One of Sarah's layered samples to show the students the kind of thing she was after! You may remember a post from the 8th of June last year where I told you about the amazing work that Sarah Patterson and her students were doing at Portsmouth College. They had created a range of fabulous dresses out of bin liners based on 'The Little Black Dress' or 'LBD' here is the link if you missed it - LBD - Hot Stuff Sarah and her students have exhibited the collection several times and have now created something new - and they will be exhibiting it all on stand no N16 at Fashion. Embroidery and Stitch next week. The work is based around Brighton .  Little felt maps of areas of Brighton a detail  experiments with synthetic fabrics, stitch and a soldering iron  a beautifully observed stitched sketch of the Royal Pavilion on layers of net and felt a simple experiment with layers and stitch - FAB!   These stunning headpieces will also ...

You may remember a few posts back that I was talking about the LBD collection from Portsmouth College. I was so impressed with what Sarah Patterson and her students had achieved using amongst other things, black bin liners, bubble pack and polyester organza that I asked ICHF if we could display them at the Design & Technology Show. The organisers said Yes! and we had a display at the front of the hall. It looked fantastic.   Not only were the dresses at the D & T Show but Sarah and her clever students, along with their work will be exhibiting at the Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch Show at the NEC Birmingham in March next year. I am hoping that some of the garments will be featured in the daily fashion shows. Dedicated teachers like Sarah deserve a round of applause now and then. Well Done Sarah!!!! I had a lovely big stand to play on. I am very lucky to be a part of this show. It is only for educational professionals and it is my job to inspire teacher...

  one of the original 10 black dresses made form black bin liners  I received an email this week from Sarah Patterson saying how useful she had found my book Hot Textiles.  When you write a book you never know how it will be received or if anyone will even read it, so it is always very satisfying when you hear your book has been useful. Sarah teaches A/S A/2 and GCSE Textiles at Portsmouth College , she likes to teach students a range of techniques such as Photoshop, printing, embroidery etc. This year her A/2 group were inspired for the final exam by the little black dress and this coincided with a local exhibition at Portsmouth Museum based on the LBD. The task Sarah had set her students was to create a dress using non conventional materials such as bin liners, condoms (not used!) tampons (again not used!) in fact anything that could be coloured or turned black. The students went to the exhibition and collected great ideas and inspiration for shapes and cuts. When ...