Wool House at Somerset House

Wool House at Somerset House is full of innovative textiles, garments and furniture and is a showcase for all the different uses, textures and colours of wool. Organised by the Campaign for Wool and curated by Arabella McNie, Wool House is supported by many well known designers and companies.

Yarns for weaving.
Photo by Emma Vining

Mood board by Damson and Slate
Photo by Emma Vining

The Saville Row room came complete with a pinstripe upholstered chair, a cupboard full of paper garment blocks and fabric samples and fabulous examples of what can be made with the wonderful wool fabrics.

Pinstripe Chair
Photo by Emma Vining

Paper garment blocks and wool fabrics
Photo by Emma Vining

Photo by Emma Vining

Featured fashion designers included Mark Fast, with a stunning wool dress and Vivienne Westwood with eye catching platform shoes.

Dress by Mark Fast
Photo by Emma Vining

Shoes by Vivienne Westwood
Photo by Emma Vining

Tapestry work by Claudy Jongstra was set in a big space where there was room to appreciate the scale of the pieces. A nearby table had samples of the yarns used that could be touched and handled to feel the quality of the wool.

Tapestry - Composition Blue and Composition Yellow by Claudy Jongstra
Photo by Emma Vining

Yarns used by Claudy Jongstra
Photo by Emma Vining

The Classic Drawing Room designed by Fox Linton Associates contained a stunning array of features, including beautiful winged pendants by Kate Ramsey and the amazing dress by Kong Fanfan made from recycled DVDs that I had seen in a Selfridges window display a few week earlier.

Classic Drawing Room by Fox Linton Associates
Photo by Emma Vining

Winged Pendants by Kate Ramsey
Photo by Emma Vining

Dress by Kong Fanfan
Photo by Emma Vining

The Modern Room was created by Anne Kyyro-Quinn. Working with felted wool, she has explored cutting and folding to create visually stunning effects. The curved wall with three dimensional felted wool stripes has acoustic sound absorbing properties.

Manipulated felt cushions by Anne Kyyro-Quinn
Photo by Emma Vining

Curved wall with 3D felted panels by Anne Kyyro-Quinn
Photo by Emma Vining

In complete contrast to the bright modern room, Josephine Ryan created the Natural Room, full of fabulous cables on garments and furniture!

The Natural Room by Josephne Ryan
Photo by Emma Vining

Cables in the Natural Room
Photo by Emma Vining

Other rooms featured include the Nursery by Donna Wilson, the Snug by Arabella McNie, the Study by Ashley Hicks, the Bedroom by Kit Kemp and the Entrance Lobby. The Hallways display had incredibly long wool runners which fitted perfectly into the elegant corridors of Somerset House.

Masai Indigo Runner by Roger Oats.
Photo by Emma Vining 

Infinity by Cristian Zuzunaga
Photo by Emma Vining

The Campaign for Wool was launched in 2010 by it's patron, HRH The Prince of Wales. It is a way of uniting farmers, leading brands, retailers and the international wool textile industry to promote real wool as a sustainable fibre for fashion, interiors and the built environment. Wool House at Somerset House has certainly covered all of this in a unique and inspiring way.

Image from the Campaign for Wool website

Slipknot: The Knitting & Crochet Guild Journal

Slipknot is the journal of the Knitting & Crochet Guild and my copy of Issue 138, March 2013, just arrived by post.

The Knitting and Crochet Guild's 1891 Sampler
Image from the K&C Guild website

The front page of Slipknot has this picture of the Guild's 1891 knitted sampler, showing the incredible detail of the stitches and fineness of the yarn. An article by Kathleen Kinder is all about her study of this sampler and other examples held by the Guild. Her recommendations of further reading, in particular the online resources, are excellent. Kathleen's in depth study lead to the publishing of her book, Inspiration of Lace Knitting.

My review of the Kaffe Fassett Talk at the V&A in December 2012 (also posted on this blog) is also in this issue, on p15. I hope my article will encourage visits to the Kaffe Fassett Exhibition, soon to open at the Fashion and Textile Museum, London.

Image from FTM Website

As well as details of the K&C Guild's convention in July this year, other articles in this issue include book reviews, encouragement to visit Ruddington Framework Knitter's Museum, reviews of Woolfest, Shetland Wool Week and much more. Lesley O'Connell Edward's excellent 'Did you know?' compilation is full of things I didnt know! Barbara Smith's article on pattern leaflets with garments designed by Mary Quant is based on her research on the leaflets held at Lee Mills. The Guild has two thirds of the 27 Mary Quant leaflets produced. Angharad Thomas brings us up to date with the huge cataloguing project at Lee Mills, where students on placement from Huddersfield University have been invaluable in their help.

I am really pleased to have been included in this Issue and am keen to continue to contribute to Slipknot, so I will be looking out for other knitting events to review and write about. There are so many exciting things going on that would be great to share with other members and on this blog, of course!

