Embroidery Specialists
Just a short one today, but we really wanted to share this stunning ‘three keys’ cope design we produced for Watts and Co last year. The combination of colours really pops, makes us think that yellow is a bit under used when it looks this good on mass.
The keys themselves are all bullion work in silver, in a combination of smooth and rough purl for texure . Edges in Pearle purl for defination. 
by Abi Tominey-Smith
During her time here, our last intern Florence Sargent visited the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition 2019 for her research project, where she was briefed to create a sample based on the Summer Exhibition including 3D aspects. She became increasingly aware of how much reference there was to the animals of the world and nature throughout the art. This year the colours were bold and capturing and this was something Flo wanted to reflect when it came to sampling.
At the exhibition, she began by taking photographs to capture her favourite pieces, most of which included animals with an unusual look or aspect to them – bright colours and interesting faces. This sense of the individual and different, she has taken through to her final samples.
Mach Brothers, EASY TIGER, 2019.
Christopher James, MACAW, 2019.
Caroline Piggott, UK FISHING RIGHTS, 2019.
After visiting the exhibition and writing a blog post about her time there, Flo began her development by creating lots of drawings. She has created some really beautiful and realistic work using only pencil and shading.
To develop further Flo began to turn her flat drawings into 3D artworks, using stitch alongside cutting and joining techniques with glue and tape. These gave her work more of a 3D focus and gave her some ideas as to how she could put together and join her final piece to include these 3D effects.
Flo moved on by adding in more character, using bold colours combined with her 3D style, and experimenting with mediums such as paint, pen and pencils mixed together to give her work a bit more life.
Then when it came to actually beginning the sampling process, Flo decided to start with a simple line drawing plan, laying out all the techniques and shapes to be included when it came to creating. This really helped her final piece come together as a success.
You can see here, she has decided to combine 2 of the most popular animals seen at the RA, a fish and a bird combined, to create her own fantastic creature.
Finally Flo took both the Goldwork Beginner and Tambour Beginner series of classes and learnt the basics of both practises. With some time blocked out for her during the weeks at Hawthorne & Heaney, she was able to practise and build on these skills to create her final pieces.
Goldwork was the first class Flo took part in, so this was the first technique she became comfortable and practised in, and is how she became so skilled at putting together these samples in such a short amount of time. Alongside, she also tried her hand at a smaller tambour sample to practise these skills further.
Overall I think Flo has really captured the fun, bright, wildlife inspired themes seen in this years Royal Academy exhibition. You can see the progression through her work and that she has really taken the time to think and plan out what she aimed to archive. This has resulted in these stunning final pieces, full of life and many embroidery skills!
Image Credits:
We are delving back into the archives to revisit this really fun project we worked on for designer Hasan Hejazi in 2012. We were asked to create baroque inspired tonal cut work for three bespoke luxury evening dresses for pop goddess Marina from Marina and the diamonds. The project included some exciting names including Tim Bret Day (Photography), Thomas Knights (Film) and a suit for the designer by London tailor Gresham Blake.
Our designs and drawings were based on victorian florid ornament something that is very good to translate to cut work. The initial designs and refining took a long time and the annotations and notes for the embroiderers even longer as there was so much detail involved.
The embroideries were executed in cutwork in colours to match the dresses with a fade to either lighter or darker. There were also a few crystals scattered about to add a bit of light.
The dresses were then put together over four days ready for the photo shoot.
Before the event we hadn’t seen any of the dresses, so we were very excited for the launch. The first we saw was the full length red piece which marina wore for her performance at the beginning of the night.
She then changed into the blue knee length dress which is our personal favourite !
The final pink dress was saved solely for the photo shoot, which you can see in the photos below. It was lovely to get a chance to flex our cutwork drafting muscles this thoroughly, so we are very grateful to Hasan for getting us involved ! A wonderful project all round.
Last month, The Worshipful Company of Broderers held a fashion show, dedicated to the best of embroidery in British Fashion. Hawthorne & Heaney was invited to be involved and naturally, it was an opportunity that could not be missed.
The Worshipful Company of Broderers is a livery company, dedicated to the protection and promotion of the art of embroidery. Also known as ‘The Brotherhood of The Holy Ghost of the City of London’, it was originally formed in the middle ages, receiving a Grant of Arms in 1558 and its first Charter on 25th October 1561 from Queen Elizabeth I. Charitable works lie at the core of the company as it functions today, with the fashion show acting as a fundraising event for their charity; Fine Cell Work and the Broderers’ Charity Trust. Fine Cell Work teaches needle-work to prison inmates and sells their products. Established in 1997, Fine Cell Work now operates in more than 15 prisons to empower and rehabilitate inmates in preparation for their sucessful return to society.
