Ribbon Flower Corset for Vintage Weddings

February 29, 2012March 12, 2012 | janethaigh

It takes a lot of lovely textiles to make a good wedding! Think about it ….. the dress – obviously, the veil, the bridesmaids’ frocks ( it’s rare to see a good bridesmaid’s frock – Pippa Middleton’s proved the rule)! But there are also the garters, the waistcoats, the ties or cravats, the suits, then the the napiery, and the flowers -so think silk ribbons…..

GEDSC DIGITAL CAMERA — hand embroidered silk flowers

Well yes of course you thought I meant the bouquet and I do, eventually; but just for now I have embroidered some silk flowers onto a cupped corset for a wedding gown that has made me realise that we can develop all kinds of different products perfect for sumptuous weddings and everlasting memories, not forgetting the Hen Party.

I have been working with Lisa Keating, who conducts out very popular corset making courses, and together we have invented new designs for the ultimate romantic wedding that you can make yourself at Heart Space Studios– or maybe send someone else to make it for you. The ribbon embroidered wedding corset and skirt are made to measure – this is the ultimate in hand – made retro chic.

We showed the dress at the latest Vintage Wedding show held in Bristol last weekend.

Heart Space tutors had made several accessories that we can teach people how to make in short classes ..small beaded hearts and hair accessories, buttonholes and party favours.

We feel that is is a good way for a Bride’s family and friends to get involved in making a bespoke wedding, and much of it can be made with recycled and vintage materials. Debbie Bird came up with a lovely idea for making bouquets made from old love letters…well who writes those these days? But it will still work using a romantic novel or a book of love poetry – I recommend John Donne for the most unashamed ideas on what it is like to be in love .

At the venue after I had set out the samples of what people can make with us with Heart Space, I took a good look around the rest of the stands, absolutely fascinating, so many really desirable things…starting with the cakes…..

I was delighted to find the Chocolate Delores stand with wedding cakes that all looked like they were made from fabrics – and they were made from chocolate…how fabulous is that? those swirls of white chocolate just look like tulle and look at the sprigged rosebud pink print on the wrapped cake.

Other stands were more conventional using real lace, beads and silks, there were so many good ideas for textile jewellry that I wanted to get the makers to come and do workshops for us at Heart Space, some may come and teach with us in the future.

the Lilygrace stand was full of hand made fabrics beaded and embellished by the maker, Hazel Mathiot was actually stitching pieces at the fair. I particularly liked her very richly beaded wrist band, a case of the “more is more” school of design.

There were lots of lovely embroidered lace accessories throughout the whole show, mostly head dresses with embroidered lace stitched onto Alice bands, Bridezillas were particularly stunning

in fact their stand was mesmerizing so many lovely desirable things, really all this vintage wedding stuff brings out the hidden girly in everyone….

even me!

Making Fabric Beads

February 17, 2012 | janethaigh

Heart Space Studios is one year old this week, so we repeated our first ever class, Making Fabric Beads with Patricia Brownen, and the results are as desirable as always. This is one of our most popular classes and the original report also receives many hits on this blog, so I thought I would show the successful process of designing and making the beads.

Patricia always brings in lots of lovely fabrics and unusual materials, as well as her own jewellry, as inspiration. She uses a simple device for designing and making a whole set of co-ordinating coloured beads for a single necklace: – picture postcards.

Students get to choose from whole range of different postcards, from impressionist paintings to modern textiles, anything where colour is paramount and abstract images are better than figurative, but you could make your own inspirational cards…..

There are 2 types of bead made in the workshop, one involves rolling pipe cleaners with fabric and threads and then stitching through the roll to hold everything into position, the second type is rolled felt that can be needle felted and wrapped and secured with coloured threads.

These 2 simple systems used to make the beads means that choosing colours and experimenting with textures is a an exciting and immediate process.

To ensure colour co-ordination several rolls of pipe cleaners can be made together before rolling onto a wooden skewer to form separate beads.

Making the beads is really easy – peasy and playing with the different scraps of threads ribbons and tiny glass beads is a real textile maker’s pleasure,

Working to the postcard colours ensures a good range of co-ordinating beads, below are samples of both the wrapped felt ( white long bead) and pipe-cleaners( 2 blue knobbly beads.)

The long felt beads can be made in very subtle shades when they are needle felted first with scraps of fleece.

At the end of the day’s session everyone displayed their beads with the inspirational card,the class discussed the next steps – making more at home, then stringing them together.

