Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Today I started work straight away on this little guy: Hon hon hon He's a French Bulldog and the beagle eyed can hopefully see that he's a little mis-aligned on the right hand side; I personally like offset works but it's not what H&L wanted for this piece so my job was to fill in the blank white bits along the bottom in satin stitch by hand and the extra grey bit will be unpicked later. This was he at the end of the day: [Designed by Hand & Lock, not me!] Still some very small bits left to do but I spent some time making sure it looked really good and Laura was pleased with it when I showed it to her as you can't see the difference between the hand and machine stitch; so I must have done a good job. I really enjoyed working on this, it was definitely my sort of thing to do and that always helps make a job easier. Other than that I ran errands, helped frame shirts to be machine embroidered and also helped with finishing the re-embroidered apron from y

In the immediate post-christmasness there wasn't much to do today, so I started out by spending the morning working on my goldwork sample. I don't have a photo yet as I'm going to wait until it looks a bit more impressive before showing it off. After that I had to re-cover the big work tables with new, fresh Vilene as they get a bit grubby after a while. Here's one table after I had covered it: And then after that job I was asked to organise the threads in these big thread drawers: As you can see there are some thready bits hanging out and they kept becoming tangled up in all kinds of things, which was a bit annoying and slightly dangerous. So I took out each drawer; here is the blue drawer: And then I untangled everything and put them away neatly: And that was quite satisfying. After that I started to unpick a n embroidery that needs to be changed after the customer changed their mind about the font used, so I will continue this job tomorrow:

The first job of today was finishing an oven glove by hand that had been embroidered on machine last week. The customer wanted metallic thread and as anyone who has ever tried embroidering with metallic thread knows, it has a tendency to snag... a lot... even using machine embroidery, so a touch up was necessary. Another intern had started to fix it last week but as she has finished her stint the job was passed on to me. Here's the glove as it was when I received it: As you can see the letters 'J' and 'C' are finished but the 'H' and 'L' are quite patchy, so those are the ones I worked on. The glove was rather thick and difficult to stitch through, so I yet again destroyed my fingers, even with a thimble, and the thread kept tangling up too, but the monogram looked much better in the end. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of the finished thing because the customer came to fetch it straight away! After that another intern and I had to run

Day 9 was a day of goldwork, unpicking embroideries that needed to be reworked, finishing off a rather exciting celebrity project that I sadly can't write about and searching through the Bead Room for sequins and beads intended for refurbishing a pair of rather exotic baby shoes. No mean feat as I had to match colours and shapes to the existing decorations and given that this is only a portion of the boxes available to look at: and I had to balance on [another] scary ladder I think I did quite well! I thought it would take me a long time to find the right embellishments but it didn't take too long in the end. I also discovered that although I don't think I'm scared of heights I think I might be scared of ladders?! Day 10 was probably my personal worst day so far. I've not been feeling very well this week but wanted to push myself to go in to work anyway so as not to let anyone down - especially myself - and to make the most of my short time at Hand & Lock.

First job of the day was to cover the machine embroidery font display boards which are shown to customers choosing their embroidery style. This is the front of the board: And the back of the boards looked like this before they were covered: All those stringys criss-crossing everywhere were getting snagged on things and generally looking a bit untidy so they needed to be covered. One of the other interns and I found some navy blue fabric and stitched it on by hand, using the invisible stitch so that they would look extra neat. Here's the result: Much neater I think... I covered two of these which took most of the day as it was very fiddly sewing onto the hard backed board. After that I had to recover an embroidery frame with the backing canvas stuff, my most feared job after the other day , as major strength and multiple hands are required... but actually as I'd already done it once and had to re-do it, I knew what I was doing this time and did it right the first time a

Today I sewed some crystals onto a dress bodice and ironed pillowcases but mostly I finished off the blanket I had started appliqueing yesterday. This job seemed to have taken me a very long time but I think this was because firstly the embroidery frame I was using was a bit loose / broken making the tension difficult to work with and nextly because I am still a learner of course. Being around people who work very fast and efficiently all day can sometimes make you forget that as a learner you will naturally work a little bit slower. Anyway my boss was pleased with the job I had done so that's all that matters ultimately. Besides this, I often tell myself that it's best to do a job well the first time rather than rushing it and having to re-check / re-do it several times; in the long run you will probably save time and your own mind from going batty. I was also asked today what the point of me writing this blog was. I didn't really give a sufficient answer to that person

