November riches

We had a fabulously rich week-end - on Friday, listening to Ann Rodgers' fascinating talk about the collection of bags she has created for each of Shakespeare's heroines, and on Saturday being guided by Rose Woodford to turn a dull and unloved 'wardrobe wallflower' into a vibrant want-to-wear blossom.

Firstly, Ann brought along her collection of beautiful and witty handmade bags.  She explained how she went back to the text of Shakespeare's plays to find the essence of each of his female characters and then set about incorporating their qualities and references in individual bags.  There was Bottom's light and airy dreamcatcher; fragile wings on the Midsummer Night's Dream fairies' little silk dolly bags; Queen Anne of York's subtle reversible bag, with the red Lancaster rose on the outside and the white York rose on the inside, or vice-versa according to her allegiance at the time!  Cleverly designed masculine/feminine bags for the female characters who were played by boys, but often appeared in disguise as the 'opposite' sex, hid secret features that revealed their true identity.  There were too many more to list here or do justice to among this extensive collection, so perhaps there's a follow-up talk in the making, when we can hear about all the ones there wasn't time to investigate in detail in this talk ....


Then Rose started us off on Saturday morning by prompting us to think about what we wanted to achieve before we set about trying to transform our 'wallflowers'.  Did we want them to be glamorous, quirky, colourful, bold, interesting or just a bit different?  She showed us some vibrant examples from her own wardrobe that had had 'the treatment', and which were all eminently wearable and stylish.

We considered what we wanted to gain from the day - whether what we wanted most was to have fun or to produce a finished article.  Most people opted for a bit of both, so, with nothing to lose we set about our own unloved garments.  Inevitably it wasn't quite as easy as Rose had made it seem, but she gave us the benefit of her experience and plenty of hands-on help.

Where to start ... how is it going to look ... ?

Rose even lent herself as a model to aid visualisation 

Although not all of our transformations were complete, the workshop had prompted us to look at our garments in a new light and give them another chance.

  Above all, we had a really fun day!