The Secret Geometry of Seventeenth Century Dress

At a 'behind-the-scenes' lecture in the V&A's Sackler Centre on Wednesday 27th February, Senior Curator Susan North introduced two recently published books of Seventeenth Century Women's Dress patterns. 

Book One
Available from the V&A Shop

Book Two
Available from The V&A Shop

Susan shared many of the inspirations and sources of her research with us, including the extensive costume history book reading list. She showed how the approach to documenting and creating historical dress patterns had changed over the years. Most early works relied upon linear drawings and until the Tudor Tailor was published, there had been little direction for actually dressing a person.

Collaborating with Jenny Tiramani was essential to the project. Extensive research in authentic Elizabethan and Jacobean clothing for productions at the Globe Theatre, London had been carried out by Jenny and Luca Costigliolo, Claire Thornton, Armelle Lucas and Christine Prentis, all members of the wardrobe team at the Globe between 1999 and 2005. This team produced the detailed patterns for the V&A books.

A major challenge was to determine the original construction of the seventeenth century garments in the V&A collection without unpicking them. Susan described the process of looking at a complete garment and working out the order of construction as 'sewing backwards'! Once this stage was complete, the team made accurate half size toiles of the garments to be sure that 'sewing forwards' worked too. 

More secrets were uncovered when the garments were X-rayed. The X-rays revealed unexpected hidden features and lead to a better understanding of techniques used. For example, whale bones in the watered pink silk stays were sharpened to a point to go through narrow sewn channels, but were also shown on the X-ray as being stitched through. This could only be achieved by soaking the the stays to make them pliable, then threading and stitching them when still wet. 

Watered Silk Stays from the V&A Collection
Image from V&A

X rays of beautiful lace edged gloves similar to the ones below, revealed the tiny selvedges used in the seams.

Gloves on show in the V&A British Galleries similar to those in Book Two
Photo by Emma V

Although originally planned as one book, the beautiful photography and level of detail meant two volumes were needed to include everything the authors felt was key to understanding the secrets of the garments. Susan's talk gave us an excellent insight into how much there is to be discovered in these fascinating books.

Sugar Kelp in the Knitter Magazine Issue 55

My Sugar Kelp Sweater Pattern has been published in this month's Knitter Magazine! Sugar Kelp is on the front page of Issue 55, shown as the textured sweater on the lower left.

Inspired by a walk along the beach, the cable panel design is based on the beautiful Sugar Kelp washed up on the shore. The cables and cluster stitches form a lattice on the front and back of the sweater. The fit is loose and relaxed. You can have a closer look at the the photos on the Making Spot Website.

Image from the Making Spot

Image from the Making Spot

Sister by Sibling at London Fashion Week

Sid Bryan, Joe Bates and Cozette McCreery are the designers behind Sister by Sibling who, according to their British Fashion Council profile, "....like mutating classic, traditional knitwear designs or techniques so the Knit Monster Scare Isle comes to mind."

Their ideal client is "a girl with a good sense of humour and a fun, happy attitude" and their knit creations shown at London Fashion Week yesterday, reflect this perfectly. Enjoy!

All images from London Fashion Week website

Modular Knitting and Crochet Inspiration

Garments in a window display at Selfridges, London, made shoppers stop and stare! Created from recycled DVDs, these amazing dresses by Kong Fan Fan are ideal inspiration for modular knitting or crochet.

Dress by Kong Fan Fan
Photo by Emma Vining

Dress by Kong Fan Fan
Photo by Emma Vining

Dress by Kong Fan Fan
Photo by Emma Vining

This window display is part of the No Noise initiative at Selfridges that celebrates the 'power of quiet'.

Museum Apps

Museums and Galleries are included in the second part of The Sunday Times App list. There are some excellent Museum apps for either visiting suggestions, planning a museum trip or just browsing the collections. Here are three that I am enjoying looking at.

The Art Guide, offers a free mobile app (iPhone, Android) to promote museums and galleries across the  whole of the UK. The 'What to See' section is a great way of keeping up with current exhibitions. 'Last Chance' reminds you of which exhibitions are about to end and 'Opening Soon' helps you plan future visits.

The app from MOMA, Museum of Modern Art in New York is the next best thing to visiting! As well as a 'What's On' section, the app has a detailed 'Search the Collection' feature and an in depth A-Z of Art terms and artists. For example, selecting A for Arts and Crafts leads you to a definition of the Arts and Crafts Movement, then on to pictures of related objects, including work by William Morris and Charles Rennie Mackintosh. The app also includes links to MOMA podcasts and MOMA on iTunesU where there are short features on artists and subjects relating to the Museum.

The Bauhaus app (iPhone, free) is a guide to the Bauhaus Museum in Berlin, in German or English. There is an excellent set of illustrated and audio guides to the Bauhaus Collection, explaining objects, items and teaching within the Bauhaus School, with particular reference to well known artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. I found these explanations really interesting, having seen the Bauhaus: Art as Life exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery last year.