Sew on the Go: a Maker’s Journey

Hello Mobile Makery friends!

I miss my blog! So I’m going to start updating it again with further tales from The Mobile Makery aka Bambi. Bambi has been very busy since I last posted here, but I’ve mainly been updating via my Facebook page Mary Jane Makes & her Mobile Makery.

However, for those of you who’d like to have more fulsome blog updates - then I’m bringing them back. Where else do I really have the chance to share my exploits in detail? First up, is exciting news about the new book I’m publishing with UNBOUND.

Sew on the Go: a Maker’s Journey is going to be a beautiful creative travel book. It’s all about the journey Bambi and I made around Europe in 2015 - the very journey that I talked about in this blog. In addition, there’ll be a special ‘cut out and keep’ travelling wardrobe section - an extra chapter showing you how to sew a selection of chic and cheap upcycled outfits for stylishly hitting the road!

The book is being crowdfunded - and I’m well on the way to getting it out there. If you’d like to learn more about the book and buy an advance copy (or one of the many other fabulous treats on offer) then please click on this link. There’s a fab video on there too! https://unbound.com/books/sew-on-the-go/

Manchester schools workshops

Group Rag Rug 

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my efforts to come up with a rag rug making technique that children could do fairly simply. I'd been invited to work with two Manchester schools by Imperial War Museum North using local source material, so we focussed on the memories of an elderly gentleman reminiscing about making a rag rug when he was in the forces. I worked with two schools within very different catchment areas. One was an ESL specialist school in the city working with year 5's and the other was a school in a more leafy suburb working with year 6's. I think the year 6 kids grasped the technique pretty well, whilst the year 5's struggled a bit - and with large class sizes it was the usual thing about trying to give enough attention to everyone. I was the only adult in the room with any real experience of the technique which made it harder. However, I was still very pleased with what the children achieved. It just shows how a number of smaller pieces can be stitched together to form a larger work with real impact. A great way to get kids upcycling too.

Wall hanging

Bambi Goes to the Museum

Imagine taking your campervan right inside the inner sanctum of a very famous museum. Wouldn't it be something of an adventure? A rarity? An outright impossibility? Take a look at the pictures below. I know it might seem hard to believe, but there is Bambi - aka The Mobile Makery - looking very much part of the scene at The Imperial War Museum in Salford! But what were we doing there?

At the moment, IWM North is showing Fashion on the Ration. I saw the exhibition twice down in London and was really impressed. It's all about street style during WWII and how innovative and thrifty women in particular proved to be when it came to devising a wardrobe that was smart, attractive and functional at a time of austerity and rationing. Make-do and mend was the order of the day back then and being something of a modern make-do and mender myself, I was invited to offer a thrifty creative workshop to visitors. Not only that, but Bambi -  my upcycled craft studio on wheels, was to be a star of the show for a special weekend at the start of June.

It was incredible to see peoples' reactions to Bambi. Many of the visitors couldn't quite understand what a campervan was doing at IWM. I had to explain the link between modern upcycling and the wartime ethos of make-do and mend. But once people got it - they were hooked - hopping on board to have a look at Bambi's upcycled interior and decorative touches. Two teenage girls couldn't quite believe that I really DO travel around in Bambi putting on creative pop-up workshops and speaking about how to make beautiful stuff out of throwaway trash! 

My take on this for the museum was to offer workshops turning old T-shirts into turbans - the sort of headwear that was worn by the women working in the munitions factories during the Second World War. I think it's fair to say that some of the ladies who came along are now ADDICTED to turbans!

My weekend at the museum was over all too quickly. Staff had really taken to Bambi - who'd almost become a living character in their eyes! Bambi often has this affect on people.

Special thanks to all the museum staff and to our lovely mechanic who had to drain Bambi of petrol, take out the gas cyclinder and battery and put everything back again perfectly so that we could drive back to Scotland without a hitch!

Do go and see Fashion on the Ration at IWM North. It's on until May 2017. Also accompanying the exhibition is a marvellous book of the same name by author Julie Summers and if you want to make your own thrifty and stylish  turban, you'll find it in my book Chic on a Shoestring.

