Marcy Tilton Hotchpotch Reprise: Vogue 8813

Some sewing patterns are worth repeating without delay and this is the second Marcy Tilton Vogue 8813 dress I have made this month. 

The fabric is a light weight fine Indian cotton with hand printed patterns. It's actually three different printed fabrics which I pieced together to make a hotchpotch version of the dress. The frock is much more billowy and floaty in this fabric than my first Marcy Tilton French house dress and the hand printed patterns have imperfections which I think just make it even more special. 

The colours in these fabrics I realise are similar to the previous dress I made, and both dresses are in the colours of a piece of artwork I made in May, which is now exhibited as part of Creative Waves Art On The Pier exhibition on Worthing Pier. It seems I can't get these shades of mustard and ochre out of my head, nor out of my wardrobe.

Art on The Pier the great outdoors art exhibition is on display on Worthing's art deco pier now and until April 2016.

Gudrun's Friends' Diary

I was invited to document my week in photographs for a new feature on Gudrun Sjödén's website, Gudrun's Friends Diary. I regularly photograph my world for Instagram so jumped at the chance to be involved in this project. However I must admit that my photo-diary week saw me paying extra attention to what I was wearing every day, and in a routine where many hours at the computer or sewing machine are my reality I was eager to capture the more sociable and varied aspects of my week.

The biggest thrill is seeing it all published online and translated into many languages for Gudrun's international sites.

My photo diary forms part of a series which started with author and graphic designer Maren El Gammal and I look forward to seeing the diaries of Gudrun's friends in the weeks and months to come!

You can read my photo diary in Swedish here.

Cycling Post To The Coast Art Trail

I picked a sunny day to cycle Post To The Coast art trail. An evolving heritage project by Creative Waves Community Arts, this year-long coastal trail covers a 6 mile route starting at Worthing Lido's traditional English seaside sweet shop and ends at the corrugated steel Nissen Hut at Shoreham Fort. The trail shows artwork, seaside memories and poems inspired by postcards featuring the Sussex coastline.

Having taken part in early research workshops for the project investigating historical postcards at Worthing Museum, and subsequent art workshops at Shoreham Fort, I was keen to experience the whole trail. A bright sunny day with a westerly wind blowing towards Shoreham made cycling an ideal way to cover the entire route. Proceeding at a leisurely pace on my upright trusty Dawes bike and stopping to look and think along the way, it took me 2 hours to complete the trail.

I'd looked at the interactive trail map before setting off, so had an idea where the artwork would be, but still found it exciting each time I saw a new piece of art or an information post containing a story or a bygone holiday memory. The section along Lancing seafront from Beach Green to Widewater Lagoon is superb, with artwork hung along the slatted wooden walls defining the beach. This is a perfect place to view art and contemplate the history of the area with ever changing skies and sea as a backdrop – an invigorating experience for the senses.

I was thrilled to discover my own drawn postcard (above) installed on a weathered wooden wall alongside the beach huts at the end of Lancing Beach Green. Another personal highlight was at Shoreham Beach's Old Fort Road where a row of painted wooden postcards hang along a fence outside a corner house (on Ferry Road). These 19 simple, beautiful images are reminiscent of Alfred Wallis and were made by students at Shoreham Academy - a must see.

Finally arriving at Shoreham Fort I found artwork hung on the side of the wooden postbox and in the rear windows of the Nissen Hut, where my drawings are also on display alongside some poignant pieces made by fellow artists at the Creative Waves Wednesday Fort workshops. 

Post To The Coast trail will continue to grow throughout the year and visitors are invited to share their own Sussex seaside memories and contribute postcard artwork. Free trail maps and postcards are available along the route (and at Worthing Museum), and information on how to take part can be found at Creative Waves.

Decorating the BugCycle Garden with Gudrun Sjödén

Worthing's BugCycle community garden has just become even more colourful thanks to a generous donation from Gudrun Sjödén, Swedish designer of sustainable fashion and champion of environmentally conscious design. Gudrun kindly sent us a bundle of eco-cotton fabrics and home furnishings to use in our burgeoning wildlife garden.

BugCycle was set up by community arts producers Creative Waves in partnership with Worthing Wildlife to regenerate an area in one of the town's central parks. Since February this year, we and a team of volunteers have transformed a disused part of Beach House Park using largely found, recycled and donated materials into a living, educational, sensory garden for all to enjoy.

Gudrun Sjödén sent us a selection of Långrand striped organic cottons in delicious shades of guava/turquoise, lavendula/sky, asparagus/pineapple and peony. I decided to make gardening hats and aprons for our volunteers to wear, as well as some cushions and bright bunting to decorate and furnish the garden. I used these fabulous fabrics together with some Gudrun Sjödén material left over from previous projects.

The aprons are based on Gudrun's perfectly practical Nyttan gardening apron with one large divided wrap around pocket and long fastening ties (I'm wearing a ruby red Nyttan apron in these photos). The hats are made using Etsy shop WorthyGoods super Over The Top sun hat sewing pattern. I sewed simple envelope back cushion covers from the Långrand cotton to complement two of Gudrun's Melissa and Flox print cushions. All left over pieces of fabric were cut into triangles of different sizes and sewn into colourful bunting. Not a scrap of material was wasted!

These photos were taken at a Creative Waves BugCycle Art in the Park workshop, but on another day you could see the Worthing Wildlife Team at work here, one of the town's community groups or up to 120 local school children using the garden as an outdoor learning space.

We'd like to thank Gudrun Sjödén for bringing her Swedish design with a green soul to our own very green and thriving community garden!

Gudrun's eco-cotton fabrics and home furnishings are available from her web shop.

