Walking in Lower Marsh market

Pictures from Lower Marsh market in South East London.

Workshops

Below are some photos from workshops I run

Walking in Peckham

Peckham is a district in South East London, located in the borough of Southwark.

Royal Ballet exhibition

I visited the Royal Opera House to see an exhibition called “Monica Masson A life with Royal Ballet”. It was interesting to the dresses from different performances.

Some work of mine

Below are pictures of some of my work

Perfume bottles

I have always been fascinated with perfume bottles, mainly because of the shape and colours. I keep many perfume adverts from magazines and newspapers and keep the bottles when my perfume or my daughters’ perfumer finishes.

The oldest known perfume bottles came from the Ancient Egyptians. Perfume bottles found in Palestine were made of glass and had narrow long necks. The Ancient Greeks made beautiful containers for perfume. They hand painted vases which were often shaped as animals and used lidded bowls for less expensive perfume.

When I last counted them in February 2012 I had 82 bottles and I will continue to collect them.

Needles

Before sewing needles were made thorns or fish bones were used to do the job of joining two pieces of fabric together.

Needles made from copper, silver and bronze were used in ancient Egypt. The oldest iron needle known was found in Germany and dates back to 3^rd century B.C.

Metal needle making was used by Muslims in Spain in the 11^th century. When Muslims were driven out of Spain in the 15^th century they took the knowledge of needle making with them to Arab lands. Muslims returned to make them and Arab traders took them to Europe.

Europe learned the art of needle making from Arab needle makers and it came to England in the 17^th century.

By 1860 there were 100 million needles being made in England a year. Redditch is famous for making needles.

Today they are made in a wide range of types, sizes and gauges designed for different uses. In some cases the eye of the needle is a long to make threading easier. The exception to this is the needle used for metal work. This has a round eye so that the precious threads are held still and protected during work.

This picture is a collection of my needles: plastic canvas, straw, pearl, beading, tapestry, quilting, embroidery crewel, leather and doll needles.