Patricia showed the group a simple stringing system using a pretty toning ribbon.

I was so impressed by the results of the colours achieved by working with the postcards that I have made a small selection of the finished beads and their cards. They almost formed a rainbow – soft blues and turquoise…

greens, yellows and orange…

to fiery reds and blacks…

rich rosy pinks and purples…

lively browns and neutrals….

Lost In Lace

January 28, 2012February 10, 2020 | janethaigh

“Lost in Lace – transparent boundaries” curated by Lesley Millar is the current exhibition at Birmingham City Museum, on till 4th March; I went to see it recently with colleagues, Hanne Rysgaard and Basil Kardasis, who are part of the Stitch and Think research group. Hanne and I had decided to make a large porcelain hanging based on lace for the group’s exhibition at the Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery which takes place later this year, thankfully a lot later. Basil came along for the pleasure of a day spent looking and talking.

The first thing that really got me excited was the scale of the work on view. The Gas Hall where the work is housed and much of it is designed to fit, is massive and the lace exhibits certainly inhabited the space and made a monumental but ethereal impression. My own impression after my first walk around, was of a silent shadowy cathedral; but it wasn’t silent and it wasn’t gloomy, but it was majestic.

I became fascinated by the light within the space and also how the unusual materials used to construct the pieces still acted as lace, you can see it but you can also see through it. trying to assimilate the whole exhibition on my second journey around I sought out this now you see me now you don’t aspect, as seen above.But I had come to try to take away some aspect that I could develop in the work that Hanne and I are about to embark on. We actually didn’t look or speak together for about 3/4 hour, then she said “light” and I said “shadow”.

I became obsessed by the shadows cast (or not) by the ‘lace’ so this is post is now about the shadow experience. I now wanted to see and capture shadows, but this wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, which gave rise to a long conversation on the train home to Bristol, about how will we achieve large-scale combined with strong shadow….Annie Bascoul talks about shadow in her pages in the excellent catalogue, she mentions the “eroticism of the thrown shadow” I like what she wrote but I couldn’t find a good shadow to photograph ( but this may be due to my ineptitude with the camera)

A not very erotic shadow – sorry

Some of the most fascinating shadows were from the smaller pieces,below is a detail from 2 edges of Diana Harrison’s ‘Time Line’ a broken,small in scale but very long length of polyester thread. cotton cloth and dog hair. I really wanted to stay and draw the with crisp complicated meshed shadows formed by the fabric and it’s fine black pins that anchor it in position.

The best shadows obviously were mad when the wall or floor was close to the surface casting it …and the refreshingly bright blood-red piece by Micheal Brennand-Wood gave crisp grey snowflake patterns as an extra bonus.

Lace the Final Frontier, painted and stained aluminium :Micheal Brennand-Wood

and in the children’s activity area beyond the main hall there were lovely paper snowflake patterns hung on a washing line.

And it made the most ethereal and unusual shadows

But my favourite shadow was the strange almost mottled fish skin appearance cast by the unbelievable hand – cut paper lace panels, by Piper Shepard, that made a sort of triumphal arch between two tall and elegant pillars in the museum.

and here is the panel that made this shadow…

And if you feel that I have just not done justice to this exhibition, because I haven’t talked about the philosophy of either the artists’ or the curator’s decisions to make and show the work and I have missed the whole point – good. Go and see for yourself or if not, buy and read the catalogue :-Lost in Lace, written by Lesley Millar, published by Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery, ISBN 978-0-9570494-0-6 and let me know what you think.

Stitching Corsets Galore

January 19, 2012 | janethaigh

The Corset Making courses at Heart Space Studios are very popular and always fascinating to watch. They take 2 days of solid making, from marking up the 3 layers of fabrics

then cutting out the 10 pattern pieces that go into a traditional boned corset,

plus the linings and the interlinings which all have to be prepared before hand, so that means 30 pieces of pattern to be cut and sewn together…

It takes some sorting out before embarking on the mammoth task of sewing the whole lot together; we do say that the makers need to be used to using a sewing machine to participate in the course and that by the end of it they will be able to stitch straight lines perfectly and be ready to tackle any other garment making with confidence.Practice after all makes perfect.