XX

Finn's Rag Rug

My fabulous nine year old assistant Finn has a real eye for style!

He came up with this brilliant idea for a rag rug hat - which I might just have to steal.

See the video below of Finn making a rug - which proves just how easy it is!

Thankyou Finn.

x

A special millinery make for Easter & a workshop!

It's time I gave you something pretty to make - just in time for Easter. And no, I'm not talking about an Easter bonnet....they're sooooo two centuries ago! Instead I give you the Spring flower hairpin which you can create in abundance and scatter through your hair however you choose. These flowers are crafted using a vintage technique that I discovered when I purchased a 1930's satin nightdress-case a few years back. The flowers had been worked in pale pink ribbon, but I prefer something more vivid and real looking, so this is my modern take on the technique. I hope you like it. Please share your pics on my Chic on a Shoestring Book Facebook page. I'd love to see the flowers you come up with.

You'll need. Cotton organdie fabric (I get mine from The Cloth House on Berwick Street in London) - 25cm will make lots of flowers. Scissors, needle and thread, felt-tip pins, hairpins, a scrap of felt, and a gluegun. A small paintbrush and some water.

Cut your organdie into strips around 40cm long and 5cm wide. Then fold in half along the length. Use the felt-tip pens to add colour along once side and blend using some water and the paintbrush. Allow to dry.

Use a double thread with a knot on the end and stitch as shown along the raw edge for about 6/7cm then gather up the thread to make a petal. Repeat the process to make a second petal.

Continue all the way along the strip until you have made several petals just like the strip below. Don't worry about it curling up. It will naturally do that.

Arrange the petals in a circle as shown stitching through the centre to hold in place.

Make a little loop of thread and form into a figure of eight as shown.

Stitch into the centre of your flower and chop through the ends of the two loops. This creates stamens. You can scrunch the flower in your hand to give it more of a textured finish. The organdie will hold the shape well.

Use the glue gun to stick each flower to a hairpin and cover with a tiny circle of felt on the back.

Pop in your hair and celebrate the Spring! 

If you'd like to learn lots more about this method and create a unique floral millinery headpiece using other vintage techniques, then sign up for my workshop taking place on Saturday 2nd April at my friends' beautiful Scottish wildflower farm - Scotia Seeds in Farnell (near Montrose in Angus). It costs £55 for the day all in, and there will be homemade soup for lunch and endless tea and coffee! 

For further details please email me: maryjanemillinery@hotmail.co.uk - it would be lovely to see you there. 

XX

Mollie Makes Extra

A  big thankyou to the team at Mollie Makes magazine for the lovely feature about my Mobile Makery which was published on 4th February in issue 63. Hurrah! As a huge Mollie Makes fan, it's a real privilege to be in the mag itself. Also a round of applause and a shout out for Caro Weiss who took all the lovely photographs. If you're getting married this year, then do check out her website. She does AMAZING wedding photography too. Also thanks to Fiona Guest and Giles Laverack for letting us use their beautiful Scotia Seeds farm as a location. They are the UK's premier producer of native Scottish wildflower seeds and do incredible work ensuring the continuation of these species. I hope you enjoyed the magazine feature. Here are a few extra photos to give you another peek at my upcyled Mobile Makery - aka Bambi!

Remember you can book Bambi for your own events or book me to run a workshop for you and your friends in Bambi.

Contact: maryjanemillinery@hotmail.co.uk

xx

Immersed in making in my Scottish hideway

Since I began my Scottish sojourn (let's call it my maker's retreat) I've been busy coming up with ideas and projects for my new book Vintage Vacation based on my travels in the Mobile Makery. It sounds idyllic I know - far away from the madding crowd - cutting, sticking and stitching. I  realise you won't believe me but it does have its drawbacks! It's chilly and a bit lonesome and I'm not quite sure how long I can afford the luxury of not earning day-to-day. I'm lucky in that I have a very kind brother letting me stay with him for a while. But, I need to sort out the cash flow - fast! 

