'Till Needle, Thread and Fabric Meet

Janie's Friday Feature

Welcome to this week's Friday Feature Newsletter - the Janie Crow equivalent of a Sunday supplement magazine....

Here I am again with another newsletter and this week Sarah and I have focussed on sewing and embroidery as a theme. As you may well know, Sarah is a very accomplished stitcher who has produced some really fabulous pieces of sewn art work and so this week she has written the main feature, which is all about an exciting forthcoming exhibition she will be involved in. Sadly my sewing skills don't even begin to compare to Sarah's, but I am a really big fan of all things stitched and often use embroideries and tapestries as the inspiration for my designs, so I have tried to add pieces into this week's newsletter that fit the theme well.

This week's newsletter also includes the usual tip of the week and palette of the week and my 'what's new' feature. I hope that whatever you have going on in your life today you will be able to settle down for 5 minutes or so to relax in our company.....
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'I cannot think my day complete 'til needle, thread and fabric meet.'
- Author Unknown -

Nordiska Exhibition

Hi! It’s Sarah here with a feature that is really very close to my heart!

If you are already a fan of embroidery and the whole mid-century aesthetic then I hope that the following will be of interest to you – if not, then I hope that you will be inspired to visit a brand new exhibition in Birmingham later this month, as well as pick up a needle and thread.
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Eighteen months ago I visited the Festival of Quilts exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham. I have visited this show on and off over the years, but 2017 was special. I had arranged to meet up with indigo enthusiast Lindsay Roberts. We had chatted away on Instagram, but never met – the exhibition provided the perfect opportunity and we spent a fabulous day revelling in fabric and threads! The highlight of the day was being introduced to Tanja Malo , the owner and founder of www.linladan.com.

Roughly translated, the Swedish ‘linladan’ means flax barn. The Swedish tradition of using flax or linen as both a fabric and a thread in embroidery is one that Tanja is not only keen to preserve, but also to promote within a modern context. As we become increasingly concerned about working with sustainable fibres, linen is a go to resource. It uses less water to produce and remains strong seemingly forever! I have recently been working with fabric and threads that are over 50 years old and it is as if they were made yesterday.
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The chances are that if you have visited any of the Knitting and Stitiching shows, Selvedge fairs or Festival of Quilts exhibitions over the last few years you may have dropped across Linladan. I cannot imagine anyone being able to pass the glorious riot of colour that is created from little boxes of vintage linens, flower threads and silks, but Linladan is more than just finding lovely old stuff to sell! There is an ethos behind the business that encompasses provenance, fair pay and working conditions, sustainability, respect for all that is handmade and attribution for the original designers and artists and I have no doubt that the exhibition will reflect all of these qualities.

It is only through sheer hard work and determination that the Nordiska exhibition has come into being. Years of research have led Tanja to discovering not only the Nordiska archive itself, but also some of the people who were originally involved back in the 50s, 60s and 70s. This has enabled her to produce kits from the original designs with a percentage going to the original designers in recognition of their contribution and legacy.

The exhibition will include original paintings and embroideries as well as the hand drawn charts that were used to produce kits.
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Tanja has been able to speak and work with those artists who are still alive and members of other families who worked at the Nordiska factory. This has enabled her to not only learn more about their practise and inspiration, but also to find out which designs were among their favourites. Many families and artists have lent Tanja examples from their own personal collections, like Kaisa Edstroms hand embroidered wedding dress from 1963 and Ingrid-Dahlman’s Sagoslottet Fairytale Castle.

It has often been difficult to find the original instructions for a design which has made reproducing the kits as exact replicas quite tricky. Linladan is now onto its second print run of kits. More instructions have been found and suitable linen has been sourced. Every effort has been made to add threads in colours as close to the originals as possible.
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Moving forward, Tanja would like to continue working with the archive and encourage embroiderers to use their own palette of colours when stitching. In the 60s all prints would have been made on the same colour background. Now it is possible to make smaller print runs in different colours so that embroiderers are free to interpret the designs in their own way – using more or less colours than the original, using pastels, neutrals or even neons instead of a more traditional palette.

Next week I will be joining Tanja to help set up the exhibition. This will be the first time that much of this work will be on show to the public, so I am incredibly excited! I am also going to be teaching one hour workshops each day where participants will have the opportunity to practise some of the most popular stitches of mid-century Swedish embroidery. We will be using linen threads on linen fabric, with patterns from the Nordiska archive. 
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I am always amazed by how the simplest of stitches are able to convey so much.

The exhibition will run as part of the Fashion and Embroidery Show and tickets also include entrance to Sewing for Pleasure and Creative Craft Show. Full details can be found via this link and details of the workshop 'A Thread Through Time' can be found here.

My thanks to Tanja at Linladan for letting me join in the fun and to Claudia Brookes, for the use of these fabulous images.

