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:: Darn it

Posted by Sonja on July 25, 2008 | Permalink

I’m a lucky girl because I usually don’t have to go back to work till the second week of January after Christmas holidays. So last January, in my ‘free week’, I did a LOT of darning. I went through my wardrobe and sewed up all those ripped underarms, torn linings and loose buttons. It was nice to be able to wear everything again.
Since then I’ve kept it up. The Home Front got it right with its Make Do And Mend slogan during the war. I bought a little book at the Imperial War Museum that’s a reproduction of a ‘Make Do And Mend’ leaflet the government issued during the war, full of tips and tricks on how to unpick old jumpers and sew them into socks, or put pretty patches over holes. They’ve also got a Mend, Make or Spend? online game.
There’s always the odd thing I realise I’m not wearing because a button’s missing or a waistband needs taking in, but as I go along I backstitch my wardrobe back to life.
If you can Mend, you don’t have to Make Do.

P.S. I do not advise the mending of trousers while the owner is wearing them, as shown above. That could lead to a nasty accident…

Categories: about us, craft, green, style
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:: Gok’s frocks - do they rock?

Posted by Sonja on July 15, 2008 | Permalink

Fashion television can be amazing or shit. But I’ll enjoy it whatever the quality! The Clothes Show had its day, I used to love She’s Gotta Have It, Looking Good presented by Lowri Turner, who looked square but was hilarious as hell, and I still enjoy What Not To Wear although it should be titled How To Dress Middle Class And Boring.
I have a secret penchant too for How To Look Good Naked - not strictly a fashion show, but presented by total queen Gok Wan and a fabulous mixture of high camp and self-esteem boot camp. So at the end of the last series when he said his next show would be a fashion show, I probably grinned at the tv (between my tears over how great the woman who’d just come out of chemotherapy looked in a bikini).
I watched the first in the new Gok’s Fashion Fix series last week and was impressed that he had Brix Smith Start, owner of Shoreditch’s Start boutique, as an ‘expert’, and that they dared poke fun at her with lots of shots of her chasing her silly little dog, Pixie, around her boutique. At one point I swear Pixie pawed at a dress worth thousands of pounds, about to rip into the silk with her doggie claws, and Brix Smith Smart didn’t bat a fake eyelash. I also loved the moment when Gok told Geri Halliwell “I love you with all my chinkie heart”. Not so good was the cheesy jingle, presence of Alexa Chung - (sh)it girl of the moment - and repetitive repetition of what had already happened in the show, and what was coming up (um, I may be a dumb fashion girl, but I do possess a short-term memory).
This week’s episode was also fun - polyester, an amazing Alexander McQueen dress, Karl Lagerfeld looking like Michael Jackson’s grandfather and a few small online shops getting their stuff featured in the ‘high street’ outfits.
It’s not the Amazing Fashion TV Show that I truly crave, but hey ho any old rag show will do for me!

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:: Putting up my mum’s tapestries

Posted by Sonja on July 12, 2008 | Permalink

Dear Mum,

I wish I could show you how good your tapestries look in my living room. I was so excited about getting them down here - they’ve been waiting at dad’s house for about two years now but it was hard finding someone who could drive them down.

I wasn’t sure what order to position them in, I remember you saying something about them being different seasons but it’s hard to tell which is which - the trees are green in all of them.

I remember they took you a year each to make, when I was small, and I used to think that was a very long time. Now I know it can go fast.

The pictures still smell of home to me - they smell like sweet beer, attics and the landing. It feels so wrong to be hanging them somewhere else. They belong at home. But the brown wool wall hanging is long gone and the cream sofa is in dad’s new house now.

It was difficult nailing them up in a neat grid - because they were each framed at a different time, they’re slightly different sizes and the woods are different. There’s a scratch on one, probably Rowan did it when he was small and being naughty.

I expected to feel more pleased, having them hanging up, but I just feel quite empty, because you’re not here to see. I thought when you asked me three years ago which of your tapestries I would want to keep if you died, that I wouldn’t be getting those tapestries for a long long time, so I almost looked forward to having them, in some future house, some future home when I was grown up.

I suppose I’m grown up now - I own this flat but it’s your money really, and they’re your tapestries, and they always will be.

Love from,

Sonja
xx

Categories: about us, craft
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:: The Museum for Objects of Vertu

Posted by Sonja on July 11, 2008 | Permalink

Wouldn’t this be a wonderful place to spend the weekend?

This is the outside of The Museum for Objects of Vertu. Inside is a tiny, dark room, in corsetry and textiles artist Fleur Oakes’s studio, where she holds the tiniest exhibitions. It’s in deepest suburban north London, in the grounds of an amazing rambling old house, that contains many artists’ studios in many strange small buildings around the grounds. Last time I went there I felt I’d been invited to a private party held a hundred years ago. There’s an exhibition on this weekend (and by appointment until 27th July) and so if you like ramshackle gardens, ancient haberdashery, cups of tea and tiny handcrafted miraculous works of art you should go.