Today was another bits n bobs day, I worked on my goldwork techniques, did some jump thread trimming and some errands at Selfridges but the biggest job of the day was appliqueing the letters I'd started last week. This was even more tricky than cutting them out as I had to make sure they're all straight and equidistant, plus make hidden stitches through two layers of suede. I hadn't really done anything so delicate before so I'm sure I worked very slowly, plus my fingers are hurting a bit now! Buuut it's all good practise and I'm appreciating the chance to learn new, important skills. Here you can see a picture of me working / concentrating extra hard [in the background]; in the foreground Head Designer Scott is discussing techniques and traditions with a tour group: Photo from @handlocklondon (Instagram) That's all I have to write about today! Follow Hand & Lock on Instagram , Facebook  and / or Twitter  for more excitement than I can provide!

Day four was an odd job day; firstly we finished off the monogrammed pyjamas and then I was given a small task cutting embroidered letters out to be appliqued onto a blanket at a later date. Here is the embroidery before:  And after: As you can see I had to cut them suuuper close to the edges which was quite tricky as there were lots of awkward angles and little bits to get into and of course I had to be careful not to snip the embroidery itself!  After that there wasn't really much else to do, so I was allowed to begin my own project learning a new technique right there with the masters of embroidery! I decided to learn Goldwork  (which you can learn about if you click that link); I'm not going to give away all of Hand & Lock's secrets by going into details so I'll just show you a picture of the work so far: This is the first part, the couching down of threads. I've been told that I am pretty good at this for a beginner; in fact some of the sta

Today was the best day so far! Firstly we finished off the monogrammed pyjamas so that was quite satisfying. After that myself and another intern started to finish up the christmas window and make it look all beautimous. This was the window as I left it yesterday: And this was the window at about 3:45 today: A little bit difficult to see but we changed the font of the 'Merry Christmas from' part, added more wrapped gifts and fairy lights and snowflakes (I actually added them after I took this photo so I shall try to get another one tomorrow). I'm really happy with how it turned out and everyone at Hand & Lock who saw it said it was lovely so I feel extra chuffed. Other than a few small jobs that was it for today, but here's a picture of the mini tree I decorated yesterday:

Today us interns finished off the Christmas window which we started yesterday: It was a collaborative effort; I made the large velvet bow just visible at the top of the giant wreath (and managed to use the invisible stitch I learnt during my internship at Nelly's Treasures for part of it!), I also made several of the metallic tassels and strings of oversized sequins (not visible) and generally offered help with styling / ideas. After that we had a bit of a production line going with monogramming some silk pyjamas and I was given the task of taking off the backing, cutting the jump threads, and folding and packing the pyjamas in their little boxes. This was a super satisfying job for someone who thrives on repetitive tasks and getting the little details just right! That's it for today! Find Hand & Lock on Facebook  for more excitement!

Today was my first day interning at Hand & Lock  in London! I didn't really know what to expect at all; I knew that all the people there were lovely as I came for an interview earlier this year so luckily I wasn't too nervous. There are also a few other interns there so I wasn't completely on my Tod. I won't go into specifics about what I did today... but I will share this image from the workroom that I pinched from the Hand & Lock Instagram (hoping they don't mind as I forgot to take my own photos!): Festive Spirit And I can reveal that I got to play with these too: Shiny Sequince Gown That's about it! Worst part of the day was the commute into and out of central London; quite the experience when you're used to living in sleepy Bournemouth town! Follow Hand & Lock on Instagram Or Facebook if that's more your thing

The printed postcards from the Postcards for Peace competition are now available to buy at Bournemouth Library! This was mine: The postcards are printed on high quality, matt card and look even better than I was expecting; mine even has a rather trompe l'oeil effect which is rather exciting. Anyway they're a mere 45p to buy and the proceeds go to charity so it's a win-win!