If you do get chance to come along, please say hello so that we can share more inspiration with you!
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Tip of the week

Sarah has suggested a couple of tips this week - both are sewing related:

Sarah says she hates it when thread starts to tangle or turn back on itself. To stop it doing this Sarah suggests running the thread through bees wax to make the twist on the thread stronger and tangle free. You can find Hancock's beeswax blocks on the Beyond Measure web site by clicking on the image below.
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Sarah's second tip is to use quilters tape as a guide if you struggle to sew in a straight line. You can find the tape by following this link to the Cotton Patch web site.

If you have any life hacks or craft related tips you would like to share within this section of the Friday Feature Newsletter in the future, then do hit reply and let us know.
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What's New

I have added a few new pages onto the new web site this week including a workshop page that lists my dates for 2019. You can find the page by following this link.

My next workshop will be at the lovely Missenden Abbey School of Creative Arts in Buckinghamshire on the 9th and 10th March. This is a crochet motif design workshop, which is aimed at people who want to have a little play with their crochet in order to change or adapt existing motifs or possibly design their very own motifs from scratch - something that is in fact far easier than most people think and which can come quite easily once a little bit of basic information about how crochet designing 'works' alongside a pinch of encouragement is given! You can find more information on this workshop by following this link.

I am hoping to have more time to work on the web site next week and will let you know what pages I manage to put live in next week's newsletter. The shop area on the web site is still not up and running, so if you are interested in any patterns or kits, then you might like to take a look on the Just Knots web site or on Black Sheep Wools as both these stores carry good stock of my designs.
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As I have told you already, about six weeks ago Andrew and Andrea from the Fruity Knitting Podcast dropped into the studio so that I could take part in an interview with them. The resulting video is on their Youtube feed, so I would love it if you would take a look! If you are a Fruity Knitting Patron you can still make use of a 10% discount on the 3 CAL projects I talk about in the episode - follow this link for more information.
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Colour Palette of the Week

Last weekend saw unusually warm, bright weather here in the UK, but the last few days have been much greyer and are far more usual for this time of year and so I have chosen a palette this week that reflects this!
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The image used for this week's palette has been saved on my phone for a while as I was attracted to the sophisticated choices made with colour and surface pattern on this embroidery. This kind of mixture of greys and yellows has been a really strong trend for the last few years and I am still itching to use it in one of my designs - perhaps Mystical Lanterns would look great in this tight palette? What do you think?

The image is from an account called Handmade.Embroidery on Instagram.
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Instagram Favourite

I have always been a huge fan of the fashion house Alexander McQueen. You may remember me recommending that you all go to see the documentary film about Lee Alexander McQueen last year - it is an amazing insight into the vision of the incredible designer that he was, but it is also unbelievably moving and sad.

In the wake of Lee's death in February 2010 it was Sarah Burton who took the reigns at the brand and I think she has done an incredible job harnessing the legacy of Lee's vision and she continues to design simply amazing things. If you think you may not have seen one of Sarah's designs, then think again - she designed the Duchess of Cambridge's iconic wedding dress in 2011.

I am a huge fan of the Alexander McQueen Instagram account. The pictures on there are fantastic and the range of close up images in particular are really great. The images often come with the written story of the how the clothes were made and it is clear that the skill of the crafts people involved, whether they be seamstresses, leather workers, embroiderers or painters, is a really key part of how Sarah Burton makes this such an inspirational brand.
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The images I have included here show pieces from the newest collection and I love how much embroidery has been used.
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I want to draw your attention in particular to the black jacket with what looks like splashed red paint across it from the most recent men's wear collection - shown below.
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On closer inspection the detail on this jacket it intricately stitched - isn't it incredible! When I saw this close up image I was totally blown away, and I am sure that you will be too!
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There is a really good interview with Sarah Burton on the Vogue web site, within which she talks about the importance of the heritage of traditional crafts. You can find the interview by following this link.
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It's nearly the weekend!

We had a fabulous time at the Unravel Yarn Festival last weekend and I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all those of you who came along to say hello! We had a new stand layout, which included our new piece of IKEA furniture that we finally managed to go out and get (!) and I was really happy with the way the blankets and throws looked on the display.
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My Magic Circles blanket was particularly popular at Unravel. It is funny - we can never predict which blanket will be the star of the show, it changes every single time! I know some people were disappointed that we ran out of both the printed pattern and the kits, so I include a link here for you to easily find them. Magic Circles is shown in the image above behind Fields of Gold and Lily Pond.
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Alongside all the fabulous exhibitors, Unravel also featured talks and presentations and I was really excited to finally meet and see the work of fellow crochet designer Katie Jones, which was on display in the gallery.

We are looking forward to a quiet weekend at home. With a bit of luck I might actually finally get the last coat of paint on the hall walls! The house is in major need of a spring clean, so the wet, colder weather might well provide the perfect opportinity for us to do it, although I suspect I am more likely to sit on the settee with a box set of movies to watch on the TV and a lap full of crochet. I am trying to catch up with The Victorian House of Arts and Crafts on BBC Iplayer, so this will be a wonderful distraction from painting!!!

I would, as always, love to hear what you have planned for your weekend and hope that whatever it is you are set for a fabulous couple of days of rest and recouperation.

Sending crochet love and yarny kisses
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