Category: exhibitions

Museum of English Rural Life

Smocking

On Sunday afternoon I persuaded Paul to wander round the Museum of English Rural Life.
I hadn’t been since it moved location (in 2005!), and it’s in a much bigger space now. It’s a slightly strange museum – laid out more like a store room than an exhibit, with things shoved up corners and hanging from the ceiling – but it’s an amazing collection, and there’s a wealth of information to go with it.

The highlight of my trip was getting to play dress-up with the reproduction linen smocks. They didn’t have a pair of farmer’s clogs in my size, otherwise I’d have been wearing those as well!

(I used to wear slip-on clogs all the time when I was a student. My friends kindly referred to them as “those sawn-off wellies”. Charming.)

The highlight of the trip was tagging on to the tail end of a guided tour, and being allowed upstairs into the archives – and they have MASSES of textiles! Lace fans, embroidery samplers, tatting, and LOADS of clothing.

I’ve taken a large number of photos of the reproduction smocked coat and tunic, although I was so over-excited that I completely forgot to take pictures of the inside. These garments would have been made entirely by hand, so I’d like to have a look at how the seams were finished.

I can’t help wondering whether there’s been an extensive study made of all the garments hidden away in the archives. With the exceptions of craft books and sampler patterns, I can’t find anything that’s been published on the subject in more than twenty years. (A study was done in 2001, but it’s out of print.)

The next time I go over to the University library, I might have to browse around the clothing and folklore sections, and see what I can find out. This smock collection is crying out “PhD” to me. I wonder…

Preparing the badges…

The Reveal Showcase exhibition starts next weekend, and just for once I’m prepared well in advance!

I’ve spent today preparing all the badges for display. I’ve used mini cards and postcards from Moo for my packaging. I’m a big fan of Moo, and the mini cards are just the perfect size:

REVEAL Showcase preparation

I have forty individual badges, and twenty sets of four. I have no idea whether this is far too many, or nowhere near enough. I guess I’ll find out as the week of the exhibition goes on. I have plenty more materials, so I can always put together some more if I need to. (Or sell them at the next Art Market, if I end up bringing them all home again…)

My only concern now is how to display all of the postcards and mini cards at the exhibition itself. I don’t really want to spend money on a fancy stand that I’ll never use again, and I don’t really want to spend all of next week making something wonky out of cardboard.

What I really need is a pretty letter rack, or maybe a vintage toast rack of some kind…

REVEAL: a showcase of quality hand-made craft

I mentioned this a little while ago, but some of my badges are going to be in an exhibition!

It’s called REVEAL – a showcase of quality hand-made craft.

It’s on from Sunday 6th to Saturday 12th July, 10am to 5pm every day, and entry is free.

It’s at the Henley Exhibition Centre.

The website has a gallery of work by all the exhibitors – I’m really looking forward to going along and seeing all the lovely things!

Lots and lots of badges.

Today I have been mostly making lots and lots of badges.

Badge mix-up

This probably wasn’t a very clever thing to do with a bad wrist, but I needed to get some photographs taken to send to Lauren Denney. She’s organising an exhibition of local artists, and she saw my badges on Etsy and invited me to take part!

Lauren is a ceramic artist, and the exhibition will take place in Henley, from the 6th to the 12th of June. Rest assured that I will be advertising this like mad as soon as I have more details!

I’m submitting three different types of badges to the exhibition, all made from recycled paper ephemera:

Map badges
Damaged Ordnance Survey maps (this one’s of Sheffield)

Textbook badges
Discarded Library textbooks

Pin-up badges
An out of date Gil Elvgren pin-up calendar

Some of the badges will be sold singly, simply pinned on to individual Moo cards. Others will be grouped into sets of four – I need to design the packaging for these, and work out how they’re going to be displayed.

I’m on the reserve list for the Rising Sun Art Market the day before the exhibition opens, so I’m planning to make even more badges over the next three weeks, so that I can also sell them at the Art Market if I’m lucky enough to get a place.

I need to make lots of pillowcase tote bags for the Art Market as well, not to mention having a jacket and dress fitting day in the meantime, so it looks as though I’ve got a busy time coming up!

More slippers, and an exhibition!

, your slippers are finished! I hope you like them. 🙂

This pair were made to fit a drawing of ‘s feet, which she sent to me using the Power of the Internet. I now need to post them across the Atlantic, and hope that they fit when they get there!

Tiger slippers!

These are made in the same way as the monkey slippers. The uppers are made from plush tiger fabric lined with gold satin, and interfaced with a layer of batting for extra softness. The inner soles are made from gold satin and white cotton, with a layer of 1″ foam and a piece of buckram sandwiched in between. The outer soles are felt, edged with blanket stitch in a strong buttonhole thread.

I learnt a few things while making this pair – namely when it’s better to use a curved upholstery needle, and when a straight one is more effective.

Next up will be two little pairs for Daniel and Edward, my colleague’s sons. They’ll both be made of polar fleece, so they should be really squashy and cute!

Oh yes, the art exhibition!

I’ve received an email via Etsy, from a local ceramic artist. She’s asked me whether I’d like to have some of my badges included in an exhibition that she’s putting on in Henley in July.

I’ve mailed back to ask for more information, but this is the first time I’ve been invited to take part in anything like this, so I’m very excited about it!