The British Textile Biennial has now been going on for almost a week. I spent the day in Blackburn where six of the venues are located that are exhibiting works as part of the BTB. Today, I visited three of these venues to see four of the exhibitions. Firstly, I visited The Exchange to see… Continue reading Exhibition: British Textile Biennial (2)
Author: Alex
I have been crafting since early childhood and currently do mostly sewing and illustration. 'Almalauha' is the project I started to showcase my sewing/fashion hobby, at least that was the plan. But because I like a million different arts/crafts things, I'm just going to share most of the creative things I do on this blog.
Exhibition: British Textile Biennial (1)
Yesterday the British Textile Biennial (programme) was kicked off with the opening lecture held at the Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery. The lecture started off with a brief story about the Penistone cloth on display in the museum. This is a small sample of handspun and handwoven material that was used to create garments for… Continue reading Exhibition: British Textile Biennial (1)
Exhibition – Unpicking Couture
A couple of weeks ago I visited the Manchester Art Gallery to view the exhibition ‘Unpicking Couture’. This exhibition shows some pieces of haute couture from famous designers and also gives the visitor a peek into how this exhibition was designed/planned. I took some photos of an interesting sleeve part of an ‘inside out’ overcoat:… Continue reading Exhibition – Unpicking Couture
Mermaid costume
A young family member wants to be a “rainbow mermaid” for Halloween, so I offered to make her costume. I have never done children’s clothes before, so I was looking forward to give this a go. Another challenge was that she’s in another country and that I have only once before (20 years ago) worked… Continue reading Mermaid costume
Alphabet Superset 2023
I was told about the ‘Alphabet Superset’ challenge run by Struthless (Campbell Walker; see YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@struthless) and I wanted to take part. However, I don’t have Instagram and that’s probably where ‘everyone’ who takes part is going to be at. So, to find others to share this challenge with, I created an unofficial subreddit page for the… Continue reading Alphabet Superset 2023
Planning: Filofax (01)
Ok, so this is going to be a little different from my sewing posts, but I thought it would be fun to share anyways as I will be doing some crafting. Eventually. This first post will be about my journey into using Filofax as a diary and planner. It is very text heavy (ok, it’s… Continue reading Planning: Filofax (01)
Original designs: Active trousers
A couple of months ago I designed a pair of active wear/street wear trousers and decided to make them from scratch. I’ve worked on it for a couple of hours here and there over the past two months and they are finally done! This won’t be a tutorial as there’s too many steps to include,… Continue reading Original designs: Active trousers
Sewing tutorial (06): Tea cosy
A while ago I was given some kind of packaging material that appears similar to blanket insulation. I wasn’t sure what to use it for until I decided to make a tea cosy to keep my tea pot hot. It’s damp/humid where I live so I was worried that if I made a simple tea… Continue reading Sewing tutorial (06): Tea cosy
For sale (003)
I finally got around to sorting my fabric stash and found some lovely fabric I bought years ago but never got around to using. I think it’s furnishing fabric as it’s double wide (around 290 cm I would guess). I made two ‘half kilts’: a shorter one and a longer one. I still have more… Continue reading For sale (003)
Precious metal clay (01)
In 2019 I bought some silver precious metal clay. This is silver particles combined with a binder to create a kind of clay/paste. You can also get it in gold, copper, and perhaps other metals too. It’s fairly easy to work with this silver clay as you don’t need a lot of tools. However, the… Continue reading Precious metal clay (01)