Once the basic shape has been stitched together, in order to get a first fitting everyone has to get the fastening organised and they start with precise marking of calculated measurements/

at this stage it starts to look more like engineering than dress making – and in a way I suppose that is what a corset is… a rigid structure for enforcing or reinforcing – the body into another shape.

then the detailed application of the eyelets begins.. after the bradawl – the hole punch and eyelet thingimyjig is applied

suddenly by lacing the eyelets with ribbons, we can get the garment on the body to see how it looks…but first the tight lacing….

and this is all before they have to sew in the actual stays, or stiff rods that will take over rigid shaping of the body

Lisa Keating, the Heart Space tutor, looks so mischievous on these pictures; but this is where all her promises are delivered. This fitting is on the second day of the course and everyone is just about stitched out, but she knows that she can get them all enthused again with this first fitting.

I can’t resist showing these pictures of women being laced into their corsets for the first time. This is the fantasy moment blended with the total satisfaction of making something difficult to achieve but beautiful and completely transformative in every sense of the word.

moments of self -help and introspection – did I make the right measurements?

as opposed to moments of true grit.

But eventually after several more hours of work and another tight lacing try -on, the effort is all worth while

Voices, The Quilt Art Group

January 15, 2012February 10, 2020 | janethaigh

My new year’s resolution was to get out and about a bit more so when I was asked to open an exhibition of quilts at the Devon Guild Craft Centre at Bovey Tracey, England, I said yes, even though I was a little daunted. However several people asked if they could have a copy of what I had said to publish on their various websites, and I thought well why don’t I blog it? So, here it is.

” When I was first approached by the Devon Guild to introduce this exhibition, I could not imagine why I had been asked! But when I checked my diary for the day’s date I felt a little more adequate for the task – I was scheduled teaching a Crazy Patchwork Workshop at my new textile venue, Heart Space Studios in Bristol. Patchwork Quilts, like Japanese Kimono, are for me the epitome of textiles – perfectly useful art objects.

When looking at the catalogue for VOICES and the Quilt Art Group’s website, what first impressed me about the group is that this international organization has managed to keep successfully connecting and exhibiting together for nearly 30 years – this is no small achievement. At present the group members live and work separately across several European countries and America. What they all share is the universal language of stitch, and speak it in the dialect of quilt.

It is now common practice for artists to use whatever materials they feel appropriate to express their ideas. Indeed any art establishment abreast of the times and at ease with itself takes the use of mixing media and genre for granted.Without naming any of the usual suspects, the fact is that quilts and large – scale fabric installations are now widely accepted as a vehicle to relay an artist’s inner vision.

But this was not the case in 1985 when the Quilt Art group formed and stated that its intention was to ‘deliberately make quilts as an expression of art….and to extend the boundaries of quilting as an artistic medium and achieve wider recognition of the quilt as an art form” . this surely demonstrates that it was a pioneer in bringing about the changes we take for granted today.

By using an extended range of techniques, materials and tools associated with traditional quilt making the group aimed “ to create non-functional quilts to be displayed for their visual aesthetic; coupling integrity of expression and quality of craftsmanship.” The work here is as much a statement about craftsmanship as it is about personal expression.

It visually and sensually demonstrates many successful examples of that wonderful moment of transition when putting different materials and techniques together, the disparate things become whole.

These fabrics have attained their integrity by fusing together a variety of several textile “languages”. Here we see evidence of the traditional craft skills juxtaposed with today’s technologies. The fluency with which different techniques are used to make one whole piece enables these works to be studied long enough to be “read”. The rich and varied surface sustains the viewers’ interest so that slowly more subtle meanings are revealed.

Reading the group members’ personal statements it becomes obvious that choosing textiles for a means of expression is not happen – chance

Mirjam Pet-Jacobs writes

“ Maybe because they are so commonplace, textiles have the enormous power to both evoke recognition and to tell stories “ and several of the artists talk about “ storytelling”

Elizabeth Brimilow in her personal statement says

“ Fibre has been grown, spun, woven, dyed and stitched for thousands of years. I stitch and manipulate cloth, which is used for its tactile quality, its intimacy and its substance. Through my hands I have a story to tell and this connects me to other times, places and cultures.”

The meaning contained within the making is as important as the choice of the right tool for the right job, or put it another way; being in command of a range of technical ability gives the maker infinite choice to find the telling means of expression whatever the message. To develop a level of craft practice so that the actual means of production stops being the first, and sometimes the only thing to notice, takes much time; we now talk of 10,000 hours to attain fluency in any skill.

