Kimono Progress

| janethaigh
Kimono in progress hanging in my studio

After several weeks doing other stuff, I have finally managed to get back to sampling the decorative techniques for the Kimono course I am running soon at Heart Space Studios. It has been quite a challenge – it dawned on me that although I have helped many students design and make kimono, used the techniques for patchworks, screens, hangings and panels and written books about all of this –  I have never actually made one myself.

dip and tie -dyed silk  front section of silk kimono

I have offered several traditional Japanese techniques on the course, the students will sample them all and then choose which ones to use on the final garment. First thing though is to cut out – rather rip up – the fabric prior to dyeing and this dip dye technique shading red through to blue is a so immediately “Japanese” I always intended to use it – it  reminds me of  the work I did earlier in the year on  the skies embroideries and enamels.

separate pieces of cut silk dyed together to be stitched later

What you need to consider when making a kimono is that you cut the fabric patterns out before you start to decorate them- above can be seen how the front pieces have been cut out and then dyed together. As there is no shoulder seam on a kimono the whole lengths from front to back is dyed at the same time and also the sleeves and neck bands plus some silk for sampling

sky coloured samples with various flying insects in metallic dyes

Deciding that I had chosen a sky theme I dug out all my old stencils of dragonflies and moths that I have been used many times; these particular stencils were last used for the enamel garden – so they are old and well used. as well as stippling

original Japanese stencil stippled with dye

I wanted to try out gilding with metallic foils, but the stencils are a bit too small for it to be very successful.

gilded moth using stencil design

Time to get designing..you can see my quick scribbled drawing below, not very proud of this but it worked well enough.

design ideas and placement of stencils on fabric

I also used my book Japanese Inspirations, the stencils were originally designed for this book – published by Collins and Brown for Chrysallis books in 2000 – so you can’t say I don’t get full value out of my old ideas.

working from my patchwork book – Japanese Inspirations

I soon got the major stencils printed using a thickened dye that can be ironed to fix it – I chose to use pearlised dyes, very subtle if used sparingly.

the back panels laid together for printing.

I then decided to embroider an outline in gold thread of one of the stencils, and because I am so used to embroidering I didn’t sample first – BIG MISTAKE, it looked terrible off the stretcher and I had to unpick it…..it may  go in again at the end, it may not, depends on how the sample looks……

gold line embroidery

I now had to make the whole kimono – mostly by machine stitching for speed – this is a sample after all – with some hand stitched details that I researched by checking my collection of real kimonos.I do like to keep things as authentic as possible including the proportions. I got the garment together well enough, using my old kimonos as reference – usually silk kimonos are lined so the problem of seam neatening is not an issue  – I need to reconsider this later.

stencils seen against an old kimono
hand stitching the front panel

Having got the main body and sleeves together I put it an a stand to see how it looked form several angles. I feel that it needs a bit more consideration as to finish – l do like the hand made look to it – but I am finding the colour a bit too brilliant now it is an actual garment – it looks what I call “straight out of the bottle” colour  – a bit too brash,  but maybe this is because I am looking at it on a dull September day?

So the kimono is almost ready – do I embroider it or not? I will leave it for a few days and take another look – maybe I will not use gold thread but am ombre-dyed silk thread for a bit of subtlety.  Anyway  here it is laid out on the studio floor  – so far so good, first the front …..

Now the back – I feel a few clouds stitched in silver might be on the horizon…………..

Strictly Stitching

| janethaigh

What has this tree got to do with strict stitching? Well 2 things really – first – I took this photograph in a field in deepest Shropshire, it reminded me of a painting by Pollaiulo, of the nymph Daphne turning into a tree as a result of her asking the gods to intervene in her immanent rape by Apollo.  Can you see the way her upturned arms are turning into leaves as she pleas for help?  I find that this is usually the way with the gods, they do give you what you ask for, eventually, but never how you quite imagined it  – which is why I have been wanting to stitch an image of this particular event for several years.

