Useful Post 2: Haberdashery

Haberdashery is usually taken to mean all the small items, such as buttons, zips and thread that are used in sewing.  To me haberdashery (or dashahabery as I once spoonerisumed!) also includes all the pretty things in sewing like fringing, beads, cord, tassels, sequins, and anything that you can add to a garment to make it even prettier or more sparkly!  

Barnett and Lawson, Little Portland Street.

This is one of those shops that it is impossible to enter without buying something- I've certainly never managed it!  They provide all sorts of trimmings-ribbons, braids, cords, buttons, buckles, fringes, flowers, motifs, tassels, sequins, ric-rac, you name it, they almost certainly have it and in a range of colours and sizes. Their basement shop is filled to bursting with so many beautiful things, at very good prices and I don't think I got through any show without at least one trip here. They don't do online shopping, but do offer a very good sampling service. For anyone of a magpie disposition like me, this place is heaven! 

-16/17 Little Portland Street, W1W 8NE

Macculloch and Wallis, Derring Street.

Another fabulous source for all sorts of haberdashery, trims and decorations, and also fabric and workroom essentials; Macculloch and Wallis have been supplying the theatre and fashion years for over a century from their central London store.  They are more expensive than Barnett and Lawson, but all their products are of excellent quality.  You can order online, but I do find their website a bit annoying.  Many of the pictures of their products, particularly the fabrics, suggest that they are available in several colours, but when you try and order them they are only available in maybe one or too-this can be rather annoying hence why I don't tend to get much fabric from M&W, but do order trim, zips etc.  

-25-26 Derring Street, W1S 1AT

Kleins

Probably the last specialist haberdashers left anywhere, their Noel Street shop is currently undergoing renovation, but you can still order online -thank goodness, I rely on them for so many things!  If you need specialist corsetry supplies, zips,  buckles, buttons, webbing, purse frames, fasteners or any random specialist sewing tools, then Kleins probably has it.  The Zip colour matching service alone makes Kliens one of my life saving companies. They also have a great range of trimmings, ribbons and decorative items that are wonderfully drool worthy.  Can't wait for the shop to reopen in March!

Morplan

Not exactly a haberdashers, as they supply so much more than that (their catalogue has over 5000 items!), but a very good source for thread, particularly large overlocking spools. Morplan is another place I was introduced to at RADA when I was taught pattern cutting, as it is where we bought our marvelous pattern drawing tool - the Patternmaster.  This is a combination, ruler, set square and grader that I use constantly.  I also get all my pattern paper, card, cutting shears and garment bags from this company.  They also do very reasonably priced dress forms and all sorts of workroom tools.  

Useful Post No.1 or Where do I go shopping?!

One of the things I often get asked (other than how did I get into this sewing game) is where do I go to buy fabric and other sewing things.  Well, with my New Year's blogging resolution to try and be helpful and spread my sewing knowledge a little, I thought I would do some useful posts about just that, and today it's all about...

Fabrics

Goldhawk Road, Shepherds Bush

Photo Credit Chris Underwood

This is a fabric lovers Mecca! About 15 shops and the market, all right next to Goldhawk Road tube station on the Hammersmith and City line, Zone 2. You can buy pretty much anything here, beautiful silks, Liberty cottons, leather, luminous lycra and sequined fabrics galore and all at really good prices. The brilliant shopkeepers are all extremely helpful and welcome a bit of haggling, this was my go to location for costuming fabric needs and I've sent many happy hours trawling the shops for just the right fabric.

Berwick Street, Soho

A more upmarket version of Goldhawk Road! If you want quality, then this is the place.  Several fabric shops are spread along and around Berwick street in Soho, including several specialists in silk. One of my favorites is Borovick fabrics, a fantastic shop that also does an excellent mail order service including a free sampling service.  The shops here are definitely more expensive than Goldhawk road, but if you are looking for an amazing, couture level fabric, for a very special project this is the place to go.