I stitch by hand and I am aware that time must be spent in a state of concentrated repetitive making to achieve fluency. It isn’t so much the precision of stitching, it is rather the rhythm that has to be established to enable a maker to sustain a large piece of work over a long period of time. Whether making by hand or machine an almost meditative state of mind needs to be attained to complete most large -scale work.

To quote Richard Sennett,in his book ‘The Craftsman’

“ Built into the contractions of the human heart the skilled craftsman has extended rhythm to the hand and the eye.”

And as Inge Heuber says on her web site

“ you understand best what is created by your own brain and heart. “ and she also writes of “waiting for a special rhythm “ to start before she works.

This exhibition of quilts is varied in its subject matter, and outcomes. Some works are expressions of emotions,

some are personal memories….

some overtly political, and sometimes they just appear to have been made for the pure joy of colour and tactility.

But by and large they have been produced with enough thought, innovation, knowledge and craftsmanship, to achieve a piece of work worthy of contemplation beyond the overall quality of its making – which is surely what differentiates art from craft ?”

When I had looked at the actual exhibition, (I had only researched the catalogue and the individual artist’s websites) I certainly could have written a great deal more and about other connections and ideas that flowed from this work, but close readers of my texts will recognise quite a few of my favourite themes are here so I let it stand.

Heart Space Knit and Stitch Club

December 31, 2011January 30, 2013 | janethaigh

The new Heart Space Knit & Stitch Club had its second meeting with a “Show and Tell” session, meaning everyone was asked to bring a piece work, preferably textile, either something or their own making, or something inspirational, held memories that they could talk about.

Debbie Bird, who is one of the our regular tutors ( and has agreed to be a leader for some of the club’s stitching sessions) showed 2 completely different textiles. One was a richly embroidered, patch-worked landscape that she had made at a weekend workshop run by Ineke Berleyn the colours sang out and Debbie told us that she was thought it very inspirational as she had lots more ideas to develop from this workshop. The other piece she had brought could not have been more different…

It is a patchwork quilt made for a child, out of scraps she had left over from patchwork commission; she just pieced it together from what she could find quickly and because she enjoyed making the first quilt so much. What I liked about her ‘show and tell’ was that she showed 2 sides of her work, she brought them to explain that if you love textiles you tend to love all manner of different textiles, so the club should be varied in its approaches to what we have to make together.

Clare Griffel who is also a leader for the club, showed some very simple knitting, a long scarf knitted lengthways to look like a woven fabric, and talked about the problems of casting off. The method she had used for this was too rounded and caused the scarf to roll, this started her on a quest for different methods to achieve flat edges – something she will be able to help others with on the knitting nights.

But she also brought a purposely rolled piece of silk knitting that makes an unusual necklace (we sell these in our shop Space) and everyone including the stitchers wanted learn how to make this. And she showed a book that had inspired her and recommended to us all, an knitters almanac by Elizabeth Zimmermann, I will get more details about this at the next knitting session of the club.

Not everyone brought along things they had made, Clare showed us 2 lovely rolls of cotton she had bought from my favourite Bristol craft shop, Crea tivity, she intended to make summer bunting with it and we all agreed we would have been tempted by them as well, they were so beautifully but simply presented.

Sophie showed some images she had learned to print onto fabric at a recent series of Teresa Searle’s evening class at Heart Space, she intends to embroider into them.

After the ‘show and tell session, both Clare and Sophie went into the large studio and started making…with plenty of pink fizzy fuelled advice from the rest of us. Yes I know that we shouldn’t have a drink on the work table but it was a pre – Christmas get together.

Meanwhile we had other wonderful things to look at, Jan Connett, a stitch club leader showed embroidered shoes she had bought in rural South West China….

we were all intrigued by these and spent a long time inspecting the needlework, including pattern darning, couching, chain stitched fillings with heavily quilted soles, everything hand stitched and then sequined!

Then another embroidery made at a workshop, Carol brought in a proper old-fashioned needle-case, made at a Kelly Aldridge class.

I am very intrigued in who goes to classes and who doesn’t – I don’t, it has never occurred to me go to another embroiderer’s class (except when I check into Heart Space classes) I just go to books or museums to study other embroideries for information; maybe I am too insular in my outlook. I have however gone to many other types of workshop in pursuit of my own development, jewellry, metalwork, enamelling, photography, all things I can’t imagine how to do at home alone.

