A bit of vintage

I know I have been incredibly slack recently and not posted anything for nearly two weeks, since my Mum came to stay. Just to say we had great fun that evening, negotiating the p*ssing rain with cabs and tubes, to enjoy a glass or two of vino in the Electric Showroom (Old street). We then headed for a cheep and very cheerful Vietnamese, which was delicious.

Last weekend was another miserable one, weather wise. Saturday morning started with a virtuous yoga class and a little bit of shopping. Having nearly decided to stay in and forgo my guest list ticket for Finlay Quaye at Koko in favour of a warm living room, X-Factor and a bottle of wine, I quickly came to my senses and headed out to my friend's house in Camden. It was a really really fun night. Finlay was not on form, and dressed shockingly in a Trilby, sunglasses and baggy T-shirt (trying to hide the extra pounds but failing). The real star of the night were Gentleman's Dub Club who really got the crowd going with their horns and bass (majority of them were the singer's friends - me and my brother included) and we ended the night on a real high.

Sunday was supposed to be my shopping day. Unfortunately tiredness kicked in and a real 'can't be arsed' feeling. So, instead of town, I headed down to Tooting and walked to my local M&S at Collier's Wood. The leaves have been turning for a while now, they're even starting to fall to the ground, so I needed a woolly cardie. Can I just say head to M&S. They have hundreds! I was spoilt for choice.

But I am now rested and ready to get back on the fashion wagon. I have put my name down for a course at Little Hands to start in January and written my letter to Santa to hopefully acquire a sewing machine this Christmas. This Sunday I hope to go to Barnado's Pop Up Shop on Carnaby St. A-List celebs have donated their vintage shoes for us poor people to purchase in aid of charidee. Brill! On sale alongside will be vintage handbags and accessories. Having missed the Vintage Fair in Chelsea a few weeks ago, I really want to go to this one.

I've writted quite a long post and not even mentioned my book club say out on Saturday. Well, I shall save that for post event, given that I don't know the itinerary yet. I've just nominated my first book for book club, Steal You Away by Niccolo Ammaniti. Lets hope they like it...

Urban Works

Tonight my brother and I will receive a much anticipated visit from our Mum. She doesn't come up very often, so it's always exciting. She's recently received some good news about her health so I think we will take her out for Vietnamese to celebrate.

The only downside is that our evening en famille means I can't go to Urban Works tonight, an event that mixes music and fashion (sounds like heaven if you ask me). The night will showcase hot young designers, award-winning Alison Gaukroger and Diana Llorens, accompanied by Reggaeton DJ, Jose Luis, RCA’s latest recruit Zarif and a rare, rare set from headliners The Loose Cannons.
The event is created by Curious Generation who put together live music events. Check out their website for other happenings:

http://www.curiousgeneration.com

Footie and rain don't make for happy shopping

I was really looking forward to Sunday, spending a couple of hours hunting for some vintage bargains. I woke up however to miserable weather; wet and windy and the inconvenience of Chelsea playing Liverpool at home. I couldn't face battling footie fans and rain so I gave the Chelsea Town Hall a miss.

Instead I spent my Sunday watching the footie (I did pop out at half time to try some skinny jeans on in Gap - no purchase made, not that nice and too close to pay day) and Burn After Reading at Odeon. Note to reader: it received mixed reviews for a reason. Brad Pitt slightly amusing and it has a couple of funny scenes (just) but like Country for Old Men, couldn't quite see what the fuss was about. Although, Country for Old Men was at least beautifully shot.

This was all after my weekly fix of FROCK ME. Which wasn't so enjoyable this week. I don't know why - maybe it was the goth look that turned me off or maybe it was the really annoying stylist who just cannot present to save her life. I still love the idea that there is a whole show dedicated to making clothes though. My brother mentioned a series called British Style Genius that I am definitely tuning into on bbc iplayer. Five one hour programmes started on 7 October which examine looks and trends which have defined British Fashion. Going to check these out this week.

As I mentioned I contacted a couple of places about sewing courses to start in the new year. Not one of them has got back to me, so I have to chase that up this week. As well as asking Santa for a sewing machine this Christmas...

Frock Me

I am loving Channel 4's new show, FROCK ME. Admittedly, it's in its 3rd week, but having seen two shows I am in awe of its brilliance and can't quite believe it's taken this long for a fashion inspired programme to air in the UK since the Clothes Show. The format is simple, presented by Alexa Chung (who I have to concede is pretty hot) and top designer Henry Holland (best known for his slogan T-shirts, which take the mick out of models and other famous people).

