Sewing Courses
Welcome to our latest section with news about sewing courses from around the UK
Every month we'll list some of our favourite forthcoming courses and workshops. However do also remember to search the suppliers directory for sewing courses and workshops near you.
Birmingham School of Sewing
960 Bristol Road South, Northfield, Birmingham, B31 2PE
2 November - Speed Tailoring. Learn about the different types of interfacings, why, when and how to use them to produce a professionally finished jacket. Use quick, easy and effective fusible interfacings to replace the traditional hand stitched tailoring method and come away with a sample of half a jacket.
thong to ‘comfy’ pairs worn by Bridget Jones and techniques to apply lingerie elastics and work with lingerie fabrics/laces.
24 November - Beautiful Cushions. Make two beautiful envelope closure cushions and add a decorative panel and other decorative embellishments. This course is suitable for absolute beginners.
Abakhan Fabrics
Coast Road, Llanerch-y-Mor, Mostyn, Nr Holywell, Flintshire CH8 9DX
Contact details - tel:
The Papered Parlour
7 Prescott Place, London, SW4 6BS
30 October - Make Skirt. This intensive one-day sewing workshop with tutor and design maker Mia Jafari will provide expert tuition on pattern cutting, machine stitching and finishing a gorgeous skirt. Perfect if you are looking to move on from cushions to couture! Bring your own material or choose from a selection of new and recycled prints.
22 August - Contemporary Quilting. Join bespoke quilt maker Cassandra Ellis as she teaches the essentials of improvisational design and free-form quilting. Learn to intuitively cut and stitch blocks from the centre out, to construct a small quilt top or the beginnings of a larger piece. Bring with you a piece of fabric (50 cm) to incorporate into a design and create your own family heirloom. Basic sewing experience is helpful but not essential.
12 September - Make a Dress. Bring your own sewing machine to this class and select fabric, design your own dress and learn the basics of cutting your pattern. Learn how to assemble, finish and accessorize your garment.
15 August – Dressmaking (part 1) Make Me a Domestic Sewing Goddess. Lisa Comfort takes the fear out of fabrics and sets you on your sewing way. From the basics of hand stitching through to threading your machine, replacing buttons, taking up trousers to revamping old clothes, learn how to extend the life of your clothes and save well-worn favourites from the recycling bin.
16 - 17 October - Make a Dress Weekender. This is the next step if you have attended Make Me a Domestic Sewing Goddess or have previous sewing experience. Spend a weekend choosing fabrics, designing your own dress and learning the basics of cutting your pattern, assemby, finish and accessorizing your garment.
Contact details: Claire and Louise tel: 020 7627 8703, web: www.thepaperedparlour.co.uk and email: claire@thepaperedparlour.co.uk
Crafts in Spain
Venta De Los Pinos, Canadas de San Pedro, Murcia, Spain
The idea for Castanea grew out of owner Brenda Killigrew’s passion for Spain. Brenda, who also runs Inkberrow Design Centre, renowned for its excellence in millinery, fashion, theatre costume, textiles and interior design, wanted to introduce a more informal and relaxed way of learning and Crafts in Spain was born for those who get bored on a typical beach-style holiday and want to indulge in crafts.
12-18 September - Discover Devore with Dionne Swift. Explore design, dyes and devoré using painting, printing and vat-dyeing techniques to create a luscious scarf/wrap or wall hanging.
12-18 September - Papers for Stitch with Isobel Hall. Work with a variety of papers using mixed media to create texture and surfaces suitable for embroidery suitable for use in wearable art such as jewellery and bags.
10-16 October – Dyeing for Colour with Maggie Swain. Work with colour using Procion dyes to dye, paint and print fabrics then embellish with free machine embroidery to create samples to make a bag, hanging, landscape or picture.
14-20 November - Layered and Texured Landacapes with Wendy Dolan. Explore ways of creating exciting three-dimensional textile mediums with layered fabric, paint and stitch. Freehand machine embroidery and other skills will be explored as you develop your initial samples into individual designs.
14-20 November – Tuck into Fabric Manipulation with Jennie Rayment. Learn how to tuck, twist, fold, roll and manipulate fabric into incredible textured designs using the ‘origami twist’ and the ‘bias effect’. Use these techniques for quilting, garment making and soft furnishings.
Contact details – tel: 01386 793 327, web: www.castaneacraftcourses.com, email: info@castaneacraftcourses.com
Lesley George
Fashion Designer –Textile Artist
21 Fawcett Road, Southsea, Hampshire PO4 OBZ
21 – 29 August - Open Studio Exhibition
Lesley George is holding an Open House again this Summer. Go along and see what’s on offer from workshops and bits and bobs for stitching. This year in celebration of 40 years of designing and making, Lesley will have some old, as well as new work on display including a collection of retro clothes made in the 80’s and 90’s. Textile Artist Jane Chant will be joining Lesley to show a selection of their work - Creative Embroidery, Wearable Art, Bridal gowns and Jewellery plus lots of items for sale include small embroidered bags and purses, greeting cards, butterfly brooches, wall hangings, jewellery and scarves. There'll also be machine embroidery, embellisher and beading Demos, and a 'class show and tell in the garden'
Open between 10 am and 4 pm. Contact Details – tel: 023 92 751988, email: george.lesley@btinternet.com or visit her website: www.lesleygeorge.co.uk
West Dean College
Near Chichester, West Sussex, PO18 0QZ
27 - 30 August - Art skirts - Paint, Stitch and Sew.
Rosalind Davis helps you develop ideas for creating a unique painted and embroidered 'art' skirt as you experiment with dyes, paints, stitching and transfer of printed images to fabric. Simple pattern cutting for the final skirt is also covered (excluding final finishing).
