'BUYING FABRIC ONLINE: How do you know what you're getting, and how do you get what you want?'

A very useful Fabric Workshop is up and coming at my studio here - date to be confirmed, but late Feb probably - please state your preference re dates and I will organise accordingly.  smile emoticon
See below:

Hi Everyone,
I am a designer / maker / teacher of pattern cutting / sewing / bespoke garments, and would like to tell you about an upcoming Fabric Workshop which will be happening here in my spacious studio on the edge of Cropredy at Prescote Manor. (See the map on my contact page below for the location: www.bobbiesroom.co.uk/contact)
Cost will be around £20 for a 2 hr workshop, and you will go away with:
A LIST OF FABRIC SHOPS AND SUPPLIERS, including Harris tweed suppliers direct from the Scottish Islands, silk tweed from the suppliers who Coco Chanel first used for her jackets (yes, it was British!), Yorkshire tweed suppliers, luxurious ex designer fabric suppliers, tech and sports fabrics AND some small SWATCHES OF SOME OF YOUR FAVOURITES smile emoticon

I'm aiming to encourage creativity, enthusiasm, knowledge of course, and successful making as a result. If you know what the fabric can do, you can design and make accordingly, AND be inspired - just knowing what you can get, gives you ideas.
Please email me on atelier@bobbiesroom.co.uk, or just reply here on this post or message me, to let me know if you are interested in principle, and I will organise accordingly. Thank you!

SEE DETAILS of what will be covered below:

'If you're thinking of buying fabric online (and we do that a lot more these days for many different reasons), I’ve realised that a lot of people just don’t know what’s out there, and what they might go for in making any kind of garment, let alone what they might choose for a really special occasion - a wedding dress or outfit.
So I’m putting together a workshop where we can look at:

• HOW TO KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GETTING WHEN YOU BUY ONLINE!
• Sample swatches of actual fabric: types, varieties within a type, what's suitable for what use,
properties of different fabrics, how to tell what a fabric is if it's not labelled, (you might need to
know for washing / ironing / dry cleaning / dyeing etc).
• What questions to ask the supplier when you contact them, so that both you and they are saving
time and wasted swatches being sent.
• Technical stuff - thread count / strength and resilience / types of prints / names of weaves /
construction ...and what that all means!
• Histories and background of fabric production in different areas of the UK, and the world.
Did you know for instance that Banbury (my nearest town), used to be the centre of the production of a fabric known as ‘Plush’ ?

There will be loads of beautiful fabrics for you to look at in the studio, for inspiration and information -
• Harris and Yorkshire and Irish tweeds,
• Cottons: (fine shirtings/lawn/muslin/satins/prints/woven Madras checks/denims/honeycomb
weaves, oil cloth),
• Silks of all descriptions from silk tweed to taffeta, organza, georgette and satins,
• Wools, from fine suitings to pilot cloth (used for duffle coats), to jacquards, cashmere and all in
between.
• Many different types of lace.
• Tech fabrics- vinyls and polyester microfibres, neoprene, nets and mesh for sportswear and
accessories.

Email me on atelier@bobbiesroom.co.uk, or comment here, or message me for confirmed dates and all other details you might need smile emoticon

Thanks!
Bobbie


Was quite touched the other day, as one of my students who'd done the Colsca / Smittens workshop (and who also comes for pattern cutting classes), came in brandishing her newly finished smittens, which she'd made from my pattern, feeling very happy with them! I say 'touched', but that's not quite the right word. What I meant was that it was something like hearing a song you perform on played in a shop or club (not that that's happened that often to me!), or I guess seeing a book jacket you've designed in a bookshop....

So my job over Christmas is to work out the best packaging idea for the patterns, as the one I have at the moment is just a kind of stopgap, due to having to produce them quickly for a workshop. Then it will be on to the patterns for other accessories I designed a while ago. I have quite a few ideas, but the packaging is soooooo important. People who actually get to see my stuff seem to love it, so I've realised that it's seeing the stuff in real life that's the key to selling it, or a pattern or a workshop for it. I've sold about 6 without trying at all :-) 
So that's my work cut out (get it?) over Christmas, alongside the bespoke commissions.

Speaking of which, now that the tweed extravaganza has departed, and will make it's starring appearance next Saturday, somewhere in Gloucestershire, I am on to an equally different fabric for a wedding dress - suede - well, faux actually, but you'd hardly know the difference! It's gonna be VERY nice I think, and will have a sumptuous,  '50's but modern' look to it. MANY metres of fabric here!!!  Looking forward to it :-)


Anyway, here's the lady of the smittens, looking very happy :-D

Speak soon!

Bobbie 

Toooooooo.........

Oooooooohhh, so much going on lately....! But all seems to be good, and after a while in the doldrums several months ago, I'm feeling more positive :-)

Was quite touched the other day, as one of my students who'd done the Colsca / Smittens workshop (and who also comes for pattern cutting classes), came in brandishing her newly finished smittens, which she'd made from my pattern, feeling very happy with them! I say 'touched', but that's not quite the right word. What I meant was that it was something like hearing a song you perform on played in a shop or club (not that that's happened that often to me!), or I guess seeing a book jacket you've designed in a bookshop....

