Rosie Moore Textiles

Ramblin Rose

Well I finished the wall hanging that I’d started in my last blog, and it’s now in The Mill reception as part of August Craft month exhibition. You’ll see Stella Bluebell there as well. Now Stella hasn’t had an easy time of it. When she was living the hallway upstairs someone stole one of her belts, which I was able to easily replace by spraying another one white. Then some nasty person took all her hair (strips of leather) out, so she had to move into the studio with me in order to recover after being so horribly violated. I had to give her something temporary for her head for the exhibition, so I fashioned a veil type of thing which I wasn’t too happy with. Then, joyously, I found another belt made of leather strips and now she has a lovely new head of stringy hair!

As I’ve been involved with Artsekta and their oral history project, I was invited to the launch of the Mela a couple of weeks ago (the Mela was on Sunday there). It was on the Nomadic, down beside the new Titanic building and started at 11am. On arrival I was handed a beautiful multi-coloured sari and pointed in the direction of the buffet table. What a treat that was, lots of spicy bits to fill my plate with what was technically my breakfast. There were speeches and music and speeches and singing and speeches and dancing, and in between Julian and his wit. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable outing.

Just before I go, let me tell you about the That Wee Cat Café night that Anna & Sheelagh invented as part of the Feile West Belfast Festival. They made these cats and tagged them with questions that would instigate conversations, and I was volunteered as a conversation person. Quite exhausting is was, let me tell you. I can talk, and I ramble a lot, but don’t do so good if I’ve to stick with a brief and not deviate. A lot of people turned up and it was a great success, but I don’t know how much actual ‘discussion’ took place. And the cats just loved all the attention.

This has been a long-winded one, but sure I haven’t blogged for a while and I’d a bit more to ramble about than usual. Next blog I’ll tell you about the opera I was in.

I never went away, but I’m back!

That’s an Irish title for you – a bit like go ahead, back away. Since I finished working on the movie I’ve had a mix of work and play. I made a dress for my friend Grainne to wear to a ‘do’ and apparently on the night out a woman asked how long she’d had the Vivienne Westwood dress. Not one to miss a beat, Grainne told her she’d had it for a while now. Atta girl Grainne! I’ve spent some time with Rachel from Artsekta on the oral history project too. We had a tour of the Linen Quarter which was really interesting and I’ll be giving a tour of my mill at the end of the month. On the same day we had a fascinating information session about India at Windsor Women’s Centre. We were supposed to be concentrating on textiles, but poor Kalashree was being asked some really cheeky personal questions by a couple of the women (now I’ve got you wondering) . . . however, she handled it all beautifully and even showed us how to wear a sari. It was a great day! So at the minute I’m working on a couple of wall hangings for an art & craft exhibition next month. I’ve a couple of good projects in the pipeline too, and even better, I’ll get paid for most of them!

Grainne’s ‘Vivienne Westwood’ number

My sari number

This was the inspiration . . .

. . . for this!

I Do Costumes

When people ask ‘what I do’, and I tell them I design and make costumes they think it sounds very glamorous. It’s not really, but I just go along with it to make myself sound more interesting. They ask what sort of costumes, so I tell them I’ve worked for theatre, carnival, TV and film, amongst other things. ‘Oh I’d love to do that’, some of them say, and I reply ‘Well do it then’. I omit to tell them about the drawbacks, which I’m not going to go on about here either, because really I love ‘what I do’, and compared to some jobs I’ve done in the past, it’s an absolute joy. I have pictures of the costumes I’ve been working on for this movie, but can’t show them to you until the movie is released. So here are a few pics of costumes I’ve designed and made in the past, and if you go to my website you can see lots more.

Laura Hughes in This is What we Sang by Kabosh theatre company

Caterpillar costumes for Ashfield Girls School Rock Dance Challenge

Carol Moore in One in Five by Kabosh theatre company

The big rabbit head we made for The Beat Carnival in her costume

Antoinette and Gerard in The West Awakes by Kabosh theatre company

Mark in the pic dressed up as St Patrick for a Spectrum Centre project

Bucky searching for something during The Beat Carnival

Happy Sunday

I haven’t time to write a blog, but here’s quick one. I’ve been making costumes for a film, long days sewing til I’m cross-eyed. Can’t tell you what it is or where it is, and obviously I can’t take any pics. So while you’re all having a nice lazy Sunday I’ll be stitching away. I’m not complaining as it’s work, just keeping up the blog in case you thought I’d lost interest and gone away and left you. Happy Sunday! x

