Tag: display

New hat, new options for a mannequin

Hand blocked wool felt baby pink cloche hat featuring a floral design with hand embroidery, felt flowers and vintage buttons

Here is today’s felt hat offering – now in the Etsy shop. I’m really pleased with how the flowers came out, although I learnt an important lesson about doing all the work in the right order. (Note to self: Yes, putting the flowers on first allowed you to check their placement. But it made for incredibly fiddly stitching of the stems!)

I had been vaguely planning to work on felt hats during my full days off work, and then do other kinds of sewing during my half days. Given how sore my fingers are from doing all of this hand sewing through machine-made felt, I think I might revise that plan. Ouch.

Excitingly, my previous hat (the bright pink one with the black guipure lace) sold out almost immediately, and was swiftly followed by an order for another one the same! So I’ve ordered some new felt hoods from Parkin Fabrics, and I’ll make a start on some more hats once they arrive. Perhaps without embroidery this time though.

Interestingly, after my earlier post contemplating the purchase of a new mannequin, I received a very helpful email from Equipashop.com, directing my attention to the existence of the lovely lady above. She’s perfect!

Okay, so she’s still out of my budget right now, but she’s much more affordable than the one I was looking at before, and she’ll be able to display hats, cowls, gloves and jackets. Brilliant! I’m now following Equipashop.com on Facebook, I’ve signed up to their mailing list, and I’ll be making a purchase as soon as funds allow. (And she’s SPARKLY. I mean really, how can I resist?)

Looking around the rest of the site (which turns out to be FULL of bargains!) I was also pleased to see that they offer a plus size mannequin, although she’s not in stock right now. Granted, at roughly a UK size 14/16 she’s at the smaller end of plus size, but that’s still several sizes bigger than most garment display options. Conveniently her measurements are almost exactly the same as mine (though she’s quite a bit taller), so she’d actually be perfect as a dressmaker’s dummy for my own sewing.

Hmmm.

Maybe it’s time to get on with having that pattern de-stash sale that I keep thinking about, to raise money for the newly instated Mannequin Fund…

She Sells Seashells…

Seashell Collecting Display

These seashells, part of an original Victorian collection, are now on display in the Cole Museum of Zoology. The Museum had recently acquired four new display cases, and the volunteers were asked to fill them! The new cases now contain examples of fossil fish, specialisation in bird skulls, variation in beetles and my Victorian seashells.

Seashell Collecting Display

These are some of the boxes containing the tiniest little shells, complete with original handwriting on the boxes, and newspaper underneath. Some of them list the place and date of collection, others have only the species name.

Seashell Collecting Display

I didn’t manage to get a very good photo of the entire display because of the lights reflecting on the glass, but it shows the difference between amateur and professional collections, and the variety of boxes that the shells were packed into. I wrote a little bit of information about the history of shell collecting, and Amanda (the Cole Museum Curator) added some more about the current laws regarding bringing seashells home from other countries. (If in doubt – don’t!)

I really enjoyed rummaging (carefully!) through the Cole Museum’s shells to pick out just a few for this display case. They’re still in the process of being cleaned and catalogued, and there are some real beauties.