On what was a very balmy September evening, the company gathered beautiful examples of british embroidery work from well known designers such as Bruce Oldfield, Clements Ribeiro, Jasper Conran and Beulah, one example of which can be seen above. The show was held in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral, London with the ladieswear mostly demonstrated beadwork with an array of evening gowns on show (as seen above).
Hawthorne & Heaney was invited to contribute to the show in the form of these goldwork waistcoats for the gentlemen to wear. These were later auctioned off to raise further funds for the cause. 
The first features a circular dove motif on purple with silkworks for the center and a cutwork edge.
The second piece was this striking pair of rampant lions on red.
The lions are most embroidered over raisings with cutwork, a pearle purl edges and silver/red accents throughout.
For more information on any The Worshipful Company of Broderers or Fine Cell Work, follow the links in the text above.
There is nothing worse when a beloved item of clothing becomes damaged! whether it be a tear or a pesky moth has taken a bite.
While this may feel like the end of an item. Fear not, with a bit of embroidery we can bring your garment back to life!
With some tricks up our sleeves and a creative eye. We brought new life to this cashmere coat with some Goldwork bees!
Even though there were only a few holes we added more bees to make them a feature of the coat.
We have also come to the aid of split seams! this beautiful tartan jacket came to us. One of our very talented embroiderer, designed this stunning humming bird with blues and yellows.
One Bird just want enough!
Let us know your thoughts!
In addition to our own classes and exhibiting work at Anderson and Sheppard, we also were demonstrating goldwork at Smythson’s LCW event. They had a series of craftspeople set up in store to show some of the process that their items go through.
At the front of the store, Meg was positioned, drafting and embroidering the Smythson’s ‘S’ into a bespoke badge. This piece will have been drafted, raised, appliqued and embroidered with cutwork bullion.
On another counter, one of their book binders was stationed, explianing the properties of the binding process that thie products go through, the importance of using 2 types of glue for each piece and why they have maintained their hand processes over using machines. Finally they had another lady applying the tissue linings into their envelopes which also all done by hand.
They also had a lady doing freehand calligraphy, where you could write down your name for her and she would draw it out on a card for you to take home.
There were so many great ways to get involved with Craft Week this year, we cant wait to see what they will have on next year as it gets bigger and bigger each year!
For quite some time now, we have been playing around with the idea of developing a machine embroidery that would communicate some similar ideas to traditional military style goldwork but in a crisper, more modern way. In true Hawthorne & Heaney style, we didnt just want to go in for a little sample that we could get to work on a small scale, but a big piece that would really hit you in the face, so we settled on a version of the Privy Councillors Coatie.
We wanted the piece to not only have a rich gold look of the original piece , but also the different heights to the stitching and surface details that come with applying bullion individually.
The colours are worked in layers, adding layers of padding between colours to create light relief.
Following these processes, the machine then goes back into to add additional details :
Once all of that is done, we give it a little tidy up and it is complete. To give you a sense of scale this piece is 45 cm high which would be the left hand side of a mens jacket. It is really exciting for us to see a large scale outcome for this technique which has defiantely sparked some subsequent ideas, so stay tuned to see what we do next…
For those that don’t know Hawthorne & Heaney have moved into a fabulous new studio located in 14 Rathbone Place, Fitzrovia. A short walk from Tottenham Court Road station the new studio is spacious, airy and bright with 3 studio spaces.
The studio now has multifunctioning rooms and our sister company London Embroidery School is using one of those rooms to host embroidery classes to learn techniques such as Goldwork and Tambour. Check out the website here to see what they have to offer:
http://www.londonembroideryschool.com
With such ample space we are able to be uber creative and this week our embroiderer Natasha has been working on creating goldwork inspired embroidery with a variation of metallic threads.
Throughout history Fitzrovia has been home to many inspiration creatives such as the English writer Virginia Woolf and Nobel Prize Winner George Bernard Shaw, whose famous playwright ‘Pygmalion’ was later adapted into an American musical called ‘My Fair Lady’ 1964.
Fitzrovia is also famous for the local ‘Fitzroy Tavern’ located in Charlotte Street. In the 1920’s it became the hub for artists, tradesmen and intellectuals.
The latest big project in Fitzrovia has been the Great Portland Estates redevelopment of the former Royal Mail site between Rathbone Place and Newman Street. The site comprises 2.3 acres of land which will be created into a new public square with high quality offices, retail spaces and 162 residential apartments. Facebooks new UK headquarters will be located here.
It seems that we are in the perfect location for our craft!
References:
Great Portland Estates: http://www.gpe.co.uk/property/our-portfolio/north-of-oxford-street/rathbone-square.aspx
Hidden London: http://hidden-london.com/gazetteer/fitzrovia/
Fitzrovia Trust: http://www.fitzroviatrust.org/joomla16/index.php/ct-menu-item-3