Embroidery Specialists
It’s that time of year again. How time flys!
The studio will be closed for Christmas from 1.30pm on Friday 20th Dec 2019 until Friday 3rd Jan 2020. Therfore any orders placed from now onwards on our standard 5 working days service for machine, or standard 10 working days for hand embroidery will be fulfilled in the new year.
See you in 2020!
Frogging is an interesting word for an embroidery technique isn’t it. It is believed that it referes to the shape of the knot used in ‘frog fasteners’ with the center being the body and the sides being the wide back legs of the frog. The term over the years has come to refer to the embroidery done with this same type of appliqued chord onto garments though not resctricted to the original 3 part knot or for fastening purposes.
At Hawthorne & Heaney, we can produce traditional, hand embroidered frogging, where braid is manipulated and sewn down to create these elaborate patterns that you may recognise from historical garments and costume.
Peacoat with hand embroidered frogging detail by Gieves and Hawkes for Permanent style
Elaborate hand embroidered frogging sleeves before garment construction
We also can produce similar effects using digital embroidery:
Close up machine embroidery frogging on sleeves
Velvet smoking jacket with machine embroidery frogging sleeves for Arjan Blok
Playing cards inspired machine embroidery onto velvet sleeves before construction for Anderson and Sheppard
Playing cards inspired machine embroidery onto velvet fronts before construction for Anderson and Sheppard
Playing cards inspired machine embroidery onto velvet for Anderson and Sheppard
Anderson and Sheppard smoking jacket for the Beaumont Collection (LCW) . As photographed by Guy Hills
It is particulally fun when people want to push the traditional boundries with their order like these frogging inspired sleeves before construction:
Dogtooth sleeves with machine embroidered details for Kathryn Sargent
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:
As well as being an embroidery studio, we also have a school which teaches embroidery some evenings and weekends. Our classes are mostly hand embroidery but we have recently added a machine embroidery class to our repetoire. The classes can be found under the London Embroidery School which is also us!
The London Embroidery School website as well as being a place to book classes and purchase embroidery materials is also a great information hub for tips and tricks for embroidery. These can be found under the pro tips series and range from the basics like how to thread a needle (we talk about 4 styles to choose from, not exclusively) to more specialist techniques like prick and pounce:
Or how to use a particular tool, like the curved scissors, a studio favourite;
At the start of last month, we posted a blog by our intern Kiah from her visit to the David Adjaye’s Making Memory Exhibition. Taking inspiration from this, she produced a series of drawings from the elements she found inspiring.
With her drawing style being quite graphic, she favoured the staircase elements of Adjaye’s designs, bringing in the play fo the light and shadows on the stairs as you can see from the drawings above.
These were then translated into a repeating CAD embroidery design which she embellished with a variety of techniques that she has been practising from the classes taken at the London Embroidery school
These can be seen in the addition of the sequins at the top and bottom:
There is also the clever use of some very neat satin stitches in stranded cotton
And the more specialist raised cutwork bullion squares to finish it off
We also asked Kiah to show us how she imaged her textiles being used within an interiors context, so she produced these lovely visualisations of her work as used in a hotel or luxury office space.
Hawthorne and Heaney have been out and about with our stitching kits this weekend past as we were based at Harvey Nichols for Skandi chic brand, Anine Bing.
All set up in store for stitching
Perusing the embroidery options
Script style stitching onto camo jacket
Block style stitching onto sweatshirt
Script style stitching onto shirt
Large Script style stitching onto sweatshirt for Louise Redknapp
The lovely store ladies modelling their personalised camo jackets
A little lightening bolt detail for the back
Super cute chain stitched S onto knitted jumper
Block style name onto the back of a sweatshirt
Block style Intials onto shirt collar
After what you can see was a very busy and sucessful hand event, we can’t wait for our next one. If you would like to be our next event, get in touch!
If your instagram feed is anything like ours then you will not have failed to notice the hugh amount of attention that the Dior: Designer of Dreams exhibition is getting at the V & A Museum at the moment. Following its opening on the 2nd February, the exhibition which is held in the museum’s new Sainsbury wing, it has received an unprescedented amount of visitors.
The exhibition is currently sold out, with tickets being drip released around the 15th of each month and a few kept back each day on a first come first served basis. Members of the V&A however can still visit at their leisure and Hawthorne and Heaney were lucky enough to visit the exhibition on members night in order to bring you our insight.
The London exhibition has a much greater focus on the individual designers of the House of Dior so if you had already seen it at Musee Des Arts Decoratifs in Paris, then this version brings a different angle. Split into a series of sections, this part of the exhibition really gives you a sense of what each creative director has brought to the house. Furthermore it also highlights some of the key aspects of Dior as a fashion house, which holds all the designs together over the years. Identifying these values allows them to keep delivering pieces which are recognisably ‘Dior’.
Each rooms has its own sense of the wow factor with the paper cut flowers room, displaying some of the more romantic pieces amongst the flowers which were dripping from the ceiling. The center piece of which is this gown embellished with hundreds of tiny cut feathers.
We can not cover this exhibition without mentioning the toile room. Probably the simplist room with its ehite cubes, it really brings home the process of producing couture garments and the work that goes into them. It is lovely to look around and recognise some of the dresses you have already seen the final versions of, in their developmental form. As well as taking the time to watch the series of videos they have on display amongst the toiles which show the making process of other Dior producs such as shoes and jewellery from their specialist makers.
Some of the toiles have notes and annotations left on them which highlight the complexity of the pattern cutting when all the other details are stripped away in white.
From an embroiderers perpective, there is plenty to see and appreciate in this exhibition. The variety of styles and techniques is huge so whilst all the pieces may not necessarily be your taste, you can not help but be humbled by the skill.
Goldwork, raffia, feathers and beads all feature in this Galliano piece created for Dior by Lesage.
An interesting use of mesh appliques create the beatle wing/ petal effect amongst the sequins on this gown from the 1950’s.
Where else would you get the chance to get this up close and personal with dresses like this one, worn by Charlize Theron in the ‘J’adore’ adverts?
It is here that you can see that the sequins are tamboured onto the tuelle by hand with their joining stitches adding to the texture of the piece.
Some of the more contemporary pieces provide a different perspective on ‘les petite mains’ (the little hands; referring to the skilled makers that create the designers vision) that we get to see a modern application of traditonal skills such as the use of beads and velvet in this a line evening gown.
Of course, there are also the iconic, historical pieces that you have probably glimpst before, like this gown worn by Princess Margaret for her 21st Birthday photoshoot.
If you find the opportunity, then this exhibition is a absolute must see for fashion, design and embroidery fans everywhere. Follow the link for all the booking details.
All photos courtesy of Natasha Searls-Punter
Dior: Designer of Dreams
The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
On now until 14th July 2019 (extended to the 1st Sept 2019)
