What, you *don’t* do a bit of weaving when you’re visiting your parents in Vermont? Well I guess I am at an advantage in that my mother is a highly accomplished hand weaver, so don’t feel bad. I was finally able, after two years, to go back to Vermont and see my parents. And was …
I’m in the middle of a project which is going to have lacing in it, and also in the middle of one massive, days-long squeal of excitement regarding my new eyelet press and how much easier it’s going to make setting eyelets in all the laced garments I’m going to be making, when into my …
Once upon a time, long, long ago, I made a dress form in the shape of me from a whole lot of gummed paper tape. I followed this tutorial from Threads magazine, and if you’re thinking of doing this, but plaster casts and expanding foam feels a bit too much, that might be a good …
My mate Loukas, to whom I have owed a few days’ work for aaaaaages, came to stay last week so we could get to work on a project he’s been eyeing up for a while. Somewhere, he’d happened upon a small mountain of old scout and guide tents, the cotton canvas kind, and his creative …
I was lucky enough to spend a day this past weekend at Running With Scissors in Sheffield, teaching some lovely people to make a shirt in a day. It is every bit as ambitious as it sounds. But they were well up for a challenge and they did magnificently. Up to and including this course, …
I’ve been messing about with this bead and wire technique since I saw a Very Expensive necklace in a posh artisan shop in town and thought to myself, “I could do that…” I love the bit where I go to my stack of drawers full of beads of every shape and colour and just choose …
Emboldened by the success of the first pair of boxers I made, and somewhat overexcited by the re-opening of charity shops, I decided to make Julian some crazy new boxers. I came home with this haul of old garments: And from them I made this pile of pants: These take a up a lot more …
You know how it is: you buy a pair of secondhand jeans without trying them on, maybe you’re too lazy or maybe you’re buying them online and there’s no option, but you’re safe because these are from a company you know, they are a style you have already tried and they are the same size …
I wanted to call them pirate pants. Julian suggested puffling pants. It was inevitable. You may (if you have been paying attention) remember that my enormous stash of knit fabrics contained some awesome stripe stuff (pictured below under some less-desirable green fabric). It was actually cream, gold and dark green when I bought it but …
Inspired by the one we saw at Harlow Carr, I decided a couple of days ago to make a leaf mould roller/container in the shape of a teapot. For one thing, it’s something to do with the rolls of fencing wire I have somehow acquired over the years, and the chicken wire (I don’t even …