WBL Fabric

Always known to me as Whaleys, (from my RADA days darling!) this is an amazing source for plain, mostly white, black or natural fabrics in a vast number of qualities and fibres for dying, printing or just when you need a plain fabric. I once ordered 60m of plain cotton sheeting that I then made into a full chorus of ancient Greek togas! I can't think of many other places you can do that as such reasonable prices. You can buy a complete sample range, which is very useful if you need to order lots, or you can order specific individual samples.

If Silk is your thing, then go to James Hare.  Specialists in both fashion and interior silk fabrics their range is stunning and the colour variety is mouth watering! If you want mail order you do need to open a trade account which means you have to be vetted by the company, however the range is also now available to order through selected John Lewis branches and some other fabric shops that you can find via their website search facility, so although a little hard to get hold of it is worth the effort! I have a copy of their full range of fashion fabric samples (which are also available to view in the John Lewis Stores) and I often just flip through them as I find the colours and textures so inspiring. Although silk will always be more expensive in my opinion it is worth every penny because it is just soooooo beautiful and I often recommend it to brides and not just in ivory...

Platinum Bridal Fabrics aka Weisters

I found this online fabric site by chance when searching for a lace motif to put on a friends dance dress.  I was quickly hooked! A really wide range of fabrics specifically aimed at the bridal market, including loads of nets and veiling and they have a really fab range of brocades for groom's waistcoats.  The colours are all available across the different fabric types, which makes life so much easier when you have a design which has for example, satin and chiffon as you can get both with a couple of clicks-hurray!  They have a range of coloured and ivory silks as well, that are well priced.  You don't have to have a trade account and can order online, but if you do sign up for a trade account you get even better prices.  My favorite part of their range has to be the gorgeous lace fabrics and motifs that they are continually expanding and are very competitively priced.

Cheapfabrics.co.uk

This does exactly what it says on tin! Cheapfabrics.co.uk is a really useful place if you ever need to make panto costumes, you can buy all sorts of sparkly, shiny and above all cheap fabrics here that you would not use anywhere else! Or something that only needs to survive a few shows and that will then never be used again... They also do a good range of cottons and polycottons, both plain and patterned and basic fabrics like calico, that you use a lot in costume work or for toiles. All in all, a very useful site.

So these are my favorite places that I go back to again and again for fabric. I'll carry on trying to be useful and do posts about places I shop for haberdashery (all the pretty things like ribbons and beads I get to play with!) and also for hat making things and maybe a blog about some of the stranger places I've ended up searching for costume necessities...

Plans for 2014...

Well it may be a new year but my health did not get the memo and is still behaving like a stroppy child insisting I have IVs every four weeks... I am back on them for my first set of the year so as I'm not feeling very much like doing anything I have been taking stock of what I want to do in the coming months.  Well one major thing that will happen this year is that I am getting married!!!! MR EB is finally making an honest woman of me and we are getting married in June :-)  Whilst I am deliriously happy (total understatement!) I now have to organise a wedding-seeing as Mr EB has a proper job and is going to be travelling a lot in the next couple of months, it seems sensible that I get on with sorting things out.  However, I don't like organising big events, they usually leave me stressed and grumpy, and I've been involved with the wedding industry for several years now and know just how difficult, not to mention incredibly expensive weddings can get. Fortunately Mr EB and I are in agreement about pretty much everything we want and also that I do not get stressed-phew, good start! Unlike most couples getting married, the first list we made was actually not of what we wanted, but what we did not want! This was really helpful as it meant we immediately lost most of the froth of the wedding industry (I don't need colour matching, monogrammed napkins!) and have cut it down to the bare essentials- we want to get married somewhere nice, but not in church, hopefully in the sun (not much we can do about that!) with afternoon tea and then have lots of really good hog roast-my favorite. There won't be a theme and I can't be bothered to have coordinating everything, we just want simple and fun with people we love :-) At least that's the plan, whether we stick to it only time will tell! So between organising the wedding and making my dress I may not be blogging as much, as hatting and embroidery will have to take a bit of a back seat whilst I beat my dress design into shape and actually make it. It's probably just as well that I am making it myself as I really would be the client from hell!