So my job over Christmas is to work out the best packaging idea for the patterns, as the one I have at the moment is just a kind of stopgap, due to having to produce them quickly for a workshop. Then it will be on to the patterns for other accessories I designed a while ago. I have quite a few ideas, but the packaging is soooooo important. People who actually get to see my stuff seem to love it, so I've realised that it's seeing the stuff in real life that's the key to selling it, or a pattern or a workshop for it. I've sold about 6 without trying at all :-) 
So that's my work cut out (get it?) over Christmas, alongside the bespoke commissions.

Speaking of which, now that the tweed extravaganza has departed, and will make it's starring appearance next Saturday, somewhere in Gloucestershire, I am on to an equally different fabric for a wedding dress - suede - well, faux actually, but you'd hardly know the difference! It's gonna be VERY nice I think, and will have a sumptuous,  '50's but modern' look to it. MANY metres of fabric here!!!  Looking forward to it :-)


Anyway, here's the lady of the smittens, looking very happy :-D

Speak soon!

Bobbie 

Classes a-go-go

Classes a-go-go

22/9/2015

0 Comments

September is always a crazy month if you're a teacher - organization overload, all the formalities, and then eventually you can actually get down the REAL stuff - the knowledge, and the imparting of such!!!

There is quite a lot, (am I kidding myself?!), actually loads of technical stuff involved in pattern cutting teaching, but the aim of it all should be (in my humble opinion) to give others the means by which creativity can happen. I call it the 'transformation' :-) Ideas on paper or in the head, transformed by means of technical stuff (the making if patterns and toiles), into amazing garments, or parts of garments. If you know these methods, your creativity knows no bounds and you also have the respect of others around you in the business. I guess that's a bit like trying to write a song, but not knowing any of the technical stuff that enables you to play it to other people, i.e. playing and instrument, singing, writing music, using programmes on the computer.....OK it IS possible, but not easy.
So, it's a means to an end....
My means to an end right now is to get organised for tomorrow (first day teaching out this academic year), so less blathering.....
I'm using the plastic sheet for blocks now, which means no more dog ears and wiggly edges, however many students have to copy them, so more to make today as well as all the paperwork :-)
Speak soon!
Bobbie 

Love this pic of 'old style' blocks...

Scissor song

Hi!

Scissors / shears just beautifully sharpened and cleaned up by Paul Roderick of Brackley nr Banbury, Oxfordshire so anyone local to me could use his service - he actually comes to pick up and delivers in quick time if you need it! Maybe not the cheapest, but it's a great job, and the pick up / delivery makes it more than worth it.
Nice man, and apparently an ex Rolls Royce engineer, so he probably knows what he's doing!!
Here's my ancient pair (used in my logo pic), and another pair made by Wiss, and he said that the steel used in both my pairs was so good, it made the wheel 'sing'!

And here's his website: http://knifesharpeningbrackley.co.uk
More mentions of knives and woodwork tools that scissors, but this is the man!

Bobbie

New design website

Well, the re positioning / vamping / focussing of this website - call it what you will is about 50% there...one of the hardest things, believe it or not is finding an image for the home page that sort of encompasses at least some of the things I do. 
So the news on these posts may be to do with bespoke wedding dress commissions, teaching my pattern cutting / fashion sewing classes and courses, teaching work 'out', in educational establishments, film illustration / art work. 
In the near future, I will be trying to describe what I do, and how I do it so that people visiting my site know whether my style/methods are suitable / applicable to them. 
Any feedback on this possible image for my homepage would be gratefully received! See below:

Tweed, rebranding and other stories...!

Hi everyone,

I didn't quite know what to entitle this post, as there's a few things to mention...

First off, I'm aiming to rationalise my online presence, and do a bit of rebranding - nothing major, but just to simplify things (easily said!), and enable visitors to the website to see the different things I do, and find out what they need to know quickly and easily. This will take a little time, as normal work has to continue, but in the mean time, if you've always thought that x, y or z isn't how it should be on this website / blog, or you can't find what you need to know, then please contact me  here.

Secondly, at the moment, I have a great commission on - and I don't think it would be giving too much away, as this bit's not entirely secret - to say that it's a tweed wedding dress! I'm so happy to be using such fabulous fabric,  for such an unexpected, but wished for commission. The design is nearly set - a few tweakings and a bit of redrawing, and consequently other ideas coming into play, and some great accessory design ideas, some from the woman herself (who is an 'artist' but not as you might imagine it!), and some from me. I love tweed, whether it is wool, or silk tweed (a la Chanel jacket), as you may have guessed from looking at my Atelier Natural History Tweed website, so very much looking forward to this :-)

I've just mentally listed my various activities, spanning art / design / music / teaching,  which I need to identify / clarify via my website, (or not as the case might be - do I include the things which are not clothing related?!)

Here's the website as it stands today, but hopefully some changes coming soon: www.bobbiesroom.co.uk

Speak soon,

Bobbie