Secondly – we were on a flying visit to see our friend Nigel Hurlstone, his dog Lola Delores, and his new work in progress – now Nigel is a strict and relentless machine stitcher and I want him to come to Heart Space Studios to talk and teach later next year but I also want him (or I) to make a kimono out of some of his new fabrics. When we First arrived I walked into his kitchen and immediately spotted the stitched sample pinned to his kitchen range.

Turning around, instead of the usual kitchen table I saw a large -work-table complete with sewing machine and a half stitched sample rolled up and pegged to keep it in order – this is the lightest room in the house so I wasn’t so surprised  – but no supper in here tonight.

Kitchen table overtaken by stitched sample

Now this is what I call strict stitching; but not exactly what you imagine to issue from a country kitchen is it?

This is a new set of work but where on earth had he got the inspiration to stitch End Captions from old Hollywood films with rigid rows of double needle machine stitches? “I don’t know hen” Nigel said “I just like doing it for hours at a time – keeps me focused”  I know when I am being fobbed of but as he was a founder member of my Stitching and Thinking group, there was no need to go further at this point.

So first things first, an early evening dog walk.

and the moment we walked into the fields surrounding his house it was obvious why he was stitching row after row after row with  twin needles….

Now looking back at some earlier work the effect of living in fields of maize, barley and corn became obvious.

However back at the  work-table I became fascinated by the edges of all the unfinished pieces: now I really get really iffy when people praise the incidentals about my work, they usually  just love the back of the embroideries…..and here I was liking the edges of the material used for stretching

The way the colour collects and intensifies when channeled and seen against the contrasting white strip is compelling and the stitching makes the cloth feel very seductive, it rolls and folds easily in the hands and I just want to make clothes with it – an unusual reaction as I gave up designing and making clothes many years ago.

What is curious and fortuitous, is that the stitching brings into focus the enlarged and hazy digitally printed images. The large scale of this work and the intensity of the rich blacks remind me of sitting in darkened cinemas as a child, engrossed in those huge black and white films, Technicolor was the colour film of choice though.  I was immediately transported back to The Rialto in New Ferry, the local cinema of my childhood home – eating chocolates and watching the Saturday matinée with my brother Colin.  So strange,  the sensations buried in our minds waiting for an opportunity to be delivered after some 50 years by a strict piece of stitching…….

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Corsets – restraint or repression?

| janethaigh

New at Heart Space Studios – weekend lunchtime talks – about anything and everything textiles. We started with two ‘show and tell’ sessions, Lisa Keating ( who is conducting a 2 day corset making course – see Heart Space web site for further details) brought and talked about corset history, leading into her own designs and working samples; Jan Connett spoke about her own work using corsets as a metaphor for society’s age – old unreal expectations of feminine beauty.

Lisa gave a demonstration of the way that the corset can be manipulated to squeeze the waist up to seven inches smaller, by means of two sets of separate ribbons at the back of the garment.

Michelle who regularly models for Lisa, reported that at each subsequent fitting she has been able able to get her waist to a smaller size.

Feminists or not, we were all fascinated and when the samples were passed around the audience were able to really study the intricacies and refinement of the construction of these modern day “stays”.

I like the idea of ‘reading’ a corset like an open book – see below – what stories would it tell?

the workmanship was truly worth the examination

Lisa also passed around her design drawings of wedding and evening dresses that use the corset construction. I was reminded of my early career years as a fashion illustrator and decided I could include these techniques in my new drawing club at Heart Space.


Before we went on to hear Jan Connett’s talk about her art works we broke off for tea and biscuits with cupcakes that were provided by a new company, Clifton Cake Couture, who are going to rent space in the studios to run their own cake decoration classes later in the year… these cakes taste as good as they look, we were lost for choice – they were the perfect accompaniment to the glamorous frivolous corsets.

And now for something completely different – Jan Connet’s corsets, these really made us sit up and think. Jan introduced her talk by saying how much she delighted in the frivolity of the corsets but how she now used them as a metaphor to make work questioning our whole attitude to women, in particular the obsession for overt sexuality embodied by the fascination in the display of the female body.

Jan talked about the tension between her choice of materials, metal, fibre, paper, reflecting the tension between her love of the object and the fact that it is a repressive and damaging garment when taken to extremes, both physically and metaphorically.

