Fabric is one of art history’s most iconic and enduring motifs, draping, flapping or drifting through many of the best-known artworks of all time. Throughout the Renaissance period artistic portrayals of drapery were stretched in incredible new directions, illustrating just how evocative, expressive and emotive they could be, and setting the stage for centuries to…
Fabric in Art: Romanticism to Modernism and Beyond
If you like sewing your own clothes, there will be a time where you will come across a pattern that requires knowing how to sew set-in sleeves and attaching them to the bodice. And this is when this tutorial will come in handy. A set-in sleeve is the most basic of sleeves and as its…
19th century painter Alexei Savrasov portrayed stunning, Romanticised visions of the Russian landscape, capturing the sparkling freshness and icy air of winter when everything was obscured by layers and layers of snow. Sensitively attuned to the natural world at this time of year, he carefully observed how subtle shades of bluish grey like that of…
Ever since I uncovered a vintage French chore jacket at a flea market years ago, I have been obsessed with this timeless jacket design. If you follow me on Pinterest, you are not surprised to read this. I have dreamed of creating my own version for a while and finally found the perfect sewing pattern…
Polish artist and designer Sarah Lipska is an enigmatic figure, one whose life is only rarely written about in books and magazines. But hidden within the Met Museum in New York is a vast collection of samples from her embroidered textiles, each one adding an extra layer to the tapestry of her life. This collection…
As the old Yiddish proverb goes, “We plan, God laughs”. Eight weeks ago I wrote an article on the benefits of cold water swimming and how much I was hoping it would help me manage through the cold winter months of uncertainty. My last swim was on the 4th of Jan and as of the…
A fresh, cold breeze seems to bristle through Russian painter Natalia Goncharova’s paintings, created through sharp, biting and invigorating colours like that of FEATHER Linen. Leader in the Russian 20th century avant-garde, Goncharova was wildly inventive and prolific, working across a huge range of styles, techniques and mediums to produce some of the most important…
A few weeks ago, I wrote a tutorial on how to make a natural indigo vat, this was followed by a tutorial on how to create patterns using Indigo dye combined with Japanese shibori techniques. It seemed fitting to apply the techniques to linen and create an item of clothing from the fabric. I have…
“Form without colour is like a body without a soul”. Owen Jones was one of the most prolific and influential designers of the Victorian era, reinventing the ornate patterns and dazzling colours of the ancient world for a new era. A prolific polymath, his ideas spanned a huge range of fields including architecture, wallpaper, furniture,…
Have you seen images of a plant seed germinating? A condensed version of the germination story is the seed first soaks up water, then the roots start growing, growing, and then the first leaves break through the soil surface to be greeted by warm rays of sunshine. Throughout the process to maturity, a plant grows…
SILVER Linen’s quiet, blue-grey mirrors the softly diffused light of Claude Monet’s snow scenes, where land and sky are muffled by enormous puffs of cloud and snow. Subtle blue shadows fall across heaps of white snow and bristle through freezing tree branches or suggest rising storm clouds in the distant horizon, but they are a…
In my 10 years of sewing, I can say with confidence, there are few fabrics I love more than classic black linen. I keep coming back to it. Pair it with vintage cotton denim and a natural vegetable tanned leather bag, you have my ideal wardrobe. A couple weeks ago, I made the AKIRA pants…
Leader in the Russian Constructivist movement of the early 20th century, Varvara Stepanova was a true radical, whose long and prolific career spanned many disciplines including painting, photography and design. Yet it was through textile production that she was able to live out her true life’s mission, to bring art out of the gallery space…
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do. I’m an architect, but also have been working in pottery, sewing, and knitting in my spare time. I have been pursuing pottery for almost four years. I learned sewing from my parents when I was a child. They ran a clothing manufacturing business, making high…
The outside temperature dipped into the negatives this week in southern Wisconsin. Deep winter is among us. Tucked inside a drafty old farmhouse wearing many layers of wool with a space heater at my feet, I continued sewing my summer wardrobe. On the schedule this week? The MAGDA Pant in a NATURAL Linen. If you…
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