Samines

I help your hands create something beautiful

Tag: Samines

  • Timing is out!

    This is my sewing machine that has just come back from Deptford Sewing Machines, the case I had to purchase on top of buying the sewing machine over twenty years ago at Chapman Sewing Machine company (my mum bought me the sewing machine), travelling from Southeast to North London is not a funny matter especially in these unusual times of Covid. A few weeks ago I made the trip to Deptford Sewing Company and walked up the high street just with the sewing machine in the case, golly it was hard going and as I have become unfit in Lockdown I had to stop every few yards to rest my arms. I went to the shop to find it was closed and I phoned the number to be told the shop was only opened for two days per week at the moment, that is not what was showing on the website, at that time it was showing that it was opened and closed on Thursdays and Sunday, and I realised that going forward I need to phone ahead to make sure the shop is open. The shop is no longer there and I got there in time to get my sewing machine fixed and collected on the last day of the shop closing for good, if you look on the website you will see they have moved to Gillingham. If you live in the South East ask them which shops do they collect and drop off from as an additional service they do, as there are a few sewing shops dotted about.

    I kicked the timing out on the sewing machine, I did my research and googled to be informed this is what had happened, (after watching a video on the bobbin case sitting within a Bernia sewing machine) on YouTube. On one of the videos the mechanic showed how he stripped down a sewing machine and worked on the timing and I thought okay it has to be repaired. The sewing needle was hitting on top of the bobbin and therefore not into the bobbin to connect with the thread to pull up through to the top and from phoning another mechanic in Southend, he confirmed what I had done and that it might as well go in for a service. I phoned the chap in Southend as I was looking for the chap who serviced my sewing machine the last time and he used to work at McCullough and Wallace, then where I was living all I had to do was get one bus from A to B, the chap has now retired and moved out of London, in hindsight I don’t think I would have gone to Southend, but when you have had good service from somebody one always wants to go back to the original person.

    When I took the sewing machine to Deptford I had the bright idea of hooking it up to the IKEA trolley, which they still sell and which was ideal for travelling on the bus and wheeling it down Deptford high street, plus this little trolley was my first go to trolley of taking my kit down to Greenwich Market for the Samines stall on Fridays.

  • “Upcycle your denim jeans into a Boro sewing roll”

    Power Point

    Yesterday I taught how to take a pair of your jeans, cut one side of the leg and transform into a Boro (Japanese inspired mending) sewing roll. I took mutiple photos of each stage of the creation and created a PowerPoint, in total I had 40 slides. I needed all those slides so the participants could understand what they were doing. As I am teaching a craft base subject, the more slides to show the greater the comprehension and confidence of the participants to complete the project.

  • Bubble

    This was Saturday night’s bubble, watching Downton Abbey, we are in series two and watched episode 6, I seem to be getting confused where we are as it has taken us a long time to watch series 1 and 2, we started watching in January and have recently started meeting fortnightly instead of weekly. I am so thankful for my bubble in meeting up, they have been a life saver for me and has been a highlight to the end of my week going into somebody’s else’s home or they coming to me.

    This is my living room and over the season of Lockdown the room has turned into my studio, which means I had to do a major revamp of the rooms layout with shifting furniture and getting rid of pieces I no longer needed and that I had grown out of. I think sometimes we and I can hold onto things that bring us comfort, but we have stretched out of and need to be giving it away, so we can be growing into the new space and new space is here within me through teaching online workshops. Thankfully I was wise to keep old files of my teaching notes and how to create a course outline, scheme of work for a ten week course and lesson plans, I have been using these templates to build my own for delivering the workshops. I recently taught with Blackheath Embroiderer’s how to make a fascinator, on the lesson plan I put in demonstrate and student watches and then has ago, but I realised, (a light bulb moment!) that this would not be the case, as my attendees will be working alongside me in creating their fascinator; because it is online, all they need to do now is have the computer in front of them and have a clear sight of what I am doing while stitching along.

    My new workshop I have been working on and ready to be delivered is how to recycle your denim jeans into a Boro sewing roll, I am quite excited by this piece that I have created. A friend gave me his old jeans that were going to the charity shop, that are good quality and has no holes within the trouser legs, I have cut one pair up and used one side of the leg and folded to make insert pockets to put your sewing equipment in, like scissors and pins or if you were into stationary one could put their smaller pencils and eraser’s in.
    https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/upcycle-your-denim-jeans-into-a-boro-sewing-roll-tickets-153201962193?aff=ebdssbonlinesearch

  • Blackheath Ladies Fascinator

    Saturday 24th May saw me leading the above workshop, when I was composing my lesson plan, I had on there teacher demonstrates and students watch demonstration, and then work on making the fascinator, then I realised the participants will be making the fascinator along with me. Now that I am teaching online a whole new concept of guiding participants through the stages of making a project is quite different from in person teaching.

    As I was demonstrating, these lovely ladies followed the stages of making their own Blackheath Ladies Fascinator. I was asked by Rebecca Cole-Coker who is the current chair of Blackheath Embroiderer’s, we used to be Blackheath Embroiderer’s Guild, but the Guild decided to cut loose the branches and slim down to hold the collection centrally and many branches have either closed or gone online during Covid to fight in keeping going.

    A lot of reflection has gone into making this fascinator for the group, I realised I needed to make it as simple as possible, it turned out great, but there were a lot of stages in thinking, designing and creating it. I generated a PowerPoint, I had 15 slides in the presentation thinking that was enough and when I asked for feedback, (which was very constructive) I realised I needed to create more slides and photograph each stage of the process, I did work on the PowerPoint and I have now added a further 10 slides so it comes to 25 slides in total. I used black tulle as the main point of the head piece as black stands for Blackheath and I knew that would stand out great, I worked with a new piece of material which was tulle and it turned out to be quite fiddly and the feedback given was this workshop would not be the best for a beginner to start off with, especially if you haven’t worked with fabrics before, it could be quite frustrating and likely for the student to give up at the first hurdle. As this group has been meeting over years, we have tutors within the group sharing their expertise with us and another tutor had taught a workshop on how to make a bead mandela which was used as the central piece for their fascinator, not everyone used theirs and so the majority used the bead that was given.

    This has been a great learning curve for me in creating and delivering workshops and I know this will be an adventure for me working with people online encouraging them in making projects they can complete and have a great sense of achievement knowing they have made it themselves.

  • The Star Fascinator

    The Star Fascinator was created as the client had a wedding to attend and fitted in with the dress that was made for the occasion. Below is the link to Samines shop of other fascinators that can be purchased.

    https://folksy.com/items/7532090-The-Peacock

  • Pinning to Pinterest

    The website has been up for a week, but this is the first time I have had a real play in composing blog posts. I am studying how to work out saving images from the website to Pinterest, (I know I have a save button, but also uploading images to the web) and also navigating WordPress.