She told us of her research that had revealed that girls as young as 3 years of age are being diagnosed with anorexia nervosa – an affliction embedded in control of appetite to control the body’s appearance; of high street shops selling padded bras and pole dancing kits for for 7 year olds……but she also made us aware that we are all complicit in this. One of her works was called “Before I go out of the house” and showed how we all use make-up or fashion to bolster our own sense of self esteem before we allow ourselves to be seen in public.

Her new work is based on the Barbie doll, and she has several dolls ready to be incorporated in a new corset, which is in brilliant, shiny, sparkling, pink fabrics – again the duality that textile affords is apparent, we can delight in the colour and frivolity of the fabrics and forms but they set up the perfect trap of making us feel slightly guilty for being so easily  attracted by the surface – but this heightens the personal questioning that comes with the realisation that not everything is what it seems to be.

I was truly delighted by the talks;  the audience also liked the 2 opposing but complementary points of view, we had happily laughed at the extremes of earlier fashions in Lisa’s talk but were shocked by Jan’s revelations about the current generation’s obsession with young female bodies. This is where textiles interest me most, after I have enjoyed the surfaces  there is a  wealth of material to express views, ideas and arguments; most people have an innate understanding of fabric – it surrounds and sustains us from cradle to grave – so for me it has become the perfect media to work in.

I am leaving you with 2 images that perfectly show the allure of present day corsets…

and this blurred but evocative image of Michelle, could be a Renoir or a Tissot…….except for the denims.

Made by Hand & Heart & Eye

| janethaigh

Things are really moving on now at Heart Space Studios. This month we have split the whole of the front studio into an exhibition and retail space and above is the new logo I have designed for printing on the gift bags. I have adapted a small rubber stamp that Teresa Searle, one of the Studios’ tutors brought for me to play with – I added the eye.

I have been helping to set up the retail space, which will sell all things textile; to begin with we will sell stuff made by the makers who work with the studios and other things that feature textile or hands, hearts and eyes imagery. I made more of the paper lanterns to sell as lots of people had asked the price when they saw the original over the dining table. I had left the exhibition space entirely to Jan Connett and Lisa Keating to place their corsets in; each makes corsets for completely different reasons so I had imagined a compare and contrast effect.

Imagine my surprise and delight when I walked in on Friday morning and this whole space was now filled with an amazing array of corsets.

I had not thought that the individual pieces would work so well together. They had made a show from mounting the individual corsets onto quirky stands and the major colours were cream and black and red. Lisa’s traditional corsets made with silk and lace and net were the perfect partner for Jan’s barbed wire and metal and leathers.

the whole exhibition though small was very inspiring, it really was put together to show the ways oin which the different tutors’ translated similar ideas, and to advertise the courses that both women are hold later in the Month

Meanwhile on the other side of the room the retail space was taking shape….

a selection of my enamel heart stone badges and brooches all together in the large show case….

and then in the dresser  there is a blue and white theme….

this features lace impressed cups by Hanne Rysgaard

and on the old round table more and more hearts…..

I know that many people feel that all these textile pieces won’t work together – you can’t mix art with craft, gallery with shop, colour with monotone.. I have always thought this a nonsense when it comes to the wealth of textile treatments and qualities, let’s embrace the difference, the vitality and the fact that the same person who makes a silk embroidery of a mended and broken heart can delight in making a ribbon flowered box and  woman who makes a barbed wire corset to set out her arguments about control and pain can put together charming cards featuring stitched fruit and flowers – all to be seen and Sold at Heart Space Studios.

More Kimonos – drawing and embroidery

| janethaigh

Since my last post I have been immersed in Kimonos. I have rediscovered my early fascination for these wonderful garments; wonderful to me because they are the perfect fusion of textile and clothing. Hang them on a stand or against a wall and they work as strongly shaped art pieces – wear them and they both reveal and conceal themselves and the wearer, the patterns undulating across the body in slow movements – hard to run in a kimono.

