Where have I been?

So where have I been these past few months?

I won't lie, I've been having some fun. Ant and I have been to the odd festival, found a shepherds hut or two down in Cornwall for much needed intervals in our busy lives.

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

Somersault Festival, after too much sun

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

There has been an awful lot going on in our lives. Many creative excitements and challenges and some personal ones too...

...One of my best mates Polly has been getting through Breast Cancer, she is an incredibly cool, well dressed individual and has been tackling it all head on with an incredible blog. I decided the least I could do was run the Race for Life

Photo Anthony Jolliffe

But I couldn't do it without emanating a bit of Polly's innate style. I LOVE these trainer wings, and I can't believe I got them from a joke shop. They are still on my trainers, a month on.

My human sketchpad, Al, has gone under the pen again for another nautical themed tattoo. This was a halfway through photo but I almost prefer it to the finished result as you can see the pain he is enduring for his art!

I've spent a fair bit of time in London, working on a few shows, that you will no doubt hear about soon. This incredible installation at the SouthBank Centre is all about its LOVE festival. This euphoric assault on the senses is what I think love looks like. A little too painful to start straight in the face, but if you are brave enough to do so, you will discover new hidden delights the longer you look.

Saying that, it was a bit of a grey day when I took the photo!

One of those London shows is one called Fat Man, devised by Martin Bonger and Alex Swift, produced by Little Mighty and Move to Stand. I won't give too much away but it's touching, bloody funny and will completely turn the myth of Orhpeus on its head. Find out more about the tour here

Martin is, by no stretch of the imagination, Fat, Therefore he needed a pretty pimping fat suit to get the job done. I called up Jill Molyneux and Kelly Jago at Jag Props who made an incredibly life like fat suit. I then dressed it, grubbed and sweated it up and, voila! that protruding tummy above is in fact  a prosthetic tummy on a glorious fat suit. 

My theatre company Dot and Ethel is going from strength to strength, with Heidi and I just about keeping up. We have secured Arts Council Funding for a national Tour of our christmas show the Little Match girl, now transformed into the universally seasonal 'MATCH'.

Photo Chris Collier

That scraped the surface of the past few months. The pace still hasn't let up and at times it feels like I'm keeping just out in front of the tidal wave. I'm sure many of you feel like that, but we all keep coming back for more.  I look forward to sharing all that comes with you in future posts.

Fashion Fix: Festival Wellies 2: Flower...?

Photo Farrows Creative

I refuse to write 'Flower Power' as that sums up cheap and tacky images for cliched psychedelic hippy fancy dress costumes. Big clusters of oversized flowers have graced headdresses for the past few summers now so why not have them spilling out around the tops of your wellies.

Photo Farrows Creative

There is a bit more of a method to these...

You will need:

• A pair of wellies
• assorted brightly coloured fake flowers
• hole borer
• contact adhesive
• Felt

How to do it:

1. Pull your flowers off their stems, this will leave you with a small nib at the back of the flower,
2. Bore a hole in your welly. Apply contact adhesive to the back of the flower and the area on the welly surrounding the hole. Leave to go tacky
3. Once ready, push flower nib through welly hole
4. press together until contact adhesive fixes. 
5. Continue to add flowers.
6. Glue small squares of felt to the inside of the welly over the flower nibs to stop irritation.

Fashion Fix: Festival Wellies 1: Boho Chic

Photo Farrows Creative

Wellies.

We're all going to need them at some point this summer.

Ros and I designed a pair that would have Sienna Miller knocking down our door to get her mits on them. This was also shot and styled on our summer time shoot for Cloth Mag in Ros's Parents' back garden.

This is a wonderfully simple fashion fix with NO SEWING! Use trim, fringing and anything else you’ve collected to create these festival fantastic ethnic willies. Use Contact adhesive and create a neat finish by placing all seams to the centre back of the wellie. I got the mad fringing trim from a Vintage upholstery stall at a market, and the boho beaded trim from an Asian specialist fabric shop. The colours and detailed embellishments that you find in such specialist shops beats the british counterparts hands down when it comes to Festival Boho Chic.

Boho not your thing? Look out for the second post in the Festival Wellies series for something a bit more flowery...

Fashion Fix: Summer Staple Sleeveless top from scratch

Photo Amanda Thomas

I have always loved clashing a print and a colour. These days anything goes, fashion wise, but the enthusiasm for confident clashing is going to be around for a while.

This top was a project that came around because of the tragic demise of one of my favourite tops: A green and white striped Whistles number that went with EVERYTHING! so, what to do?? We all know that when we go out shopping with an annoyingly specific item in mind it will NEVER turn up (this has turned into a regular occurrence in the life of a costume designer and stylist.)

Therefore, if you can't replace then you must replenish. Use that worn out unwearable item as a pattern for your new garment.

