not been displayed before, and I was…
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Trapunto quilting
One of the most popular sessions I teach is Trapunto or Italian quilting. My new book, Fabric Manipulation, 150 Creative Sewing Techniques, covers this technique in detail and includes lots of variations including shadow quilting, corded quilting and using stretch fabrics. Detail of Time Bubble 1. I’ve been using Trapunto for years in small projects…
Ruth Singer 