I have been searching through my records for my Japanese inspired embroidery slides. I had an exhibition on my return and showed embroideries, drawings and screen prints evolved from my hundreds of photographs and the day book drawings. Above is a neighbour’s child in her typical young girls’ red and white kimono. Japanese clothing has strict colour and pattern codes, they could not tell my age because I wore such a divergent range of clothes in different colours. I liked the way colours were described –  purples and deep blues are said to be Noble.

silk embroidered panel appliqued with traditional fabrics and my only successful attempt at shibori – the red ground of the kimono

However the fabrics I was attracted to were the brilliant silks in reds, pinks, yellows and gold, these glamorous fabrics were what I had come to see and tried to emulate..

This was hard as I had many techniques to master and I only had 5 weeks to assimilate the information…each Japanese textile apprentice takes 7 years to perfect their skill in one technique.

The only technique I came near to getting to grips with and which has stayed with me was silk embroidery in long and short stitch – see the Flora embroideries – and also I usually applique most of my embroideries together to make larger works out of different pieces of worked fabrics, this developed out of sheer necessity as I could never sustain any of the techniques to make more than a small sample.

However what the precise and perfectly placed stitches of Japanese embroidery enabled me to do was to stitch lively and nuanced versions of my drawings…and I am surprised now looking at this old work how my drawings did not change but my embroideries did. Check out the early sketch book drawing of the little girl in the red kimono at the top of the post and this later drawing for exhibition on my return. They are essentially drawn and coloured in the same way, crayoned first with defining pencilled lines, I still draw like this today and not surprisingly my handwriting is exactly the same.

Now look at the early canvas embroidery just prior to my visit. Here is my small scale, densely stitched canvas, enclosed space, rigid structures and very heavy stitching.

Yes it’s still solid stitching but look at the space and movement and white exposed ground on my first embroidery on my return, below and it is 4 times the size of the canvas embroidery…..

my scale, techniques and sense of space completely altered and suddenly nothing is centred…..it is flying around

Even on the large variable edition silk screen prints of kimono on stands, the Kabuki kites are whirling around

The next kimono post will get me back to the present ideas for the workshops at Heart Space Studios. But because of writing and researching for the blog, things have changed from what I first imagined I would teach …but that’s what ‘Re-Searching’ does for you – takes you further than your first thought into territories new and uncharted.

Kimono Classes – early research drawings

| janethaigh

I have been researching a new course to run at Heart Space Studios for the autumn and winter months – making a kimono, well a shortened version of one really – more of a jacket but using several techniques found in traditional kimono. Many years ago, I visited Japan on a Royal Society of Arts bursary to study kimono design; my way of seeing the world was never quite the same again and my textiles changed radically. I adapted several of the dyeing, stencilling and embroidery techniques for my own work but I never made an actual kimono.

my freshly made bed

From the start of my stay, with a Japanese family of  Atsuko and Sumio Morimoto  in Osaka, I was aware of the wealth and variety of textiles everywhere. I was lucky to live with this family as Atsuko’s mother, Fusako Kubo, was the historian of the Japanese royal family’s costume collection. I decided to keep a day book, drawing whatever was interesting and novel – so the first night I drew my bed, after I had been instructed how to make up my futon  – which by day lived in a cupboard behind shoji screens in my room. However, looking now through the sketch book, which became the main reference source for my subsequent embroidery, screen print and drawing exhibition, A View of Japan, at the Francis Kyle Galley in London, I seem to be obsessed by the food.

Everywhere, everything I was ever served to eat was a visual delight, which more than made up for the fact that I first found the food bland and boring to eat; everything looked so -well – Japanese!

I eventually got to like some of the food, particularly the lunch boxes of Sushi…now a regular food everywhere – but in 1981 I had never seen a roll of rice and fish and seaweed before.

When my Japanese family saw my drawing they thought I could write and therefor speak Japanese, and when later that evening I drew the recipe for Tempura, they were sure I was fooling them with my non existent Japanese vocabulary… I began to see the difference of the Western style of drawing and the Eastern ways of seeing and recording.