You will need:

• calico to make pattern pieces
• iron
• dressmaking pins
• dressmaking scissors
• paper scissors
• fabric (check you old garment's label for fabric info and then take it with you to the shop to work out how much you need.)
• bias binding for edges
• fastenings (I needed a zip, but decided to make a feature of it so got a gold chunky one).
• thread 
• fabric marker
• zip foot.

I got all of these things from Fabricland

How to do it:

1.  Take a deep breath and cut your old garment along each seam to have individual pattern pieces.
2. iron each piece flat
3. pin each piece onto calico and cut out leaving a 1.5cm seam allowance. 
4. label each piece so you remember where they go!
5. pin to your new fabric and cut out the new pieces. You will now have a collection of fabric pieces complete with seam allowances.

This is the point where our paths part. Each garment is going to be made in its own way, so I can only tell you how I went about reconstructing my garment. I am pretty sure this will be useful reading however if you are making any kind go flat fronted top.

My top consisted of four panels, two front and two back. 

1. Whilst always referring back to the original garment (admittedly now cut up, but my memory of it served me well) pin the two front panels right sides together down the centre front of the top. Machine a running stitch, remove pins and press seams open.
2. repeat with the back two panels leaving space at the top for the zip. If your fabric has a pattern try your best to match up the design so it looks continuous. (see photo...can you see the front seam?! hopefully not)
3. now match up the side seams, pin right sides together and machine a running stitch. remove pins, press seams open.
4. for the sleeves, you could either...carefully snip a 0.5cm cut at 1cm intervals all around the sleeve edge. Press right sides into the sleeve hole. Machine a running stitch around the edge. 
5. Or you could bind the sleeve edges, either with a contrasting colour or you could  make your own bias binding: see below.
6. Before folding the binding over the curve, snip small triangles from the raw edge of the binding. This will     help ease it round the curve.  Pin in place on the right (outer side) of the sleeve hole and pin in place. Machine a running stitch in the fold of the bias binding. Fold the binding in and hand sew in place.
7. To insert the zip in the back,you will need a zip foot for your machine.  They are narrow in size and have a notch on the left for the needle and a notch on the right. 
8. sew up the seam at the back of the top that will hold the zip with a long stitch length (basting stitch).
9. Then, turn to the ‘wrong’ side and press the seam open.
10.  Wherever it is, place the end where it needs to begin and place your zipper face down.  Then line up the center of the zip teeth along the center of that open seam.  Pin in place.
11. Then flip the fabric over and place a pin right above where the bottom of the zip is.  This will just show you where the end is.
12. start at the bottom of the zipper and work my way towards the top. Position your needle all the way over to the left (so you don’t break your needle) and now you’re ready to begin sewing along the right side of the seam.  Slide your fabric (right side up) underneath the presser foot and find the pin you used to mark the bottom of the zip.  Machine a running stitch up the side.
13. Keep sewing all the way down the zip until you are about 2 inches from the end., then raise your foot and zip up the zip so it has zipped past the foot. Continue sewing to the end.
14. once at the end of the zip length, keep your needle in the fabric, raise the foot and pivot the fabric round until the foot is facing across the bottom of the zip. machine a running stitch across the bottom of the zip. 
15. once at the end of the zip width, keep your needle in the fabric, raise the foot and pivot the fabric round until the foot is facing up the side of the zip. machine a running stitch up to the top of the zip.
16. unpick the basting stitch. 
17. for the neckline, repeat the bias binding step 6.
18. to hem the bottom edge of the top fold the raw edge once and pres, and then once again and press again. Sew either with an invisible hand sewn hem or with a running stitch on the machine to make a feature of it.

 Make your own Bias binding.

a. Mark out strips of cotton 5cm wide, at 45’ angles across your piece of cotton. Cut

b. Sew each strip to the next to make one long length. 

c. Slowly push the cotton strip through a mouse binder and press with an iron as you go. 

festival feather leather earrings

Nomadic Festival Fashion is a hot hot topic now the sun is out. Here is a quick, no-sew project to cover all current trends.

You will need

• 10 x 20 cm coloured leather
• Fabric paints in various bright colours
• Metallic gold spray paint
• Drop earring loops
• Pliers
• Some broken jewelry for decoration
• Hole punch
• Dressmaking scissors
• Paper
• Pen
• Pencil

How to do it

1. Draw a feather template roughly 10 x 4 cm on a piece of paper. cut out
2. Draw round and cut out two shapes from your leather
3. Get creative! paint on a bright splash of colour down the centre of your feathers. leave to dry
4. For a finishing flourish, spray the rounded top end of the feather gold. leave to dry
5. Punch a hole in the top of the feather for your earring loop to go through. and snip the sides in a herringbone style, make sure when you reach the lowest point you dont snip too close to the centre.
6. Attach your earring loop. (you may need to add an extra link in a chain from a broken necklace) and for added festival glamour, incorporate a few bits of broken jewelry and chains.

Fabric and provider:
leather: Borovicks, Berwick Street, Soho
earring loops from Creativity, Worrall Rod, Bristol