It’s open Saturday 12th and Sunday 13th July from 12noon - 6pm, at 89 Park Road, New Barnet (take the Piccadilly line to Cockfosters - it’s always worth a journey to the end of the line…)

Categories: adventure, art, london
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:: Rachael Matthews for Next Queen

Posted by Sonja on July 4, 2008 | Permalink

I once looked into the application process for nominating someone for an OBE (we used to have a truly remarkable postman called Ken who definitely deserved one) but it looked far too complicated. I’m tempted to try again, so we can get Rachael Matthews to be awarded it by the Queen. Maybe if the Queen met Rachael she would appoint her as her royal successor. I think it would make sense.
Rachael set up Cast Off Knitting Club and now runs Prick Your Finger, the best haberdashery shop in the world. Her house, above the shop, is like her own natural palace - purposefully wonky, designed by a crazy architect in the eighties, full of random, fascinating stuff.
I strongly suggest reading Rachael’s blog. It’s the only blog I read apart from this one. Those are her hands in the picture above, writing it…

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:: Bow selecter

Posted by Sonja on May 31, 2008 | Permalink

The brown suede ribbons on my boots finally gave up the ghost. So I put some cute blue ribbons in instead. I got this blue ribbon with flocked red hearts a few years ago from an online ribbon seller. Unfortunately I’ve lost their details.

I do actually wish I’d swapped the ribbons around a lot more during the life of the boots, so that the brown suede ones were still an option. I suppose you don’t need to wait for something to break or wear out before sprucing it up!

Categories: green, style
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:: Cut some rug

Posted by Sonja on May 27, 2008 | Permalink

One of my biggest ever craft undertakings is now, finally, over.

And here is the result, one magnificent hooked rug! Hurray! My glee knows no bounds.

It took 45 minutes to hook one row.

It took 45 rows before it began to look even vaguely rug-like.

Feeeeeeeeeel the labour hours!

This rug contains all my old clothes, my entire fabric stash, all my boyfriend’s old clothes, and anything fabric that couldn’t justify itself on the grounds of usefulness. While making it, it took up half my living room (as opposed to the one eighth it occupies now complete), and the bone that sticks out at the base of my thumb grew swollen from over-use of scissors, as I cut thousands of small fabric strips. An inch by six inches, by the thousand.

I still recommend that you make one. It’s a very pleasing thing. The pile is so deliciously thick.

My boyfriend helped too, which was nice.

Categories: craft
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:: For good pictures

Posted by Sonja on April 21, 2008 | Permalink

What is it about Pictures? I love pictures. I like to look at nice pictures. I like to go into the gallery shop, after looking at Pictures in an exhibition, and look at more Pictures on postcards. I have a box file for pictures I like, and this smaller box for smaller pictures I like. Both my Picture boxes are full.

I found my dream picture box online. It’s called VADS, the online resource for visual arts. It has all the picture archives from lots of museums, universities, galleries etc etc. Translation: lots of nice Pictures. You can sign up and then store all your favourites in a ‘lightbox’. The pictures are sorted in collections, depending on where they’re from - the Crafts Council, Design Council, or the Frederick Parker Chair Collection. Et cetera.

I can’t show any here because they’re all copyrighted, but I promise it’s a box of delights.

Categories: about us, art, design
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:: Mark Pawson and possessions

Posted by Sonja on April 12, 2008 | Permalink

Last week I went to a private view of Mr Mark Pawson’s new exhibition at the Horse Hospital, one of London’s best venues, and miraculously still little known. A bit like Mark himself - one of our best visual conjurers, but miraculously still little known. He probably likes it like that.

He prints his own signs, badges and postcards. He collects things, mostly plastic figures, and always completes the set. He works in bright colours. He is the coal miner of culture.

I invited my friend Katie, who recently had all her possessions stolen and destroyed in a lock-up break-in. As we entered the exhibition, and I saw what a feast of objects Mark had assembled, I had some misgivings about bringing Katie. She saw one of his signs, that said something about listening to all the unplayed records you’ve ever bought, and reading all the unread books, and had “a moment”.

But we stayed and looked at his full set of plastic Kinder polar bears, and read his ‘cultural workers’ manifesto, and Katie seemed stoical about her losses. I may buy her a set of his badges, to set her back off down the road to ownership.

Categories: adventure, art, design, london
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:: William Morris - my new hero!

Posted by Sonja on March 31, 2008 | Permalink

Oh don’t you love it when you find a new hero?

I went to the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow.

Amongst all the tapestries, stained glass windows and old cloth-bound books was a piece of linoleum (yes, linoleum) designed by the man himself. We’re talking linoleum from the 1800s! And they found it in a skip.

They also had his satchel, that he used to carry all his socialist pamphlets around in. He was quite the socialist, being against mass-manufacturing, for workers’ rights, and believing in good design as the route to a decent life for all (he put it better than that - seriously, you need to visit this museum).

He also had some interesting things to say about pattern, and they had his original designs, blocked in on squared paper like a cross stitch pattern, and then the resulting woven fabric.

I’m already planning a second visit. It’s pure pattern porn. Mixed in with a bit of politics.

Speaking of politics, “they” are trying to shut the place down. Disgrace.

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