Tea, Cake & Lace

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours at one of my favourite little finds here in Nottingham - the Debbie Bryan Shop. An afternoon spent drinking tea, eating cake and hearing amazing stories about lace.

As part of NTU's (Nottingham Trent University) research for the collection of stories from or about lace workers from the 1900s onwards, Debbie Bryan hosted an afternoon gathering for anyone with a story, wanting to hear stories and those who wanted to help collect these oral stories. The purpose of gathering these stories is to enable Nottingham's lace heritage communities to preserve lace history.

So, with my tea and cake I sat back and listened to some amazing stories that these people had about their family members working in the lace industry and how they wanted to fill in the gaps that were missing in these stories.

Facts I learnt (and remembered to note down) ...

- Methodism was a popular religion with the working class and lace factory workers around the 19th century.

- Around 1810, lace machines were smuggled out of Nottingham to Calais, France. 

- Nottingham lace and Calais had a big connection with families moving to Calais or families moving to Nottingham. 

- Nottingham lace is renowned as Nottingham lace because its machinery. 

- Apparently, Hooters in Nottingham used to be a lace dye house.

I don't have any known stories of any family members working within the lace factory, but I found it very interesting to hear these stories and learn things about lace I never know. I remember learning about lace back at school when I was in Year 4 (I was about 9/10 years old) and how fascinating I found it back then and how, even now, I do find the history of it all interesting. Hearing personnel stories from peoples past made me want to ask my family if they have any stories (my history, if any, would be about Bedfordshire lace rather than Nottingham lace).

Do you have a story about lace (especially Nottingham lace) you would be willing to share with me for NTU's research? If so, then please get in contact with me as I would love to hear it.

I also couldn't recommend a visit to Debbie Bryan for tea, cake and a wonder enough.

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Letter Project

I recently got brought this beautiful book ENCHANTED FOREST by Johanna Basford. With page after page full of forest animals, insects, flora and fauna. magical castles, dragons and treasure this book is the perfect gift for someone creative or your little kiddo to colour in. 

I'm too in love with the book to even put a pen near it so I have been inspired by the book to use it for a special birthday project. Using inspiration from the pages that have animals drawn using various leaves and florals I decided to do the same ... but with a letter. 

ORIGINAL DRAWING

I think it would look minimalistic in a gorgeous frame leaving the black doodles to standout, as emphasises in the image below. It can work for kids rooms or your studio or bedroom and could be the perfect gift for someone special. I am printing this one A4 and wouldn't expect it to look as attractive on a bigger scale. Letter postcards could be my next project ... watch this space!

Source

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Pre- Fall 2015

With the stores getting ready for the Spring/Summer fashion season it is time at work to start designing from the Pre-Fall collections.

It is quite excitement to get my teeth in to doing some in depth print designing from these amazing shows for a very well known high street store. There were so many key trends to not miss out on from retro florals, oversized florals, paisley, geometrics, print mixing and more. I've been working from Erdem and Carolina Herrera this past week.
Carolina's mix of filtered and hand drawn florals was definitely an exciting challenge for me, alongside Erdem's one floral flowing repeat. But, with successful outcomes, it has made me pretty excited to design some new prints next week and explore what other methods of design (from hand drawn to digital manipulation) that I can try.

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Experimenting Designing Cards

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Lola & Gilbert

Yesterday, when I was at Spitafields Market I stumbled across Lola & Gilbert. Their little bags put the biggest smile on my face with their funny and unique little saying. I got speaking to the owners, who were so friendly and answered my many questions.

Co-Founders Kristina and Natalie met in 2007. It was friendship at first sight and since then they have travelled far and wide searching for fun, food and cocktails and collected a hell of a lot of bags along the way.

With their shared love of all things creative and named after their adored pets, Lola&Gilbert, the company was born in 2014.

Based in North London, the vision is simple... To share a fairly serious addiction to and love of bags mixed with fun and quirky anecdotes that bring a smile to your face and all those that catch a glimpse of it.

These hand screen printed bags are the perfect gift for any girl at with starting prices at £12 it is sure hard to resist. Go and visit the website to purchase.

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Exploring London | Spitalfields Market

Today my aim was to explore a bit of the big city before placement begins tomorrow and before I know it I am leaving London. I didn't have a clue where to start this morning after having to run some errand in Stratford, so I decided to Google "Things to do in Bethnal Green" which gave me the result of Spitalfields Market. I had heard of Spitalfields before but I've never been to the market. After getting a bit lost and deciding to follow the noise of the crowd, I finally made it.

Before you get to the market there are a few independent shops and other retailers like Benefit and MAC. As I walked along I was immediately struck by Source, it was very much my kind of shop. With all kinds of quirky stationary, signs with sayings on, bags, scarfs, clothes, jewellery and much more I could have walked out a lot poorer. Their website makes all of those things and more available to you without having to come to London. This store for me is a MUST visit and is great for gifts. 

Another store that blew me away was Eight Sq, which had more of a vintage, antique feel about it. This store had a cute little baby section full of knitted booties and toys. It had a lot of plaques and signs with quotes on, jewellery and some gorgeous trinket boxes (some of which were in the shapes of macaroons). Vintage tins for your belongings and a few pieces of furniture. This is another great place for gifts and things for the home, but if you can't make it to London then visit the website.

Visiting the market was great and as soon as you walk in you join the cluster of people moving along stall by stall and it has a real good craft feel and overall sense of happiness and excitement. People and stool owners were proud of their handcrafted items and didn't mind talking to you if you went up to them. Mainly stools were clothing or jewellery, but I did come across some vintage stools (some with quirky old cameras, some selling scarfs for £1 and one selling vintage leather). Others sold cakes (including huge donuts and French croissants etc) whilst some where all about scarfs, cards, little purses and phone covers or florals headbands. One of my favourites were selling little tea sets and plaques, which echoed the above to stores a little. 

UROCO 

Brighton based husband & wife team. All products are one offs and handmade. Visit their website.

Amanda Diment for GREY GARDENS 

(email for info - gardens@aol.co.uk)

PANGHAM

Visit their website for more. 

LIZZY NOLAN

Visit her website for more information about her and her incredible career so far in fashion. 

COLLECTIF VINTAGE

Visit the website to buy their gorgeous clothes and accessories.

EDY & BRIDGE

Designed and handcrafted in the UK. Visit their Etsy shop.

Overall, as printer I loved the amount of print that was around me. I was like a magpie going from this print to that print, staring at some of them for ages and taking in all the different elements of what made it up …  Basically, just being a bit of a print geek. 

But whether you want fashion, jewellery, art, gifts, stuff for the home or simply a great thing to do whilst in London I really recommend going to Spitalfields Market. And a visit to one of the great restaurant surrounding it or even something from the bakery stalls as a treat!

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