They simply could not understand that I could perfectly copy the label for the leeks and not be able to read it. And when I drew their daughter Kyoko asleep under the table and it LOOKED just like her, they thought I was an artistic genius. I tried to explain the difference between the Western art education – educating the individual to draw directly from life as opposed to the traditional Eastern way,  learn from a master the key symbols for each item and emotion……

Kyoko asleep under the heated table

And that is when the bartering started, wherever I went I drew a picture of the people I visited, they gave me something or even better demonstrated a technique for me – I went to Kyoto almost daily to study traditional textiles, meeting with designers, weavers, spinners, embroiderers of kimono, I swapped these stencils for a drawing of the artist who cut and made them.

The only rustic ( and now the most fashionable) fabrics I saw and recorded, so unusual were they, are these dolls in a museum, dressed in shibori patterned rustic clothes of the 19th century.

rustic dressed dolls from a museum

So looking thought the day book now I am intrigued by what I  eventually did make with all this information. I will try to show some of the results in further blogs, but right now I think that the visual mind has a strange way of making connections between disparate stimuli, because I made work for a patchwork book from this study trip….

and now some 30 years later I am eventually giving classes in making kimono.

More Fabric Jewellry Ideas

| janethaigh

design stage for my new fabric jewellry

We have had so many interesting fabric jewellry classes at Heart Space Studios recently that I have decided to develop a fabric jewellry course for the autumn using all the jewellry tutors to take a class each. I got the idea from attending Teresa Searle’s workshop and even though I was the most talkative student I produced enough ideas to develop some old pieces of work to make fabric, enamel and beaded jewellery.

Teresa Searle's workshop samples

You can see just Teresa’s hand pointing out a flower brooch at her recent class, she brought a wonderful selection of samples and ideas to inspire everyone not just me. She showed us several ways of making fabric into rosettes for flowers..

rosette flower for brooches or hair combs

rossettes for a necklace cut from luscious silk chiffon

strings for beading,

stitched fabric strings

beaded fabric strings

appliques for making bracelets and has lots of ways to achieve good looking finished and wearable pieces.

applying a stitched rose to a fabric bracelet

Other tutors teach how to make beautiful fabric beads, here Patricia Brownen has strung her beads with pretty glass bought beads. Stringing up to colour co-ordinate is real skill and she has developed interesting and simple ways for beginners to achieve beautiful combinations in her workshops.

Patricia Brownen's beaded fabric beads

Other tutors make brooches out of recycled fabrics and threads, Debbie Bird always bring piles of lovely things to play with.

Debbie Bird's stash of fabrics and samples for her workshop

workshop in progress

Jan Connet has made some lovely daisy chains for her workshop for machine embroidery using vanishing muslin

Jan Connett's daisy chains

paper making from a new workshop at heart Space

These would make lovey bracelets and necklaces if she makes them stronger, I like the idea of adding them to the fabric strings I made with Teresa. It is this combination of ideas and materials which will  make our jewellry course so fascinating for everyone involved.I also think that Jan’s paper making class could develop into bead making…the combinations of colours and materials give plenty of scope for new ideas.

I am also interested in developing and integrating the ribbon roses into the course which we made in a previous workshop.

My workshop for making ribbon roses

But what I really want to achieve is a mixture of media in the new course, fabric with beads, enamel, paper, wood, bone…….the idea is to get the different materials to work together so that they form new and exciting combinations for textile jewellry.

my old ideas for mixed media jewellry are beginning a new life

Making a Paper Lace Shade

| janethaigh

the new dining room at Heart Space

A new space has been opened up at Heart Space Studios, the dining room. Until now lunches have been served in whichever of the 2 studios were not in use; now there is a proper dining room between the two studios, but because it is enclosed it has no natural light source …serious lighting had to be considered but I have not got serious lighting money.

the original large paper lantern

collection of paper doilies

I knew that I wanted a very big light fitting because the room is small – a section of the original office area and if you have a major problem when decorating try to make something very positive happen….. no light in a room?  accentuate the darkness, or in this case, if the light has to be on all the time, make the lighting really special.

Yesterday I found a huge paper pendant in Habitat, the right size but seriously understated for my needs – but at £5 it had be be bought – I will do something with it somehow I thought – after all the price was perfect.

