DIY City Blog

Annie Sherburne is a talented textile artist, with a deep passion for eco-friendly and fair-trade textile supplies, processes and techniques.

Annie has run her own business since the early 1980’s and was a founding member of the International Felt Makers Association, and a pioneer of feltmaking. Annie’s felt work has included felt hats examples of which are in the V&A and the Musee Des Modes in the Louvre in Paris.

For the last 10 years Annie has been incorporating environmentally friendly materials into her design work and has won prestigious awards for these designs and pieces. These include The ‘Soft Cobbles’ Rug (felted rare breed and organic wool) which won the textile category of the Peugeot design awards in 2001 and went on to reach the finals of the Elle deco first international design awards, and the classic design awards at the V&A.

More recently, Annie has designed new rugs using a combination of yarns, which represent the best environmentally friendly selection of yarns currently available. These include the landscapes, Moon in a boat series, which have been designed specifically for city loft-style rooms with multi functions, which use extra long pile techniques developed initially for Hussein Chalayan. Of these pieces, ‘White Horse’ has again reached the final of the Homes and Gardens Classic design Awards at the V&A.

Annie’s client portfolio also includes buttons, jewellery, fashion accessories and hats, designed and made for Jean Muir for 18 years.

Other examples of her work may be found in the Whitworth art gallery textile collection, the British Crafts Council collection, Kunstindustrimuseum in Trondheim Norway, The British Council jewellery collection, Lotus software HQ, HM Home office, and many other public, commercial and private collections internationally.
Annie is now completing post-graduate research at Kingston University into environmental textiles from a designer’s perspective, and is developing recycled yarns, which will be available for sale from her shop.

Annie Sherburne

1:10 Oxo Tower Wharf

Bargehouse Street

London

SE1 9PH
(Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 11.30am to 4.45pm)

To find out more please visit Annie’s website at http://www.anniesherburne.co.uk

DIY with Sara

Sara Millis
Sara’s Texture Crafts

Come and visit me, for craft news, my on-line magazine (blog), events & shopping at Sara’s Texture Crafts
sarastexturecrafts.fusiveweb.co.uk

Kleins

I’ve been shopping at Kleins for years… they have always been my safe bet for sewing and trimming supplies, if I need something I just pop along to the shop and browse through the many products they carry in stock. So what can you find here? Well amongst the candy store of braids and ribbons, you can also find an array of buttons, buckles and zippers in many styles and finishes, different sorts of closures and corsetry materials, eyelets and tools, dyes and glues, bag/purse frames and handles, needles, threads and other sewing equipment.

Kleins

5 Noel Street

London

W1F 8GD

(Opening Hours: Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm)
You can also find the shop on-line at www.kleins.co.uk

DIY with Sara

Sara Millis
Sara’s Texture Crafts

Come and visit me, for craft news, my on-line magazine (blog), events & shopping at Sara’s Texture Crafts
sarastexturecrafts.fusiveweb.co.uk

Wild Women, Stitched Art Brooches By Sarah Lawrence

I always look for smaller projects to slot between my bigger art pieces, so when I saw this book, it’s colourful cover really caught my eye. Sarah Lawrence takes us step by step through 20 wonderful brooch projects that make use of a lot of the items we may already have in our art boxes. Each project is purely inspirational, introducing new and fun techniques to make these ‘wild women’ and to take them to the next level. Much more than that this book has many transferable ideas … I can see some fantastic possibilities from card-toppers, to artist trading cards and even jewellery.

This book is great for beginners and occasional projects for those more advanced. What a wonderful addition to a crafter’s library!

Reviewed by Sara Millis of Sara’s Texture Crafts

Wild Women, Stitched Art Brooches By Sarah Lawrence
Publisher: Search Press
ISBN 13-9781844483020
Price: £4.99

Purchase from The Textile Directory at: http://www.thetextiledirectorybookstore.com/en/Beadwork-and-Jewellery/Stitched-Art-Brooches

DIY with Sara Millis
Sara is a new blogger at DIY City Mag Blog who is now a part of our Editorial Board. She has some great posts that you will get to see soon. Sara is a Fashion and Textile Designer based in London.