But a real advocate of workshops, particularly ours, is Libby, she couldn’t make our first workshop so sent her sister instead, and then using the diagrams and notes that I had provided for the mirrored hearts, brought in her versions and also some sock pigs….she was laughing, rather sheepishly, as she was pulling these out of her bag – it must have been my face – what on earth was she going to show us – here was I thinking how wonderfully eclectic everything has been and now – Sock Pigs?

Well what a surprise, they were adorable, and what is more very exquisitely made. Libby is a really good needle woman, she had re-made the pinned and beaded heart some months ago so I know how much care she takes, but these funny little pigs were her version of some she had been taught to do elsewhere – I especially liked the tails….

and what did I show? Well they are things already contained in the blog the mended white Edwardian blouse from my very first post and the Bleeding Flowering Heart. which is in the Heart pages. I am so looking forward to the stitch club developing, we seem low on knitters and this is reflected in the post. But next time I will redress this and concentrate on the knitting members. We plan to meet every week on a Thursday night so there should be plenty to report on judging by the variety shown by members at these start-up sessions.

Drawing Embroidery

December 22, 2011February 10, 2020 | janethaigh

This little heart has been made for a project for the new Heart Space Stitch Club. I designed several small felt hearts that could be made in an evening and taken home. I offered everyone a choice of colours between bright pinks and rich reds with sequins and beads and silver thread embroidery, it is Christmas after all.

One of the makers was amused at the frivolity of her choice of materials, excusing herself by saying it was a only a gift for a child. But then I explained that she had made a perfect symbol for protecting a child, the heart is now a universal symbol for love and the mirror would divert the ‘evil eye’; traditionally shisha mirrored embroideries were used to decorate children’s garments

So imagine my feeling when looking carefully at the images I had taken throughout the evening I saw the maker’s eye gazing out of her tiny stitched mirror.

This struck me as the perfect way to introduce the collection of embroidered garments I had organised for the Drawing Club the following weekend.

The fabrics I had chosen for the drawing class were an wonderful array of embroidery in wools and cottons and silk and silver, mirrors, buttons, shells and coins on dyed and printed grounds, all made by hand and traditionally worn for festive occassions by people of the desert communities in Pakistan and Rajahsthan and Gugarat in India. I had also brought in some books that deal with the symbolism for these fabrics, amongst them one of my favourite resource books, Amulets by Sheila Payne.

But where to start with such a myriad of pattern, texture and colour, I said to try to be faithful to the colour and the students soon set to work colouring and cutting to form backgrounds for the detailed drawings.

These are all worn and faded fabrics, so some of the first studies were surprisingly subtle, chalks applied to darker grounds give a broken faded effect. For the first exercise I asked the class to describe the embroidery in as much detail as they could, just to get them focused. This is after all, primarily, an observational drawing class.

Describing the details made lively descriptive drawings and collages. I liked the inventiveness when students started to make 3D collages for describing tufts and fringes.

However not all the colours were difficult to attain, several people had brought in their own materials and some of the hand-made papers were really good colour matches. As one member of the group had requested a workshop featuring collage I had provided lots of coloured tissue papers with paints and inks in silver, plus silver- well silver coloured, metal leaf.

Then the drawings, themselves started to become collages, so they were being made in a similar way to the fabrics – by being separate pieces stitched together and then embroidered.

I had asked the class consider how to recreate the effects of the light bouncing from the mirrors, several different techniques were tested, silver inks, paints, foils and fibre tipped pens, that all gave different results.

the application of silver foil was particularly successful at rendering the reflecting light.

There were several fabrics that were not mirrored, but with strong embroidery patterns that were developed into bold drawings.

and also some very large but subtle collages captured the beauty of worn fabrics

Eventually new and fresher studies started to emerge, the students were starting to express more than the look but also the spirit of the materials.

But at the end of the afternoon, we looked at all the studies alongside the actual fabrics and were amazed at the way that they belnded together, it was difficult to tell which were fabrics and which papers, not the intention of the exercise but interesting, considering the free way in which the drawings had been assembled.

Commemorative Crazy Cushions Completed

December 15, 2011February 10, 2020 | janethaigh

The most hits my blog has ever received in its entire life span of 18 months, was shortly after the Commemorative Crazy post, and many people contacted me saying how much they liked the content and story. So I was delighted when Jane called in to Heart Space Studios to show me the finished cushions that she had made in time for Christmas for her 2 children.

