hand embroidery

Hawthorne & Heaney for Jessica Strain

June 12, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Work In Progress back in April 2020 (design by Jessica Strain, Image from H&H)

Some good news to share with you! During the lockdown period we were presented with the opportunity to spread some positivity and sponsor one of our freelance embroiderers with their graduate collection. Like many people when Covid lockdown began, Jessica Strain was stopped in her tracks from following through with her many months of planning when it came to producing her BA textiles Textiles graduate collection.

Work In Progress back in April 2020 (design by Jessica Strain, Image from H&H)

As a former intern of ours, she approached us to see if we could help with access to the machinery she could no longer use in the workrooms at uni. And so our sponsorship of Jessica’s collection began, making the small missing step in her production chain by realising her designs onto the final pieces. It was also wonderful for us to see her utilise some of the hand embroidery skills she learned during her time with us and weave them into her collection; such as tambour beading and limerick lace.

Hand Embroidered Limerick Lace by Jessica Strain

That collection, ‘Nature Reclaiming Spaces’ is now out as she has finished her course and the results are just beautiful. Have a read of the press release below for a flavour of the themes she explores through her textile collection. However, the images, as I’m sure you will agree, speak for themselves.

Work In Progress, Machine Embroidery (design by Jessica Strain, Image from H&H)

Work In Progress, Machine and Hand Embroidery (by Jessica Strain)

Jessica Strain has created an embroidery collection exploring how mother nature infiltrates all things man-made, whether that’s rust on a metal post or weeds growing through cracks of buildings, beauty can be found in the ordinary.

Combining traditional embroidery techniques with contemporary machine-led processes is at the heart of Jessica’s practice. Jessica began her collection by taking a roll of manually double-exposed film photographs on a 35mm camera. To develop her love of hand-led processes, it was only natural for Jessica to employ embroidery techniques such as tambour beading, limerick lace and shuttle tatting (a form of lacemaking) within the collection.

Sustainability is integral to Jessica’s design process; embroidery techniques lend themselves well to sustainable textiles as they are hard wearing and designed to last. Natural dyeing made up the majority of colour within Jessica’s collection; dyeing organic fabrics with onion skins, nettles and an indigo vat from home during the COVID lockdown. Jessica hand-dyed her digitally embroidered kimono in an indigo vat, each piece requiring 15 X 2-minute dips with additional rinsing between dips. Constituting of 13 pattern pieces, it’s evident how devoted Jessica is to her practice.

Machine Embroidered Kimono By Jessica Strain

Once the textiles side of her collection was complete, she brought the project around to its fruition, moulding them into these stunning garments.

Hand Embroidered Limerick Lace Skirt By Jessica Strain

Tambour Beading By Jessica Strain

Finishing off by taking those garments back into their natural habitat with this look book photoshoot, we are delighted that Jessica’s collection has come together so well and know that this is only the first step in wonderful things to come for this textiles designer.

Thanks for sharing these images with us, all image credits unless otherwise stated are courtesy of Jessica Strain. To see more of her work find Jessica on instagram or her website .

Hawthorne & Heaney visits Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk

March 24, 2020 by Natasha Searls-Punter

As a member of the V&A, I try to visit most of the temporary exhibitions they put on in the fine institution that is the Victoria and Albert Museum. At the start of March, they opened their doors on their newest addition ‘Kimono:Kyoto to Catwalk‘.

Held in North Court of the building, this exhibition brings a little Asian influence to their corner of the world. The Kimono is a fascinating piece of social history, carrying so much culture and responsibility within its relatively simple folds.

Kosode: From Edo period demonstrating Yuzen dyeing (Cloth tube fitted with a metal tip used to apply a thin ribbon of rice paste, then dyes are brushed within the paste boundaries) 1730-70

I won’t go into all the history as you should be able to make your own discovery of the exhibition and enjoy it fresh yourself, but I will show you a few of my highlights which may stir your interest. For an embroiderer or anyone interested in textiles, the exhibition is full of wonderful examples of hand embroidery and lesser known textile techniques. They draw a lot of attention to them, which was something I had not necessarily expected of the exhibition but was delighted to realise. As the basic form of a kimono is very clean and unfussy, once the structure of the garment has been addressed and the pattern explained there is not very much more to say about the shape. It is the varying and evolving elements of the details displayed on them which holds all the intrigue. Even though this is a fashion exhibition it is the textiles that does the lion’s share of the talking.

Design for a Kimono 1800-50

The historical examples at the start of the exhibition were very strong, the pattern books were a surprise but of course it makes great sense to sell such a garment in this way, with patterns being chosen and customised from a book rather than remade examples. The women of the elite military class could have designs made specifically for them, particularly for special occasions.

