That is all. 

x

But maybe he will make a brilliant engineer.

 On this lovely Saturday with a sky filled with blue, 

The Button Queen in London. 

It has been on my to do list for quite a while, it was as good as I had hoped and we spent a wonderful hour or so looking through a shop that had the qualities of a museum. 

There were several sets of enamelled 18th/19th century buttons that I fell in love with, sadly my bank manager would never have understood and not being able to split a set, I sighed wistfully and wandered over to the next case in which to look and stare. 

It really was jolly good fun. 

So much to choose from, eventually I settled on, 

these few buttons, some old but nice replicated horn buttons in colours that I know I will knit at some time in the future. A cardigans worth of red which if not in real life, is on the needles in my imagination and a selection of childrens buttons with which to decorate any baby surprises that may come my way.  

That old button you see, well it just jumped into my hands and wouldn’t let go. 

Would you like a close up?

 Isn’t it adorable. 

I couldn’t leave it. 

Made in the 1800’s, a picture button of Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf written by the Grimm brothers, apparently there are whole sets of picture buttons representing  Grimms fairytales.  

 We popped into Liberties, Christmas is coming. 

 I bought some wool for a winter hat and looked for a graduated tailors set square with no luck.  

And then we wandered around a little more until we came upon Regent’s, 169 Regent Street.  I only mention the address as they have no website. They sell top brands, Versace, Valentino and Armani along with hand tailoring suits and selling luxury high end, (the highest of high end) Cashmere, silks, rare fibres mainly for suiting material.  I was lucky enough to see the fabrics on the basement floor, the fabrics started at £150.00 a meter and went up from there, I saw cashmere (which was dreamily soft) for £450.00 a meter, and there were fabrics that went up to £900.00 a meter.  It was a large basement, it was piled high with bolts of fabrics. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.  We chatted to the gentleman serving us and he realised I was a seamstress and was very accommodating whilst the manager was quite gruff.  That was until he realised and in his words “Oh, your a Tailor” and his stance immediately changed, and couldn’t do enough for us. Fabrics were whipped out of the off cuts pile, packages unsealed, fabric flipped open and unfolded and then fabric flew through the air to show us the faults, (moth’s had had a little picnic on the crease (where it creases in the middle on a bolt) hubby and I chose a couple of pieces of fabric that would serve us well.  One a lovely heathered blue and green wool normally retailing at £150.00 per meter, there was 3.2 meters for the sum total of thirty pounds and hubby chose a piece of wool and silk in a toned down acid green which will make a very nice waistcoat for a fiver.  I can’t show you the fabrics because they are residing in the freezer at the moment, and then they will be washed, dried and re frozen and then stored carefully away from my stash just in case, but I am sure it is going to be fine.  I shall most definitely be trotting in to see what he has in the way of offcuts next time we are in that area. 

Fortunately we didn’t miss the train, we were too tired to stay much longer. 

 

 Absolutely flat as a pancake.

 I’d only been gone ten minutes.

Then Eric woke with a start, with a nope not me, I was not asleep, look on his face.

‘Well, I will help if you like, I am very good at drawing’,  

 ‘This is the pointy end,’

‘and this is the…..’ 

 Too late, he’s gone again.

 Off to the land of nod in the lovely sunshine, dreaming about mice and other cat treats.

 I have loved the way they have come out, I think the boys will look wonderful as three Knights in the making. 

 And they have Gauntlets, should their digits feel the cold. 

I’ve really enjoyed making this set, I  hope they all get as much fun out of it as I have. 

“One for all, all for one” 

Often its the small details in life that matter, precision is something that the human mind seems to revel in as may be witnessed by the detailed embroidery of women in past centuries often sewn by candlelight or the building of railways by Victorian pioneers, I am sure the devil was in the detail for both of them. 

Yesterday I learn’t how to make tailors tacks.  It is a tiny detail, but such an important one. Before I learn’t to do tailors tacks I used to use chalk and a pin, this seems so much more refined and accurate. 

I was just slightly giddy, well okay a bit more than slightly.

I think my tutor was amused with my giddiness.

I knew she understood. 

I think the sewing fairies have caught hold of my soul, it is a good place to be.

 motley crew. 

 And I was immediately entranced. 

 We sat and watch them practise for an hour or so, I was in heaven.  On the way out we asked if there had been any returned tickets, which there hadn’t, these tickets had gone to ballot, I’d remembered reading about it and thought we wouldn’t stand a chance and then I’d forgotten about it.  The very kind receptionist asked if we would like to be top of the list for any returns, I think I bounced as I said ‘Oh Yes Please’ 

Hubby and I went off and had supper and came back just over an hour later to find that two tickets had been returned, and they were ours.. Oh what joy. 

 It was an amazing evening, the music was so powerful that one time tears came to my eyes.  I am so glad we got to experience this, no words can describe how the music resonates within you on being at a live production. 

I don’t think we will ever be that lucky again to stumble on such an event and the best bit is they filmed it, so we get to watch it again. (You can clearly make me out with my bald head and blue knitted waistcoat and hubby in his mustard jacket.) 

What I haven’t told you is the concert over ran and finished rather later than planned, we quickly got out, trotted to the tube and carried on trotting for our train to find out we had missed the last one!  Ooops. 

We could manage to get back to Banbury easily enough and whilst I was letting my mind ramble with imaginings of sitting in a deserted train station with urban foxes, hooting owls and cuddling up to my husband until we could get the next train from Banbury at just gone 2.00 a.m. Hubby was doing the much more sensible things of contacting son no.1 to come and collect us, which he did, very promptly, without fuss or drama and was waiting for us when our train came in. Shame really, I quite fancied coming home with the milk train. 

Just to let you know if you ever miss the last train, live around here and get the train to Banbury, there were about nine taxi’s waiting in a rank ready for the sleepy revellers to take them safely home.     

We have been researching designers, some of which are new to me and I have found some real gems that have made me very excited, meaning my A3 sketch pads will be stuffed full of good information.  I’ve already completed 4 pages with one designers work, I suspect I may be showcasing at least six, our minimum is three designers to cover 2 pages as a minimum.

Our brief for our 1st collection is something floral to be made up in black and white with tones of grey and cream.  

I took into college forty photographs of flowers some of which I’d grown or made and laid them out on the work benches. Then fine tuned them and popped to the libary to gather more information on areas that I wished to illustrate further, this is my first mood board.

I thought of the leaves on my home grown globe artichokes which are very similiar to acanthus which has been used for many years in stone masonry the oldest example being The Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia, circa 450 – 420 BC  (wiki is my friend)  I have really enjoyed the research aspect of fashion, you get one idea and it flows off into the next.

On my mood board I love the dark outlines of my stained glass window of my cala lillies and of the acanthus.  My home made flower and I couldn’t resist the photo of a strawberry flower, I really love the stamens they have so abundant and pretty. 

Monets water lillies reminded me of the shape and form

of my artichokes.

 And I simply couldn’t resist the courgette flower.  I really like the form of the stamen.

I am very proud of this little mood board, there is a certain cohesiveness which I thought I would never be able to achieve.  It also has a little of the Monty Python about it with stone masonary sprouting from lillies which appeals to my sense of humour.