The show basically advises viewers on what's hot in the fashion world, with each week's show focusing on a different theme. In the studio are stylists and designers customising clothes for that weeks' theme - they make it look so easy! We are also entertained with music and celebrities who have inspired the theme.. this week saw CSS providing the music for the catwalk finale of 'club chic' outfits.

Each week also features a city guide to one of Great Britain's great cities most appropriate to the show's theme. This week, Frock Me's stylist, Gemma visited Glasgow where she set the 'Frock Me' challenge. One local girl and one local guy are selected to receive £150 to find a 'club chic' outfit to model at the end of the show to win £1,000. The rules state part of their outfit must be borrowed, bought and blagged. The added twist this week was that, most appropriately it had to include a piece of tartan.

Check out Channel 4's website to see if they upload pics of the final outfits.

The show is definitely inspiring me to get a bit more creative. To be honest, it's time more than anything. It's hard enough to get out of bed and get dressed some morning, especially now it's so dark, let alone spend hours thinking about my outfit. I guess I should be thinking about my priorities though right? Who needs an extra 30 mins in bed when their outfit is so cool? So, this Sunday I think I'll be heading to Frock Me - the fashion world's favourite event at the Chelsea Town Hall, the King's Road.
http://www.frockmevintagefashion.com/

[Photographs courtesy of www.frockmevintagefashion.com]

As you can see from the photos the event looks pretty cool. I also like having photos on my blog - I am conscious that my blog hardly contains any photos. So, I'm resolved to charge the battery on my camera and get snapping. Plus, search out any interesting outfits, articles and scan them in or even cut and pasting them in from the internet.

Rejuvenating the mind and soul

I mention in the introduction to my blog that I'm trying to rejuvenate myself by immersing myself in creativity. Well, I've also decided to stretch myself, quite literally it seems, by practising bikram yoga. For those of you not in the know, Bikram yoga is practised in a heated room to ease muscles and joints and encourage detoxification through sweating. This form of yoga was developed by Yogiraj Bikram Choudhury. The class lasts for 90 minutes during which you perform 26 hatha yoga postures and 2 breathing exercises.

So, that's the science behind it, the reality is you feel sick after about 15 minutes and wonder how you're going to be able to carry on. Then suddenly there's less than 20 minutes to go and you're a red, sweaty mess but you feel amazing. Well that's what happened the first week. I've been four times since, the worst being the latest on Tuesday night when I think I was just exhausted and probably still dehydrated from the other classes.

I've been going to a studio in Balham - http://hotbikramyoga.co.uk/balham.html
and also trying out a studio in North London - http://www.bikramyoga.co.uk/studio_north.html
I have to say they were a lot more friendly in the Balham studio but then it's a lot newer so maybe they're just trying to impress.

To summarise, the jury is still out. I think I was hoping it would lead to fast weight loss (I seem to have put weight on) and a sense of clarity and calmness to take over my body. I just feel knackered. But maybe I need to give it more than 4 sessions (and to stop drinking wine).

I hope you've found this post vaguely interesting and it might encourage you to try Bikram yoga because as negative as I may have been I have loved it and can't wait to go again. I think I just need to get the balance right between a few gym sessions and a couple of yoga sessions a week. Not four sessions in six days!

Looking for a course

I started to research other sewing courses this evening to find a cheaper alternative to Cockpit Arts.

There is a wide range of evening courses at the London College of Fashion, all of which look really interesting. In particular, I'm keen on the basic sewing skills workshop:
http://www.fashion.arts.ac.uk/shortcourses/23991.htm

or the more basic sewing skills: http://www.fashiontraining.co.uk/acatalog/More_basic_sewing_skills.html

I think the latter might be more relevant after my weekend course as I do have some basic skills. Both these are slightly cheaper than the Cockpit Arts course at £350.

Another place I found is Little Hands Design:
http://www.littlehandsdesign.com

I'm not sure whether this is a privately run centre, government or charity run but either way it seems to offer dress-making courses for adults, as well as different courses for children. It looks like a fun place and may not be pretentious as I fear the London College of Fashion may be. Bit of a sweeping statement admittedly, particularly when a friend, who is a LCOF (my abbreviation) graduate, is really fun and not in the least bit pretentious. Anyway, I digress. The latter course seems much more reasonably priced at £90 a term. I think the best thing to do is call them in the next couple of days.

Worth every penny or a bit of a rip off?