A second year of sewing my own clothes

It's time I documented my second year of making my own clothes. This year there was no outright self-imposed ban on buying new or second hand clothes, so I have been lucky to acquire a few more beautiful Gudrun Sjödén pieces, as well as purchasing some needed socks and knickers.

The original year-long-experiment which began in May 2013 has remained habit changing and sewing my own is a regular part of my weekly routine. Between 17th May 2014 and 31st May 2015 I sewed a lot of dresses, a few tops, had a summertime flurry of trouser making, and made three beautiful coats.

The Wiksten Tova was my 'discovery' staple sewing pattern this year, and the one I've made most of (current Tova count is six). My second favourite repeatedly sewn pattern is the Lisette Portfolio dress Kerry Green most generously sent me in January (I made three). I must also mention its sister-pattern the lovely Liesl & Co Cappuccino dress (four more of these now hanging in my wardrobe). The 'outsider lovely surprise pattern' was Scarlet et Marguerite's Baba Yaga dress.

Garment Of The Sewing Year: Burda 7072 Quilted Coat

My favourite garment of the year is the one that took the most work, a quilted Burda 7072 coat. Worth every frustrating second of fiddling to get the under-arm seams right!

The round-up photo above doesn't include everything I made, and not all of it was blogged – there are at least three more holiday dresses and six pairs of baggy trousers not included here. I may try to slow down production in the coming year, but can't see myself stopping as I love the act of sewing and the self expression of wearing handmade clothes. I wear something I've made myself every day of the year.

I am however, a little less keen to continue photographing and blogging my makes (and my gurning face) so am not sure if there'll be a third year with a round-up like this. In part I think joining Instagram has removed some of the urge to blog. So much social media, so little time.

For now though, it is a pleasure to present the line up of clothes sewn in my second sew-my-own year.

Trouserathon, July 2014

Beach House Park Bug Hotel

Yesterday we helped build a bug hotel in Worthing's Beach House Park as part of the BugCycle project run by new community organisation Worthing Wildlife in partnership with established community arts group Creative Waves and Sussex Wildlife Trust. BugCycle aims to promote wildlife and encourage biodiversity through creating new habitats for wildlife in this much loved Worthing park.

On a drizzly Sunday afternoon we joined a group of hardy locals of all ages to build the first Beach House Bug Hotel. A bug hotel (wildlife stack or mini-beast mansion) is a man-made shelter for insects made from recycled materials which mimics natural habitats by creating lots of small spaces, nooks and crevices of different sizes for insects to nest in. 

We used old pallets, bricks, rotting bark, tufts of moss, dead leaves, stones, broken pottery, branches with holes drilled in and hollow bamboo canes to create an ideal environment for insects. Our bug hotel will attract a wide variety of invertebrates including; solitary bees, woodlice, woodlice spiders, earwigs, ladybirds, beetle larvae, funnel web spiders and centipedes.

   On walking home through the park later that day my daughter spotted a bee leaving the hotel. It's heartening to discover it's inhabited already!

In other news: the first buds have appeared on the BugCycle willow dome we helped build last month. What a joy to see growth and new life in this corner of the park.

Building a Living Willow Dome

The first few days of February's half term holiday were spent helping to build a living willow dome in Worthing's Beach House Park. This family-friendly project was part of BugCycle an initiative run by community arts organisation Creative Waves in partnership with Worthing Wildlife. BugCycle aims to bring wildlife, planting, crafts and colour to an underused space in this beautiful park.

Willow crafting team extraordinaire Ganesh and Elaine of Creative Willow led the construction of the dome and taught us how to make bird feeders, stars and living willow pencils. Children were encouraged to decorate the area with chalked drawings and crafts. Happily the BugCycle team provided hot drinks and biscuits which nicely took the edge off the winter chill as our kids were having too much fun to want to leave!  

Beach House Park is a place I walk through every day – with tree lined paths and herbaceous borders it's a haven for birds and wildlife as well as the site for Nancy Price's Pigeon War Memorial. For years the park was famously home to the Bowls England National Championships, an event that packed out the park every summer. Controversially this flagship tournament moved to Leamington Spa last year amid local mutterings that Worthing Council should have done more to hold onto what had been an acclaimed and lucrative event for our town for over 40 years. The loss of the tournament (and revenue) has already signalled changes in the park with the vast, colourful flower beds that ran through the central avenue being dug out and replaced by large green tubs of low maintenance shrubs. While these are still pretty they're not a patch on the spectacular floral displays that greeted visitors to the park during the Bowls Championship years.

BugCycle hopes to breathe life into neglected areas of Beach House Park again and I'm sure will help attract many new visitors – human as well as insect! I look forward to seeing the project grow, especially the living willow dome.

Save Worthing Skyline!

Property developer Roffey Homes intend to build a 21 storey high-rise apartment block close to the promenade on Worthing beach. Yesterday I joined the Save our Seafront protest to voice my opposition to these disproportionate plans for a sight previously bequeathed to the town's people for leisure use.

For two hours two dozen locals braved the cold weather to hand out fliers to passers by, collect signatures for the petition, hoist banners and raise awareness for this just cause. Every supportive beep from passing motorists, bus, lorry and van drivers was met with a cheer!

Roffey's proposed skyscraper is an ersatz, unimaginative design that would exceed the height of all buildings in Brighton Road and along the seafront. It would ruin the seafront skyline and herald the destruction of what is historically an elegant seaside resort. Over a thousand people have signed a petition indicating they don't want it to go ahead and I hope that Worthing Council will consider our views and veto Roffey's plans.

I urge all readers of my blog to sign our petition to Save Worthing Seafront. You don't have to be a local resident to sign – you are all potential visitors to Worthing!

For more information visit Save Our Seafront Worthing. Sign the petition here.