Contact details - tel: 0844 499 4408, website: www.westdean.org.uk/college or email: short.courses@westdean.org.uk.
Farncombe Estate Adult Learning Centre
Broadway, Worcestershire, WR12 7LJ
15-17 October - Bags Galore! Make four bags on this weekend with Jennie Rayment - start by learning three easy bag constructing techniques and then choose other bags that you want to make. Class is suitable for every level of sewing ability.
22 -24 October - Feltmaking : Delicate scarves from felt and fabric with Lyn Griffiths. This weekend is for students who want to take their feltmaking to the next level. Work with combinations of fabric (silk, muslin, scrim) and fine Merino wool and make a set of samples to understand how materials react to each other. End by making beautiful scarves. Contact details - tel: 01386 854100, email: enquiries@FarncombeEstate.co.uk, web: www.farncombeestate.co.uk
Stitch in Time
The Museum of the Manchester Regiment
Ashton-under-Lyne, Tameside
Volunteer group - 2nd and 4th Thursday of each month. If you live in Tameside and fancy doing something a little unusual why not join the volunteers at The Museum of the Manchester Regiment.
'Stitch in Time' is a stitching group who meet up to make padded conservation standard hangers for the military uniforms, hat supports, attach medal ribbons and make covers for the rails of uniform. Barbara Latham Service Manager explain, "Having a stitching group in a Regimental Museum is really innovative and ground breaking bringing the regimental collection to a new audience and it's hoped that volunteer's will gain inspiration from the collection for other projects".
Contact details - Barbara Latham (Service Manager), tel: 0161 342 2812 or email: barbara.latham@tameside.gov.uk or visit www.tameside.gov.uk/museumsgalleries/mom
Silk Rose
Lavenham, Suffolk
Clare Perkins is a Couture Designer/Dressmaker who specialises in producing beautiful bespoke wedding dresses and veils. Clare now offers a range of courses under the Silk Rose name to share these techniques. Private Tuition is also available from half to a full day - for more details contact Clare.
Design your own Couture wedding dress - Be guided through all the various stages to design and make your own dream dress (maximum of eight students). Nb: The day is priced according to how complex the chosen wedding dress design is.CoutureTechniques (email course).
For those unable to attend in Lavenham, Clare has designed a unique illustrated course to guide students through all stages of making and designing their chosen garment. Run over a 10 week period, on-line students can choose to alter a commercial pattern or learn how to design from scratch.
Contact details - Clare Perkins, tel: 01787 249596 or mob: 07526 598363 or email: clare@silkrose.co.uk or vist her website: www.silkrose.co.uk.
Fabrication
11 Crown Court, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS2 7DG
Fabrication is a new venture by Leeds designer Dawn Wood with the help of a stage 1 Unltd award (These awards provide practical and financial support to social entrepreneurs in the UK) and is set in an 18thc building full of textile history in the heart of Leeds.
3rd Thursday every month - Crafty Club. Bring along unfinished project to this non-teaching workshop and complete it amongst likeminded people in this once a month evening.
Costume Clinic - Dawn Wood has making costumes and clothing for film, TV, museums for over 25 years and has made everything from trees and cockerels to armour, corsets and wedding dresses. Her advice and help clinic is run every second Thursday of the month and is for those making their own burlesque, theatre or historical costumes, who may need a helping hand to sort out problems such as floppy bows, quick release systems and help in final fitting plus pick up some handy hints.
Contact: tel: 0113 243 9140, website: www.fabric-ation.co.uk, email: info@fabric-ation.co.uk
Fashion Antidote
Unit F 23 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ
This is the brain child of Susan Backhouse. Susan ran her own successful label and produced fashion collections, which sold in major stores including Harvey Nichols and Liberty in London and Saks Fifth Avenue and Macy’s in New York.
Her aim with Fashion Antidote is to provide classes/workshops that teach a range of fashion skills, methods and techniques that used in the Fashion industry and give individuals a real taste of how the fashion industry works.
Fashion Work – For those students wanting first hand knowledge at working within the fashion industry, Antidote do a range of workshops covering the following topics: trend forecasting, sustainable fashion, fashion branding and marketing, fashion networking and communications, bridal wear, fabric knowledge and fashion PR – lots of classes for those considering setting up their own businesses. Visit www.antidote.com for dates and times.
Contact details – tel: 0798 574 8091, email: inof@antidote.com or visit the website: www.fashionantidote.com.
Textile Holiday Tours
22 Mell Road, Tollesbury, Essex, CM9 8SP
Lorraine Traer-Clark has just launched a new travel company that offers specialist, small-group textile tours within the UK. Discover the rich variety of textiles both historic and contemporary, in stately homes, churches, cathedrals, castles, cottages and studios across the UK and gain exclusive access to a unique variety of textiles not usually seen by the public.
26 September - 1 October - Arts and Crafts Tour. This five night tour looks at textiles, crafts and buildings. Dr Brenda King and Cathryn Walton share their knowledge and research of Leek Embroideries and the Wardle Family. Jacqui Hyman discusses how to look after and preserve textiles, whilst Frances Pritchard goes behind the scenes at The Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester. Visit the gothic Manchester Town Hall and see the Ford Maddox Brown murals and their valuable textiles with Kate Dibble. And finally, visit the Rode hall, the private home of Sir Richard and Lady Anne Baker Wilbraham to share their amazing collection of lace and shawls.
10 - 15 October - Textile Treasures. Another five-night tour that takes in the textile treasures in East Cheshire. Visit stately homes, old textile mills, private homes, museums and a working silk printing company. Discover textiles and collections not normally open to the general public plus time for a little retail therapy in specialist shops!
Contact details – tel: Textile Holiday Tours, tel: 01621 869089, web: www.textileholidaytours.co.uk or email: info@textileholidaytours.co.uk.