I do want to try and carry on blogging whilst I do my wedding dress tho, so I thought I would try and share some of the knowledge I've picked up over the years.  I've not entirely decided what form this deluge of knowledge will form, maybe the odd tutorial (although there are already so many sewing tutorials out there I'm not sure they really need tuppence worth), some of my historical projects might feature or the odd book review... anyway it will be something that will hopefully be interesting and useful to someone somewhere out there in the ether.

As well as this burst of informativeness, I am also hoping to have enough time and energy, to complete some of the challenges from The Historical Sew Fortnightly, that is run by the rather marvelously named Dreamstress.  This is a brilliant idea, where the Dreamstress sets fortnightly sewing challenges online for the whole of 2014, for historical sewing enthusiasts worldwide to complete and then post about on the Facebook page and their own blogs. It is such a good way to get people interested in costume history and sewing and I'm a bit gutted that I did not know about this when she ran it last year! You don't have to do every challenge (thank goodness), you can do as many as you can manage, or just the ones that interest you. It will be really lovely to do some proper historical costuming again-I've missed doing all the research and unusual patterns and techniques that doing period costume lets you use.

So, 2014-here I come!

A little light chaos....

When people come to my workroom to try on a dress or a hat, or talk about commissioning something it really doesn't look like it does on an average day when I am making things.  When other people are about the room is tidy and organised, the tables are folded down small (marvelous design from IKEA halves in size) and as much as possible is moved into my bedroom to make it appear bigger and give more space.  When I am working however, it quickly clogs up with all sort of things, from feathers to patterns, not to mention various sewing machines and hat blocks. One of my friends was saying she would like to see my workroom (and have a play!), so I thought I would take some pictures.... I've tried to be fairly honest and not tidy up so that this is what it does look like for most of the time- semi organised mess!

Typical cluttered table... One sewing machine on the table, an over locker and two other machines underneath it... The blue felt hat on my malleable head block is nearly finished and my large embroidered hat is sitting on the large brim block at the back of the table, until I can figure out where to store it! The big cardboard box contains a new hat block (squee!)

The table from the other side.  Their is actually a bed underneath all the piles of stuff, so that the room can still be used as a  guestroom.  Although you'd have to dig it out from under the books, fabric, cushions, crochet and hat hoods that are currently covering it...

From this angle you can see the hanging rail that my Dad fixed up for me.  It currently has a load of costumes and dresses on it.  It also contains all the card pattern blocks I have drawn over the years- so useful in creating new designs. My new red kettle is sitting on it's hot plate, along with one of my full size irons and my mini iron, which is sitting in a mug to stop it burning the table top.

My super embroidery machine is on a movable table in front of the window where it gets the best light. I try and keep it covered to prevent dust getting into it.  Next to it is a movable set of drawers with lots of my embroidery threads on the top and loads of interfacing and fabric inside.

The shelves are totally crammed full of books and boxes of all sorts of things. The two big  boxes with handles on the top shelf contain a vast number of threads.  My books are probably my most important possessions along with my sewing machines.  When I'm feeling ill I spend a lot of time reading and my rather large collection of fashion history and costume is invaluable in keeping me sane and inspiring new projects.  They are is a sort of order, divided into historical books,dress making books, hat books and specific areas like corsetry or pattern cutting. 

Ariodante Pro Shots

So it may be a year or so since it was staged, but I have finally managed to get hold of some of the professional photos taken at the dress rehearsal of Ariodante.  I've only got pictures of the first two thirds of the opera, hopefully I'll get the rest very soon.  They are a million times better than my little attempts and show how lovely an opera it was; these are a few of my favorites.

Ariodante

So here are a couple of my wobbly photos of CHOG's production of Ariodante. Blogger is being a pain and only letting me upload a couple but there are some more on my Piacassa web albums thing-which is here-http://picasaweb.google.com/musoros/Ariodante#
I particularly like this one of the king in his fantastic Dracula-esque wig!