My 5am starts for shifts on the foreign desk at the BBC in London seem a long time ago already, but I miss my friends and colleagues enormously. The day-to-day dramas, deadlines and banter do give you an energy and focus that you can lack when you're working on your own with no reason to hurry. It's all too easy to become disconnected from what's going on in the world. For instance,  I've not been listening to the Today programme at all. Shock Horror! It used to be my regular wake-up call but now I switch it off if my brother puts it on. I've come to realise that being hit with bad news on a global scale every morning isn't necessarily the way to stay upbeat and positive! I'm not saying you should cut yourself off entirely, but pick and choose your moments, curate your listening, viewing and reading. Too much information can be a bad thing.

But onto more creative matters....!

Here below is a sneak preview of some of the makes I've been working on. I'm using largely recycled materials to create a host of projects that I hope will please both stylish nomads and home-loving hoarders!

Anyway - time for lunch so I must be off! Food is always a deadline worth sticking to ! x

Printmaking in Dundee

For artists and artists-in-the-making, one of the many benefits of being up in Scotland is access to training and facilities at a much cheaper rate than in the South. Dundee for example is home to the DCA - Dundee Contemporary Arts.  As well as hosting exhibitions,  an arts cinema and a rather good bar and restaurant - the DCA also offers one of the UK's leading open-access professional level print studios. If you do a course at the DCA you can join the studio for an amazing £28 for the year. You then pay a small amount each time you want to book the facilities. The studio courses are many and varied, so I decided to have a go at printmaking using laser technology. A fantastic £95 for the weekend - even better when you consider there were only four people on the course - the maximum in fact. It's a bonus that numbers are kept small as you get a real opportunity to learn and be hands-on.

I started off with some of my illustration efforts - doodles you might say! I then scanned them into a computer used Adobe Photoshop (with alot of help as I've never used the software before) to convert the images into useable files. 

My idea was to make some lino cut stamps that I could then use to print up advertising material for my Mobile Makery. To do this, you place the material you want to use (wood, plastic, lino etc)  in the laser printer, and by pressing alot of buttons and manipulating your image on the screen (tricky for a technophobe like me) you then click GO!

Here is the sewing machine lino cut I made! You have to have a few goes before you get close to what you want, and it takes quite a while for the laser to do its job. This little stamp took about 20 minutes.

My new workshop friend David, who's a very talented photographer, decided to scan in and make prints from one of his images. He used plywood instead of lino to create his printing block. Here he is inking it up.

You can see on the left that he has cleverly built in a scale - let's call it a saturation level scale - so he can see how the depth of colour in his original photograph will correspond to the depth of cut the laser makes in the plywood. Of course the deeper the laser burns into the material the more of an impression the resulting print will make.

And here's the result of my own labours. A little less sophisticated but fit for purpose!

Thankyou DCA!

Vintage hats for ladies who lunch!

These little cocktail hats are perfect for wearing with victory rolls!

I was recently invited to Eindhoven in the Netherlands to run a workshop in a vintage ribbon-pleating technique. I had a fantastic time and was offered such generous hospitality. The trip came about as a result of my Mobile Makery Tour of Europe in the summer. You may remember that I took part in a hat festival in Caussade in France (see earlier entry)  - and it was there that I met my Dutch millinery friends. They were keen to learn some of the methods I outline in my book The Modern Girl's Guide to Hatmaking - and this resulted in my trip to Eindhoven. Whilst there, I came across a fantastic supplier of vintage millinery materials. I bought some gorgeous strip straw and decided to use it to cover one of my handmade wire frames. 

I make the frames by hand, using very strong millinery wire - the idea is to form similar shapes to the small perching hats that were so popular in the 1950's, but without using a block. I then bind the wire with tulle and stitch a tulle cover on top, stretching the tulle so it's nice and taut. Once the tulle cover is in place, you can trim it it with whatever you wish.

The first task is to bind the outer edge of the frame. I find that softening the straw with hot water really helps as it needs to be very malleable to do this. Once the edge is covered you can then sew the strip in one continuous piece to the rest of the base - taking care to hide your stitches in the straw so they're not visible on the right side of the hat.

The technique is very satisfying and makes a really light hat that can be trimmed in many ways. Use steam to lightly block the shape once finished. The trick lies in constructing a good initial base that will 'self-grip' to the head. Perfect to wear with complicated hairstyles like victory rolls!