After my blog the other day where I talked about my lack of progression with the sewing, and my inspired Sunday trip to spitalfields, I emailed Cockpits Arts to enquire as to whether any progress has been made on pulling together a longer dressmaking course. Katherine, the sweet lady who books all the courses, replied with details of a 10 week course. The course content was outlined in the email; developing sewing skills but also learning to create a simple pattern of your own. All for the bargain price of £425!!!! Which I consider to be a vast amount of money. Plus there was the added pressure of a 'places are going fast so you'd better hurry up' line.

Which leads to a dilemma - is it worth it or will it be money down the drain? Well, not the drain maybe but definitely money that could be spent on the trip to Paris I'm planning for my boyfriend's 30th Birthday. A trip where I'll be able to sample the delights of Parisian cuisine and fine wines, plus the Parisian fashion scene (although keep having to remind myself this trip is for my boyfriend NOT me).

So, what's a girl to do but turn to her mother for advice and wise words. And wise words I did get. Basically, as I said in my introduction I work pretty hard and am I going to a) be able to make every session and b) find the time in between to work on the my pieces. The answer being probably not, which will lead to frustration, and undue pressure to get the best out of the course given the cost. I think I will look into courses at local colleges that may not cost quite as much! I know no one really reads my blog, but if anyone knows of any courses that are starting in January 09, please let me know.

The search for the machine

It has now been a shameful 3 weeks since I did the sewing course and I've not picked up a needle since. The main barrier being the lack of machine at my disposal. The plan was to go this weekend to pick one up but what with Bikram yoga at 9am on Saturday morning, following by the Richard Serra exhibition in Kings Cross, shopping and then drinks at my friends, I didn't get time.

I did go to Brick Lane on Sunday, even though I was really hungover, for a beautiful day in the sunshine with my brother and friends. We headed for the revamped Spitalfields market which has some fantastic things. I picked up a couple of cotton vest tops; one white one with silver jewels on the neckline, and one black with a blue flower and material sewn onto the front, down one side. It broke my heart because the designer was selling them at £5 each, normal retail price was £25 but she had to meet her targets for that day so was flogging them cheap. To be fair, it didn't pull on the heart strings enough to affect the purse strings and offer her full price. There's a credit crunch don't you know. To cut a long story short, the trip to Spitalfields revived my enthusiasm for dressmaking and I'm resolved to purchasing a machine in the next two weeks.

The creativity starts...

To my delight (and relief) the course contained 8 other like minded ladies, all of whom were friendly and eager to learn, and most importantly, with limited sewing skills like myself.

The course was led by a lovely lady, with bags of industry experience - 'sewing since she was eight' (and yes, you might have guessed reader, I have forgotten her name) and made us all feel instantly at ease. After going through our patterns and materials, we spent an hour or so, deciphering dress/skirt/top patterns, and yes I do mean deciphering. I have a degree and several post grad qualifications but definitely needed step by step guidance. It was then onto explaining tacking and a few other stitches, before starting at the machine itself.

One of the things this course has going for it, is that you do just get stuck in. Unlike a course, spread over six weeks or so, where you may spend the first two on theory, this is straight onto the machine and straight into making the mistakes! Luckily we practised on scrap bits of material.

I have to say, when being shown how to thread our machine, it all came flooding back to me, from the days of Mrs Southgate in the textiles room at school.

Without giving you all a blow by blow account of every stitch, the course was great. But exhausting! It think I mentioned in my profile that work hasn't been going that well and that I've been feeling de-motivated and unfulfilled. Well, I sat there in front of that machine, having more fun working on a project than I could remember for a while. It was like, suddenly I remembered what it was like to do something and enjoy it - amazing!

The story begins...

After six blissful days relaxing in a vineyard in the south of France and an awesome weekend at Bestival (despite the rain and mud), I decided I needed to re-focus my energy into fulfilling some of my creative desires. Feeling de-motivated at work and experiencing post-holiday blues was a perfect time to start that sewing course.

So, not wanting to commit myself too much (in case I had absolutely no skill or hated it), I decided to partake in a two day course over a weekend, and see how it went before doing anything drastic, like purchasing a machine at vast expense.

I signed up to a course at Cockpit Arts, the UK’s only creative business incubator for designer-makers. What is so great about this place is that it's a registered charity whose aim is nurture talent from its first beginnings to great success. Check out their website - www.cockpitarts.com

What I found, when I rocked up at 10.30am on a sunny Saturday morning at the beginning of September, is an amazing warehouse of talent; studios brimming with creative talent in the form of jewellery, sculpture, cutting edge fashion and interior products. I was in awe of the space.