They were so beautifully made, using fabrics from her late husband’s sports jackets and ties, and Jane had been able to use the small piece of tartan fabric, that was her husband’s clan tartan as the backings to the cushions. (did I say that I have a tartan as well – the Hay tartan – all brilliant red and greens overlaid with a very noisy white check – nowhere near as tasteful as this one)

close up of the lively wool plain and tied herringbone stitches

She had embroidered “DAD” on one, at her daughter’s request, it is in whipped running stitch, very subtle and almost merges with the tweed background.

And amongst some other memorabilia, Jane found her husband’s ‘pips’, these are badges usually in the shape of a star or a crown and worn by army officers on the epaulettes of their uniforms. These particular ‘pips’ are actually stitched onto fabric in gilded thread so two of them they were put to good use at the seam joins of the crazy stitches. Usually a star is stitched at such points by the embroiderers of the traditional crazy patchworks.

gilded ‘pip’ used as a foil for the collision of several rows of embroidery

Jane has enough fabric to make another cushion for herself and even some smaller gifts for other members of the family…. and then she may decide to design and make the large throw from the remaining tweeds. I will keep a record of this progress.

Putting up Christmas

December 8, 2011December 8, 2011 | janethaigh

I am not a big fan of Christmas, I prefer New Year with its promise of a fresh start and better times ahead…but here at Heart Space Studios everyone expects us to do a Christmas window at least. But with a refurbished shop to launch, the powers behind my shaky throne decided to put out all the flags – well bunting to be precise – and go for it….hot mulled wine, mince pies and a late night opening party. Added to this was an idea for an exhibition of bunting.

But, first things first – find the inspirational object – I always do this when starting something new, search for an image or a piece of fabric – anything that gives me lots of ideas or gives a very strong atmosphere…Sophie found it on Facebook in the guise of a head – an animal’s head, 3 animals in fact, by artist Jenni Joule, who brought wonderful things in to a meeting about a month ago – we were away, a spooky-wooky frozen forest

Meanwhile all the tutors set about producing bunting…Debbie Bird held a class on making it and so Heart Space admin, ( Sophie Bristol and I) turned up to find out how to do it.I made several attempts at heart shaped bunting in very tasteful fabrics…they were soon abandoned. What I needed was a contrast to the white spooky windows..I realised I was trying to reconcile 2 different atmospheres in one space – so the only way to go is complete contrast, the more extreme the better. We would have one red window and one white. So I found an old and very crude Russian shawl in my stash, I hand painted the mustard coloured roses with some pink and purple dyes and then cut it up; next I went for glitz – why stop now? then I added tartan, I do love tartan and paisley – I couldn’t bring myself to cut up any of my old woven paisley samples – far too precious, but I had at last found a use for this old neglected shawl.

I didn’t bag-out the pieces but just cut them and left them, as they are cut diagonally to the straight grain they shouldn’t fray too much, and hey it’s only bunting…..I set about making 5 lines to sell.

But then we had to start stocking the shop. The first thing was to get one area working properly to set the tone for the whole place. An old and true saying is ” you can’t sell from an empty shop”; so we piled it all in, colour co-ordinated of course.

Teresa Searle’s felted and embroidered bags, mittens and cases look wonderfully colourful, setting the standard for the rest of the shop, my hand embroidered felt letters look strong and clash nicely with the work beneath.

And the pile of scarves hand knitted by Sarah Thorpe go happily with Janet Clarke’s beautiful soft coloured felts. For real winter warmth, the knitted and felted Hot Water Bottle Covers and neck warmers made by Steph Wooster all mingle together.

The shop starts to look like it is in business.

shop taking shape — the shop takes shape

But what about those windows? The winter white one came together very quickly, it is now stocked with cream and white woollen goods for sale, with the 3 headed animal standing sentinel.

But the other window was more of a problem, the costumes that had been brought didn’t fit our stands and there weren’t enough animal masks to make an impression, beautiful though the horned mask is, by Jenni Joule.

I needed more red stuff to link with the bunting on the wall behind…so I asked Lisa Keating who was running a corset making workshop for us, if she had anything suitable to contrast with the white and silver and she lent us this wonderful glitzy black and gold number – now that’s what I call a contrast.

Then I took every red or silvered glass heart from home and hung them in the window – my house now looks bare – but the Christmas windows are paramount.

Eventually everything was finished and looked totally intentional; always the way when a design works out well, you can’t imagine that you ever had any other ideas than the finished piece.

JANET HAIGH: HER WORK

MADE WITH HEART, HAND & EYE