O, the stories this old mantua could tell. Who embroidered it? Did they suffer hardships to make this? The fineness of the embroidery, and the length of time it would have taken (presumably a team of people) to stitch this is astounding. But it does raise that hoary old question about what lengths people will go to for beauty.

The social and personal histories of such garments are often thought-provoking in the lack of detail available, and can weigh heavy on the conscience.

The same quandaries can be asked of the ‘fast fashion’ blighting the high street of cities around the world. It has been revealed that Uzbekistan closes many of its primary schools

during the cotton picking season, and children are forced to work in the fields. The cotton is whisked off to another country to be made up into the £2.99 t-shirt many people buy on the British high street.

Sometimes, the ‘white gold’ is not worth the weight.

BDW

I am in love with a dress. A big, billowing dress whose beauty is unsurpassed.

I should really call her a gown, for that is what she is. An eighteenth century court mantua. The mantua was a style fashionable around the early/mid 1700s (with variations on the theme well into the late eighteenth century), with skirts that spread out each side, reaching as wide as your arms outstretched. A train (length dependent on how aristocratic you were) usually fell from the waist of a tightly fitted bodice.

A friend has been researching this fine old lady for over three years now, and the secrets have slowly unravelled to reveal one of the most exquisite examples of court mantua you would care to meet.

Each time I meet my friend, I hear of her latest discoveries. About the owner of the dress (was it worn at court? How much did it cost?). How old is it? Probably 1739-42, although, like most dress history, we work with a lot of assumptions and guestimates.

About the silk (380 silk thread count per square inch). About the fact that no loom in the UK can make silk this fine today. About the time it took to embroider this (approximately 150 hours to stitch a 10cm by 10cm square). Given this is a mantua and we are talking acreage of material, the thousands of hours it would have taken to create is awesome.

About the fact that there are still pen marks from where the design was ‘pounced’ on to the silk, and that the embroidery wasn’t completed.

BDW

These fine ladies of Chanel were sitting in the window of the store on Old Bond Street, London. Given the obsessive knitter’s penchant for knitting bears and making dolls, I thought it was a bit kizmit-y to see these ladies waving from the other side of the world.

The ladies of Chanel prove it ain’t what you wear, it’s the way that you wear it.

BDW

Twizzle Apricot, as BDW has named her,  has been causing strife amongst the other critters, so she has gone with her best friend to live up country. TA considers herself a fashion leader and tends to look down on those who do not share her sense of the sartorial. Maybe, in her new home, she will learn to keep her opinions to herself and become handy round the farm.

Can you see her rounding up sheep…. She has never met a wooly four-legged creature and doesn’t know she is made of wool.  OOooooh.

MBW

I didn’t have daughters, I had sons, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t make long legged dolls and toys for them.  Forty years ago I made the first long legged dolls for their cousins in England. My sons were not yet born and I was in a hurry.  Now I’m back making long legged toys again, and it’s fun, and they keep reappearing. Any excuse will do.

Long lost in the cupboard.

When I was making the long legged dolls in the seventies, I worked by hand or machine in fabrics, felts and yarns.  Recently we found one of the fabric dolls in a cupboard. She had somehow hidden herself away for thirty or more years.  Photographed for posterity’s sake, she was bidden to the bin. Her dress is torn and shredded, ready to be reused as part of a patchwork quilt, and yet she has refused to be destroyed.  She’s hiding once more, in her underwear, in a box in the spare room.

At the moment I am experimenting with pointy-nosed creatures that look more like meercats than bears, dogs or rabbits. Each comes with their own sense of being.  I started off knitting them in body pieces and am working towards knitting them in the round as I want to avoid the stitching up process… like I said, I’m in a hurry.  I like to shape the body as I am knitting, a decrease here and an increase there.  As I feel moved to make changes, the critter shapes itself.

MBW

There’s a baby due in the extended family. Gender unknown, size and shape unknown. So rather than knit something specific, I have designed and knitted a catch all, a ‘wrap-me-up’ baby blanket.
Summer weather dictates that it should not be too hot, yet must be suitable to be used for possible subsequent offspring.

To consider:
use… for every day
size… big enough to wrap a wriggly package
shape… square
pattern… simple checkerboard
colour… not white as baby skin tones are varied. I like greys, chocolate and creams
ply… 4ply in this case, cotton, bamboo, merino or cashmere.

Decision made:Cotton or bamboo 4ply. Opt for soft Cleckheaton 4ply natural cotton because it has a lovely soft ‘feel’, will be gentle on baby’s skin and easy to care for in case of spillages from either end. Such considerations ensure that the garment will be used rather than kept for best.

MBW

We spend so much of our time and energy rushing around to make money to buy stuff we think we need. We tend to want what others have and appear to have forgotten that we can often create what we need ourselves. We seem to have forgotten that as humans the need to create is strong. When we do not have the opportunity to create we become disatisfied, hungry for something, who knows what for. So we rush some more, in ever decreasing circles, looking for that elusive something. We think we find it in stuff others have and we pass our cash in exchange, always looking to buy the next thing that might satisfy.
Knitting is a slow process, it’s not something you do in a rush. Even with fat needles and fat yarn it still takes time, and in that time the busy-ness leaves, life slows down and the act of creating fabric takes on a meditative flow.

MBW

Knitting is slow food for the soul.
I like knitting. I play with the yarn, looping it over itself with the aid of needles, to create fabric that morphs into garments. I do this because I enjoy it. It calms me to create.
It slows me down and I become medatative. In this state I conjour more ideas, and am inspired to design.
I love the feel of the fabrics I create, the drape and the movement of the looped yarn.

MBW

Tse B Cowl

Cowls are great things. What are they: they are neck brace, toasty warming device, a hoodie without the Asbo-attitude.

I have one in double-knit ribbed cashmere by Tse, a Hong Kong company who regularly show in New York and who do wonders with the delicate fibre we all love. Obsessive knitter likes my cowl. Alot. But she knits her own beautiful cowls, and I would not want her attentions divided between mine and hers, so I will never give her mine.

All in the cause of fostering good knitting relations.

BDW

Let’s talk detail. Like the 10 layers of silk, hand-frayed at the edge, that makes up the white jacket recently shown at the Alexander McQueen show in Paris. The jacket tails move like a willo-the-wisp.

Anything Yamamoto. Look at the silhouette of his clothes.

Or a pair of Christian Peau shoes, the soles made up of hand-cut layers of leather; gently, gently building a cushion of amazing spring and durability, and beauty.

And the delicate needling obsessive knitter went through to knit the collar edging of my beautiful black t-shirt. Made up of eight rows, obsessive knitter dropped a needle size every second row so the neck lies perfectly flat against the collar bone.

Detail is key. It really is important. Let’s face it, it makes the difference between hum-drum and damn near excellent.

BDW