When I got it home I looked around for some lace to stitch onto it – the first thought was to use strips of broderie Anglaise and just wind it round and round between the spiral wires that form the shape…then I thought about circles of lacy fabrics, crochet, lace and tatting I have somewhere in my stash of white work…but then I remembered all the paper doilies I had bought from vintage stalls years ago when I was patterning my stitched enamels. Now where were they? Eventually I found them in the white paper draw in the plan chest – where else would they be?

I fished them out and the rest was easy- peasy, well not exactly easy -peasy, in fact it was really tricky to make this idea work. Fabric could have been eased and coaxed into following the curves of the paper sphere, but my old stamped and fragile paper could not. Luckily the paper sphere was already creased….. I set to work.

pinned paper doily being stitched into place

Don’t ask me why but I never even considered gluing this shade together, which is the obvious way of doing it – I just had to stitch it. But in the long run I think this made it easier but not quicker. Stitching, even into paper, does allow for a bit of ease of movement, whereas using glue is OK only when you are very exact and know what you are doing before you start.

first doily stitched in place with back paper removed

I added one at a time pinning and stitching and cutting the backing paper away to get a lace effect and more light. The first one was easy as it was quite small, the second was big and very awkward. I had to really struggle to get the papers cut away from inside the sphere and this is why I like to sample and design first when starting from scratch with an idea. But for this I just had to figure it out as I made it – I really should make a paper pattern for this as I would like to make some more of these to sell in the shop at the studios.

cutting the original paper shade away from appliqued doily

Cutting the backing papers away was a fiddle as I had to get my hands inside the sphere – but the effect is definitely worth it. I worked all Sunday afternoon and then finished it first thing Monday morning and took it in to be hung at lunch time. I was very pleased with the result; but really I just liked being able to stitch something again – starting a business to teach stitching is not the same thing as stitching for a living and I do miss my old quiet and contemplative working life.

The light behind all the different types and layers of paper looks lovely and the whole room now glows.

the finished shade hangs over the dining table in Heart Space Studios.

Corsets Galore

| janethaigh

black silk corset made by Lisa Keating

I have never been very interested in corsets beyond museum studies, but last week I became totally entranced by them – why? because in to Heart Space Studios came an ex fashion student of mine, Lisa Keating, nee Best, and she brought the most ravishing selection of her bespoke corsets.

a small selection of hand made corsets - designed to be worn to be seen

I had invited her over to see if she wanted to develop some workshops for us, having met her at my recent open studios, where she turned up, out of the blue, with her husband, Mark, another ex – student, and their 3 children. It has been 20+ years since I taught her but I remembered her very well as a lively(!) opinionated and talented student – I was sure that she would bring me good things to see but I never expected this….

romantic silk corset with ribbon lacing and fabric flowers.

Out of a beautiful flowered box came delectable things, pale be-ribbonned silk corsets, for a fantasy wedding; ruched silk with net frills for a ballconette effect…I think I have this terminology correct!

sexy ruched ballconette bra and a box of beaded corsets.

lace and bows ad bugle beads in silk taffeta

For Strict mistresses, there was a tailored corset in a smart checked suiting fabric.

office wear for a strict mistress

and even a very patriotic Rule Britannia number…..

the union flag inspired corset worn by Lisa's daughter

There were also embroidered butterflies, flowers and feathers and bows and lacing….

be-ribbonned, butterflied, flowered and feathered

and apparently if you wear one of these fabulous contraptions they can take 7, yes, seven inches off your waist – that’s a lot more in centimetres.

the front has even more feathered butterflies, jewells and embroidery....

All the corsets are boned and laced at the back and this is where the fitting starts to work, I thought the backs were as fascinating as the fronts

laced back with eyedlest and a silk ribbon to match the frills.

even the labels that Lisa had made for her business cards and samples were delectable.

Lisa Keating business card and samples

I will leave you with one last lovely image so that you can come and make some of these wonderful things in August at Heart Space – we have plans for making a ribbon flower encrusted corset between us.