Slow Spin

We all know about linen, what it is and where it comes from, don’t we? Apparently not. I was giving a tour of the mill today and showed a picture of flax plants growing in a field, blue flowers and all. One lady was astonished as she thought it was a synthetic fabric. Fair enough, there are lots of things I don’t know and don’t bother to find out about unless I’m interested. I just love to talk about linen, there’s just so much to it! Like all the processes it goes through before it’s even spun into yarn, and these processes involve some wonderful words like stooks, retting, scutching, and hackling, and many more. I sew with linen a lot and decided to have a go at using a spindle to make my own yarn which I could then weave into cloth. I got this gorgeous spindle (though I believe it’s easy enough to make one yourself) and a bag of flax. Dozens of Youtube videos later I was ready to get stuck in, but of course, things are never as easy as they look. And it takes such a long time to spin such a short piece of yarn, which is all lumpy, knobbly and uneven. But it looks good on the spindle. So it’s positioned on the shelf at the ready, like the vacuum cleaner sitting in the hall, it shows intent!

Pins & Needles

I had Molly with me all day in the studio helping me finish off a wall-hanging made by a community group. In between we played, we walked and she slept. Although this isn’t as difficult as making costumes, it has its own challenges. Like getting nice straight edges, getting it good and square and of course a perfect corner is essential! It’s also very bulky to work with and sometimes bits drop off and I’ve to figure out where they came from and stick them back on. You are about to see my pin cushion, which I referred to in my first blog. The pins are all uniform in size and colour co-ordinated. The pins go round the outside of the pin cushion and the needles are allowed to sit in the middle. Anyone who’s worked with me knows about this obsession and anyone who values their life doesn’t interfere with ‘Rosie’s pincushion’. I’ve only shown a corner of the wall-hanging as it’s not mine to show off, but you can see enough to enable you to inspect my corners.

Just salt please

This one’s going to a bit random, but sure it wouldn’t be like me! I went to Rock the Frock vintage wedding fair in Belfast Castle today. I’ve no interest in weddings or anything to do with weddings, but I do like to socialise and have a natter with some of my exhibitor friends. Frock Around the Clock has been going now for over 6 years, thanks to creator Becky and Team Frock. I have taken part in a lot of the fairs and sometimes like today I go along just for the craic. Belfast Castle would be a beautiful romantic venue for a wedding, but for me personally, the most wonderful thing about Belfast Castle is the chunky chips they serve in their cellar restaurant. I may not know or care to know much about weddings, but I do know my chips, and I might even love these ones enough to marry them.

Belfast Castle – home of the perfect chunky chip

The Team Frock dynasty – Becky, Matthew & Kerry

Team Frock star – Julie of Emily Loves Vintage

Star of this blog!!!

Pink Overload

If you’re not fed up looking at the colour pink by now then you must be visually impaired, or living elsewhere. I think it’s fantastic to have something like the Giro d’Italia here in Belfast, I love my city and am so proud the world is seeing it in such a positive (pink) light. I’ve spent the last couple of days doing workshops where kids make bicylcly (pink) things, and I even got to see part of the race last night. I’ve never seen anything like the speed those guys were doing, it was amazing. So as a sort of anti-pink statement, I’m going to post some black and white photos. Some of these are part of the visual display I use when giving talks about wartime fashion and make do & mend. Nothing whatsoever to do with cycling, fast Italians, Belfast or pink.

Doggy Divas

My Mate Sandra used to dress her dog Paddy in doggy clothes and I used to scoff at the whole idea of it. Then it became acceptable, fashionable even, and I saw that lots of people were dressing their dogs in wee jumpers and coats. I picked up a ‘Knitting for Dogs’ book in a charity shop one day and thought, if this is what the people want then let’s get knitting. But then I sat thought of all the different permutations involved, I mean dogs come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, so it’s not like you can knit a ‘one size fits all’. Or even a small, medium and large. So I shelved the book, and the idea. Then, Molly came into my own life (let’s call her my granddog and be really sad), and what was the first thing I did? Why, I knit her a jumper of course. Some of my friends scoffed, but I didn’t care because now I understood My Mate Sandra. And now she gets to scoff at me for scoffing at her and everybody’s happy. Especially all the doggies in their nice warm stylish jumpers.

Ok, if you want me to look that cute, you’ll have to knit me a pink one.

And I want shoes and a bag to match.

The Singing Doffer

The Singing Doffer is the name of our museum in the mill. I was given the honour of naming it and originally thought Spinner’s Nook would be a cool name. Then Joe, Boss of The Mill, pointed out that people of a childish disposition might see it as a chance to practice their innuendo. (Much like the time Becky, Boss of Frock Around the Clock, cautioned me against calling the Busker’s Den the Busker’s Entry.) I must have an innocent mind if I can’t pick up on these things. Anyway, this is where I was interviewed the other day if you’re thinking it looks familiar. It’s a tiny museum, but from little acorns and all that . . . so if anyone has anything they could donate or lend us that would be great. In the meantime if you’re wanting help with naming something, then maybe you’re best not asking me.