Beauty can be so overwhelming
This week, I wish to be a hermit!
We all had such a wonderful time over the weekend, starting off with my workshop on Friday and then the FR trip on Saturday. Alison (CrikeyAphrodite) and I even visited Chatsworth on the way home on Sunday (I couldn't wait Cathy, I had to see it!), so it was a weekend crammed full of beautiful things.
I am now, however, kind of exhausted. We were late arriving on the Saturday (entirely my fault for thinking I knew something about the A1 road when I clearly didn't) which meant that I didn't get to properly talk to some people that I had really been looking forward to meeting. But such is life. Next time, we will all have to arrange the social side of things properly :-D
So, a couple of highlights:
- An Edwardian corset with decidedly contemporary-looking plunge cut at the bust (I began playing with a pattern inspired by this on Monday and hope to also write up an FR article on the topic).
- The ventilated corsets.
- A corset with a "Y" shaped busk and beautiful ribbon/lace detailing at top edge.
- All the beautiful corded corsets and the minute variations between them. After a day of quietly obsessing ("how did they get the bump of the cording just to the topside of the corset if it was threaded afterwards? It can't have been threaded afterwards, but doesn't look like each line was stitching individually!"), I read in the back of Philip Warren's book that the factory did indeed have a specialised machine that created the cording in one pass. This settled my mind (I was quite infuriated at not being able to figure out how it was done) but then of course left me irked that I cannot recreate the exact same aesthetic/technique at home.
- Chilling out with Alison (CrikeyAphrodite) and Marianne (PopAntique) for a couple of days. Both lovely ladies, really sweet people and excellent company :-)
- Drawing on a toile as worn by the lovely Breezer at my workshop (she was kind of ticklish, it was funny).
- Being a bit playful, again at the workshop... Yes, we should have been working, but we took a moment to photograph Marianne in my cranberry corset, then began drawing pretty ladies and unicorns on the huge chalk board!
- The gorgeous big black Shire horses at Chatsworth.
- Meeting the lovely Melissa, Jillia (I think I've spelled that correctly), Julia (of SewCurvy), Sue (of JollyDicey), Sandrine (of Serinde Corsets), Marion (editor of FR), Anna (a corsetmaker from Glasgow), others whose names elude me (please please forgive me for that, I'm terrible with names), and a few more still who I got to meet for the second time.
Many thanks to Cathy, Marion, Philip and Sarah, for arranging our visit and talking to us about the antiques. There was so much to see, beautifully presented, and everyone was so incredibly accommodating. I think we all came away with a new-found respect for "drab" colours(!) and with lots of ideas for our own practice.
And now, I am scurrying back to the quiet of my workroom! I've got some shimmering ivory satin that requires my attention and after all the overwhelming gorgeousness I saw at the weekend I just need to focus on something clean and simple.
We all had such a wonderful time over the weekend, starting off with my workshop on Friday and then the FR trip on Saturday. Alison (CrikeyAphrodite) and I even visited Chatsworth on the way home on Sunday (I couldn't wait Cathy, I had to see it!), so it was a weekend crammed full of beautiful things.
I am now, however, kind of exhausted. We were late arriving on the Saturday (entirely my fault for thinking I knew something about the A1 road when I clearly didn't) which meant that I didn't get to properly talk to some people that I had really been looking forward to meeting. But such is life. Next time, we will all have to arrange the social side of things properly :-D
So, a couple of highlights:
- An Edwardian corset with decidedly contemporary-looking plunge cut at the bust (I began playing with a pattern inspired by this on Monday and hope to also write up an FR article on the topic).
- The ventilated corsets.
- A corset with a "Y" shaped busk and beautiful ribbon/lace detailing at top edge.
- All the beautiful corded corsets and the minute variations between them. After a day of quietly obsessing ("how did they get the bump of the cording just to the topside of the corset if it was threaded afterwards? It can't have been threaded afterwards, but doesn't look like each line was stitching individually!"), I read in the back of Philip Warren's book that the factory did indeed have a specialised machine that created the cording in one pass. This settled my mind (I was quite infuriated at not being able to figure out how it was done) but then of course left me irked that I cannot recreate the exact same aesthetic/technique at home.
- Chilling out with Alison (CrikeyAphrodite) and Marianne (PopAntique) for a couple of days. Both lovely ladies, really sweet people and excellent company :-)
- Drawing on a toile as worn by the lovely Breezer at my workshop (she was kind of ticklish, it was funny).
- Being a bit playful, again at the workshop... Yes, we should have been working, but we took a moment to photograph Marianne in my cranberry corset, then began drawing pretty ladies and unicorns on the huge chalk board!
- The gorgeous big black Shire horses at Chatsworth.
- Meeting the lovely Melissa, Jillia (I think I've spelled that correctly), Julia (of SewCurvy), Sue (of JollyDicey), Sandrine (of Serinde Corsets), Marion (editor of FR), Anna (a corsetmaker from Glasgow), others whose names elude me (please please forgive me for that, I'm terrible with names), and a few more still who I got to meet for the second time.
Many thanks to Cathy, Marion, Philip and Sarah, for arranging our visit and talking to us about the antiques. There was so much to see, beautifully presented, and everyone was so incredibly accommodating. I think we all came away with a new-found respect for "drab" colours(!) and with lots of ideas for our own practice.
And now, I am scurrying back to the quiet of my workroom! I've got some shimmering ivory satin that requires my attention and after all the overwhelming gorgeousness I saw at the weekend I just need to focus on something clean and simple.