ART & CULTURE
Sewing in London
I love sewing, or I should say I love sewing and hoarding fabrics that I might sew into something later! I’m not especially good at sewing but I’ve made myself plenty of tops and some simple trousers, plus the usual cushion covers and tote bags. I can’t knit and don’t think I’d have the patience required to learn, but sewing answers some kind of creative urge in me that results in something to wear or decorate with – very satisfying and a rela- tively quick fix. With sewing, success is in the preparation, not actually in running the fabric through the sewing machine. All the precise measuring, careful cutting, pressing, interfacing, etc makes for a better finished garment, which runs counter to the nature of some of us who just desire to get the thing made. But when you’re dealing with fabric that costs more than £10 a metre and a pattern that costs at least £10, it pays to take it
Love to sew
During the Second World War, the motto was: ‘Make do and mend’. This was an initiative by the British Ministry of Information where they encouraged citizens to forgo buying new clothes and instead mend or alter their current clothing. Money saved could be used for food or donations to the war effort. With recent television programs such as the Great British Sewing Bee, crafts have been making a comeback. Classes and courses on: dressmaking, using your sewing machine, embroidery, knitting, crochet and more have popped up everywhere. Many offer a quick way to learn a skill, some offer qualifications, but all of them give you the mental well-being that only comes with a needlecraft. Sitting and focusing on one task is something we do not often do in our screen-infested society, hence sewing is considered the new form of meditation.
While many of the larger education centres offer craft and sewing classes, there are a few places to mention that stand out across the capital. Greenwich Sewingtime (
www.sewingtime.co.uk) have a drop in sew club, Sew it with Love (
www.sewitwithlove.com) offer easy pyjamas making or advanced dressmaking, Sew Over It (
www.sewoverit.co.uk) have 25 different classes, and Sew Pretty (
www.sewpretty.me.uk) in Wimbledon are extremely popular for their kids clothes making classes. By Amber Raney-Kincade
www.focus-info.org FOCUS The Magazine 17
slowly and carefully. Cheap, fast high-street fashion from inter- national sweatshops has made making one’s own clothes a lux- ury, not the thrifty bargain it used to be. London is less full of fabric and haberdashery (ribbons, trims,
lace, elastic, etc) shops now than it was 20 or so years ago, but there are plenty of online fabric purveyors that you can get a fix from. Tere’s nothing like going, seeing and feeling the fabric in person though. With that in mind, a few years ago I stumbled upon Shaukat. (
www.shaukat.co.uk) an online fix for my Liberty print obsession. However, before shelling out for the metres, I made a pilgrimage all the way from north London to deepest South Kensington to their shop to feel the goods. Once satisfied with the quality and resemblance to the online images, I felt safe ordering my Tana lawn from them. Tey are a little bit cheaper
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