Detail from Kimono of a Geisha- a very elaborate example demonstrating the parallels between fashion and the theatre in 18th Century Japan

On the embroidery front, there are many great examples of goldwork and silk floss/ silk shading styles throughout the exhibition. The lion above is quite an extravagant example, taken from the back of the kimono shown in the first image of this blog. Amazingly, the lion is only a very small part of the work on that kimono probably only measuring about 20-25cm high and isn’t even the main centre back motif. However I’m sure you will agree it is an exquisite use of Japanese thread (cotton core wrapped with gold leaf paper).

There are also a few pieces that feature a dying technique called Shibori which you may have heard of. It’s use is using much larger scale and bolder than the examples on the kimonos where it is used to create very small and delicate designs, creating a much more subtle and quietly expensive impression. The technique is quite labour intensive as it require parts of the fabric to be tied off very tightly before dying so they are left in negative as can be seen in the white squares pattern.

Uchikate- Outer Kimono for a young woman featuring Shibori and embroidery 1800-50

When Japan opened up its began trading with western countries such as Holland and Portugal, we can start to see the cultures influences each other, as Japanese kimono makers start to make kimonos from cottons South-east Asia and foreigners eager for everything Japanese started to use Japanese fabrics for their own pieces.

Day Dress: Misses Turner 1876-8

Japanese influenced robe, Victorian Era

Towards the end of the exhibition they turn the attention to more modern applications and influences of the Kimono. This includes pieces from modern fashion houses such as Dior, Commes De Garçons and Alexander Mcqueen. This room brings the exhibition full circle, they also demonstrate the cyclical nature of fashion as you can pick out the elements of kimonos that have influenced that ‘new’ piece.

‘High Voltage Power-Lines’ Yamawaki Toshiko 1956

Evening Dress: also by Yamawaki Toshiko (1956) featuring Obi like bow and scrolling asymmetric designTextile details, couched goldwork and red embroidery imitating kanoko shibori

While this last room holds many beautiful pieces, the real gems of this exhibition are the historical pieces. Many people will be familiar with what a Kimono is on sight from walking through the Asia exhibits, but this exhibition delves so far into this garment and unpicks the elements of it. The V & A puts on lots of great fashion exhibitions and in London we are spoilt that we have fashion specific exhibitions at all. But as this one puts so much detail into the textiles and processes, it has something special to offer in my opinion.

Hawthorne & Heaney visit’s S.E.W’s International Contemporary Stitched Art Exhibition

December 26, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Last month, the Society for Embroidered Works held their very first exhibiton dedicated solely to embroidery. The International Contemporary Stitched Art Exhibiton was held in a characterful space in Clerkenwell, the turn out for quite a niche exhibition looked to be pretty good.

‘Despite her strength she remained on guard 1’ 25×21 cm by Christina MacDonald

The exhibition a great cross section of stitched art in its many forms, as you can see from the few photos included here, the range was quite broad so there was a little something to interest everyone.

‘Lady Gaga’ 34×34 cm by Sarah Gwyer

Providing a platform for stitched art is an important step in elevating the stitched art’s status within the artwork as historically it has been downgraded from art and though of more as ‘women’s work’ or ‘home crafts’. Whilst one might argue these terms to be fair, it would be equally fair to say that given the skills and conceptual strenghts of these pieces shown are most certainly ‘art’.

‘A Benediction from the Old World’ 62×46 cm by Kate Tume

Presenting them in this manner is an important part of S.E.W’s bigger mission to ‘redefine’ the stitched arts to a more apropriate status. If you would like to read more about S.E.W’s mission, have a look at their website.

‘Sisters’ 56x72cm by Bridget Steel-Jessop

Given the level of work on display at this first exhibition, we can’t wait to see what they will present to the art world next year!

‘The girl of the Vale’ 33x30cm by Rowena Liley

Hawthorne & Heaney: Christmas 2019

December 16, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

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!

Hawthorne & Heaney on Frogging

October 18, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

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

Hawthorne & Heaney on Florence Sargent’s Sampling Project

September 11, 2019 by Intern

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:

https://www.countryandtownhouse.co.uk/culture/review-royal-academy-summer-exhibition-2019/
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/summer-exhibition-2019
Own photographs of Flos work, at Hawthorne & Heaney.

Hawthorne & Heaney asks: Have you ever wondered about some of the techniques behind our Embroideries ?

June 6, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

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;

Hawthorne & Heaney inspired by the Making Memory Exhibition

April 21, 2019 by Intern

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.