What's happening this week?

I think it's going to be a busy week this week.
Monday - Collect in As Textiles project from last week and grade them.
Encourage Textiles groups to make at least 3 visits to the College Foundation/Btec exhibition and look at all of the work, not just Fashion and Textiles so they can reference their favourites in their research books.
Tuesday - Organise Opps for Learning Information morning.
Private View tonight.
Wednesday - Complete paperwork for Btec Art unit with Entry group.
Dentist in the afternoon.
Thursday - Textiles trip to London to New Designers Exhibition.
Friday - Subject reviews for all of my students.

Chelsea College of Art and Design show

Went to London on Friday with the plan for a bit of a mooch around Westfield in Shepherd's Bush then to meet up with Alex and John. However their plans changed and I managed to catch a train which didn't stop at Clapham and so arrived at Waterloo. But it had a bright side as I love standing at Waterloo waiting to meet someone under the clock and it's an especial bonus when it's Ascot - all those women wearing beautiful creations on their heads and men in top hat and tails, fabulous.
Anyway we then had to decide what we wanted to do to fill a couple of hours, so as always, when I go to London, it started with a stroll around a bit of the Southbank but then for a change we turned left and headed down towards Tate Britain and Chelsea College of Art and Design.
Although we were starving by now, we had a quick look around the graduate show, wandering in to find some of the work, but to my shame hunger did take over and we left before we'd seen much of the fine art. However I did get a peek at some of the textiles and picked up a few postcards (which I now seem to have lost) so I've had to visit the website http://showtime.arts.ac.uk/ to find reminders of some of the students who really impressed me: 
Sophie Jones                and               Katherine Lawson

 

There were others I saw whose work I liked, but they aren't on the Showcase, but while flicking through I saw the work of Catherine Frere-Smith who has produced some lovely prints for clothes, but when you get tired of the clothes they can be cut up and transformed into stuffed birds!. I love it.
       

Somebody that I used to know

I know my last post was a musical one, but after catching a couple of minutes of The Voice last night I had to make sure you all watched these videos of Somebody that I used to know.

Gotye

or this cover from Walk off the Earth

Damian Wilson

Last week I managed to drag Dean out to see Damian Wilson. 
Dean was the one who knew he was playing a freebie gig in a Guildford pub and is the main music fan in our household, but of course because it was in the week he would have been quite content to miss it, being too tired after work! How old does he think he is? 
I of course had forgotten I liked Damian Wilson's voice so much as the last time I saw him play was about 5 years ago.
This was very different though as he was solo (for some of the evening) and because, as it turned out, this was his local pub Dean and I felt we were the only people there who didn't know him. He was later joined on stage by one of his brother's and the finale saw another brother, his dad and a couple more audience members join in too. It made for a really good nights music with an intimate and insightful atmosphere as Damian recounted stories about his life as well as singing some of his own material

He usually sings with a number of bands and has been voted 'best vocalist' 7 times at the Classic Rock Society UK Annual Awards. But that isn't the whole story of his musical career; between 1998 and 2000 he played the role of Jean Valjean in the Les Miserables UK national tour. So this is a man with an eclectic musical career.

http://www.damianwilson.com/ 

Clothkits and Liberty fabrics

Work is extremely hectic at the moment what with looking after the As and A2 Textiles exams, trying to ensure all of the students are fully prepared and calming down meltdowns as and when they happen. Plus IVing the Personal Progress course and 2 more courses to finalise the paperwork for and that's before we've even started to mark the Textile exams and coursework for the year. Is this why I became a teacher? Well lets just say it's not my favourite part of the job.
But it does mean I genuinely have a reason to develop new projects, hunt out lovely fabrics and places to buy them. When I was last in London I went to Liberty to buy some of their printed tana lawn but became totally befuddled and just gave up. However while checking my emails on Friday I found an offer from Clothkits, who have opened a shop in Chichester, which gave me 20% off all their fabrics. So my very kind husband braved the torrential rain, took me down to Chichester and sat in the fabric shop, filled with ladies on a sewing course and customers choosing fabrics while I spent ages hunting for my fabrics. He even joined in with helping me find exactly the right things and encouraging me to try on clothes!

 My fabrics

I will definitely be visiting Clothkits again. I've long been a fan of their products but it's always lovely to see the products for real and the assistants were so friendly and helpful. The only problem with the place is how to leave without spending lots of money. As well as all the Liberty fabrics they have there were Marimekko prints, Amy Butler fabrics, MiniModerns, Kokka Echino, Michael Miller and Jane Foster, etc.

But its not only the fabrics, the trims and kits are lovely too. I may have to invest in both their bustle skirt and 50s dress along with some diddy pom poms and sherbet pips pom poms oh and perhaps some Liberty print bias binding.

A day in Windsor

Dean and I decided Windsor would be the ideal spot to meet up with Alex (travelling from London), our niece Hayley (travelling from Tunbridge Wells) and Dean's sister Alison and husband Tom (who unfortunately had to negotiate the M25 carpark on that day).
Anyway we had a lovely day and good meal in Brown's, although I will always ensure I ask for the modern end of the restaurant in future. We caught up on all the info on Hayley's exciting new job as well as having time for a wander around parts of Windsor.
The traditional tourist photos:

 

                                                                                                                                                                 

        

And photos of some of the gorgeous, call me sad if you want but they are beautifully designed, postboxes:

       

Jimmie Martin and Terry O'Neill

'Sleeping with the Stars' is  a unique collaboration between Jimmie Martin and Terry O'Neill. The combination of Martin's hand painted vintage furniture and never before seen O'Neill images produces powerful and exciting one-off pieces. The range of icon faces and bodies adorning the furniture include Audrey Hepburn, David Bowie, Brigitte Bardot, Raquel Welch, Mick Jagger, Al Pacino and Mia Farrow. To wet your appetite here's a sneaky look but see the whole range at http://www.jimmiemartin.com/