DIY with Sara
Sara’s Texture Crafts

Come and visit me, for craft news, my on-line magazine (blog), events & shopping at Sara’s Texture Crafts
sarastexturecrafts.fusiveweb.co.uk

Annie Sherburne - London based eco supplies shop

In today’s society eco-friendly products are becoming more and more important in our daily lives. So it s not unexpected that artists and crafters have started searching for eco-friendly and fair trade supplies to make their products with. Annie Sherburne is a textile artist who has had the foresight to start providing for us…

Sara: Why are fair trade and eco friendly products so important to you?

Annie: Because the system of production for textiles is polluting, and the way that people are treated in countries without our high levels of protectionism is unacceptable. Abuse of human rights to get things made cheaply, or with little care for the local environment can be changed by using the capitalist system, if enough people chose to buy products that do not exploit people or the environment. I decided a long time ago, that all I could do was whatever I can personally do, the problem is too big otherwise. Research was a way of finding out the truth behind the issues.

Annie’s shop is a wondrous collage of colour and texture, which pulls you in to explore from the outset. Among her own fabulous rug designs (which are eco friendly, of course), Annie sells jewellery made from vintage components and handbags made by her partner. She also stocks a range of eco-friendly yarn, natural dyes in powder form, some mordents, knitting needles and crochet hooks and some gorgeous buttons too. And if you are looking for home products you can also find neem bathroom cleaners and other laundry materials (because laundry is 85% of the impact which textiles make on the environment.)

Sara: Apart from stocking eco friendly and fair trade products and supplies in your shop, how else do you try to get your eco-message across?

Annie: Lili, another Masters graduate has produced a great game that will help people understand the issues by actually designing various products. I currently stock this in my shop. It is useful a useful tool for teaching teenagers and undergraduates too. I also sell eco design books, and materials and am always happy to debate with visitors.

This shop is a great starting point for artists and crafters wishing to make the move into environmentally conscious work. This is where I found out about an event called Eco Design Fair, based here in the UK. Run by Louise Kamara, Eco Design Fair have also produced ‘the sustainable directory’, which is also useful for people wishing to buy completed works.

Annie Sherburne
1:10 Oxo Tower Wharf
Bargehouse Street
London
SE1 9PH
(Opening Hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 11.30am to 4.45pm)

You can also find her shop on-line at anniesherburne.co.uk

DIY with Sara

Sara Millis
Sara’s Texture Crafts

Come and visit me, for craft news, my on-line magazine (blog), events & shopping at Sara’s Texture Crafts
sarastexturecrafts.fusiveweb.co.uk

Beginner’s Guide to Silk Ribbon Embroidery
By Ann Cox

This is a great introductory book to silk ribbon embroidery. Covering essential tools and materials, Ann Cox takes us through easy to follow stitch techniques and shows us a myriad of individual plants, flowers and other objects we can create from them. Each stitch is fully explained and illustrated with step by step pictures, so even a true beginner can recreate (although some with a little practise!) any of the stitches with ease. The reader is also shown how to plan, create and mount larger artworks and there is a range of six equally stunning projects to follow.

This was a new craft for me and so I was thrilled at how simple this book made those first tentative steps into silk ribbon embroidery and also at just how many ideas I came away with. I would certainly recommend the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Silk Ribbon Embroidery’ to fellow embroiderers and textile artists.

ISBN 10-0855328355
ISBN 13-9780855328351
Price: £6.99
Purchase from The Textile Directory.
Reviewed by Sara Millis of Sara’s Texture Crafts.
********************************************
DIY with Sara Millis
Sara is a new blogger at DIY City Mag Blog who is now a part of our Editorial Board. She has some great posts that you will get to see soon. Sara is a Fashion and Textile Designer based in London.