stitch

Hawthorne & Heaney at Anine Bing

April 15, 2019 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Hawthorne and Heaney have been out and about with our stitching kits this weekend past as we were based at Harvey Nichols for Skandi chic brand, Anine Bing.

All set up in store for stitching

Perusing the embroidery options

Script style stitching onto camo jacket

Block style stitching onto sweatshirt

Script style stitching onto shirt

Large Script style stitching onto sweatshirt for Louise Redknapp

The lovely store ladies modelling their personalised camo jackets

A little lightening bolt detail for the back

Super cute chain stitched S onto knitted jumper

Block style name onto the back of a sweatshirt

Block style Intials onto shirt collar

After what you can see was a very busy and sucessful hand event, we can’t wait for our next one. If you would like to be our next event, get in touch!

Hawthorne & Heaney for London Craft Week Part 1

April 12, 2017 by Natasha Searls-Punter

For the past 3 years, London Craft Week has become a highlight of the creative calender with all sorts of exciting workshops, demonstrations and talks taking place across town. These celebrate the most unique and interesting craft skills London has to offer. Ranging from whisky tasting to watchmaking to weaving there is something to interest everyone. This year, we have been invited to take part in London Craft Week and are excited to be hosting two workshops in the studio to showcase our own skills. In these workshops we will be teaching one of our stable skills, monogramming which we regulally use on shirts, suits and accessories from our tailoring clients.

You can join us to learn the delicate art of monogramming and leave with your own monogrammed handkerchief or cufflinks at the end. Follow the link to secure your place as spaces are strictly limited, tickets are £60 plus VAT and can only be bought directly from the London Craft Week Website.

Hawthorne & Heaney in Conversation with Laura Lees

April 5, 2017 by Natasha Searls-Punter

Fellow embroiderer, artist and designer Laura Lees is usually found creating highly colourful, fine art pieces furniture pieces but she took a little time away from her usual pursuits to speak with us about her work:

Hawthorne & Heaney: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us today, we’d like to start by asking you the question we get asked quite a lot of how did you get into embroidery originally?

Laura Lees: I applied for a city and guilds embroidery course when I was 17 and fell in love with it then. I found my skills at drawing not exceptional but confident. I found a new level of ability with the needle and thread superior than that of drawing with a pencil.

H&H: And what is it that inspires you?

LL: The way you can transform something from the ordinary to the extraordinary. I love the feel of the threads, the sound the scissors make when they’re cutting fabric, the quality of line and the battering noise and speed of my beloved Bernina industrial sewing machine. most importantly, I love the clarity of heart and mind, the skill involved and the the fact that i am always learning.

H&H: What would you like your students to take away from your class?

LL: A real sense of achievement, pride and enjoyment.

H&H: Where can we see more of your works?

LL: I am preparing for an exhibition to take place at the end of the year, inspired by dutch author Joris Luyendijk s book ‘Swimmimg with Sharks’ which demistifys the financial world of the city banks. This resonated deeply with me, having amongst many others lost my fashion label in the 2008 crash. I explore the ‘smoke and mirrors’ architectural language of finance by descending on what must be the least understood environment in Europe: the City of London. Taking the habitat of the so-called and self-described Masters of the Universe as my inspiration and translating the visceral world that lives and survives by opacity into tangeable abstract textiles.

H&H: Anything coming up in the pipeline you can share with us?

LL: I have recently launched The Mighty Stitch corporate workshops, The Mighty Stitch embroidery workshops teach teams a new skill, engendering engagement and motivation, ultimately creating a bespoke embroidered piece of art for your workplace. • Simple, supportive instruction • No experience needed, anyone can take part
Participants are encouraged to be playful and experimental – the workshops facilitate collaboration, communication, storytelling, mindfulness, and, most importantly, making a mess! Enhanced work environment we all need a bit of that, i think .

H&H: Thanks again, I’m sure we will be seeing much more of you with all that come up!

Laura also has a Workshop coming up in April which will give the participants the opportunity to be a part of Laura’s work as the pieces created on the day will be encorporated into a new piece which will be exhibited at the RIBA as part of the London Festival of Architecture. Follow the link to secure your place for this intriguing and unusual opportunity:

‘The Riba workshop is a full day, immersed in urban embroidery. We will focus on how a city evolves through its inhabitants by learning freehand machine embroidery, hand stitching and applique. The outcome is to create an embroidered image of a building or architectural structure.

Afterwards, I will explore how a city is fabricated by stitching together the individual and diverse pieces made by workshop participants into a new work to be exhibited a the RIBA as part of @londonfestivalofarchitecture.

All artwork will be returned to the participants after the exhibition.
This workshop is part of the programme of events inspired by the exhibition ‘Mies van der Rohe and James Stirling: Circling the Square’.

Urban Tapestry with Laura Lees, 22 & 23 April, 11am to 4pm
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, W1B 1AD
Booking at architecture.com/Workshop ‘

All images credited to Laura Lees

OUR SCHOOL

February 14, 2012 by Claire Sarah Barrett

London Embroidery School is an embroidery School in Islington running as part of Hawthorne & Heaney. They run embroidery classes monthly in various techniques and sell specialist materials and equipment online. They believe in the art of hand embroidery and believe that these skills and equipment to anyone who has the will and the patience to learn. Our skilled tutors are all RSN trained, so you can learn at a professional level in a comfortable central london location.

We are located 5 minutes from the station at Highbury & Islington and are very convenient for the buss, overground and tube.

Please email info@londonembroideryschool.com with any enquiries.

KANYE WEST

October 21, 2011 by Claire Sarah Barrett

This season the studio has been busy with a particularly interesting client with an exciting brief. We had to keep the project confidential during production but are now very excited to be able to share some photographs of the outcome.

We were approached by Louise Goldin’s team on behalf of Kanye West, and asked to advise on the design and production of an embroidered ladies jacket. This would be part of Mr West’s first catwalk collection to be shown during Paris Fashion Week 2011. With a tight lead time of two weeks this project had to be undertaken in our UK studio, enabling our team to respond quickly to the necessary revisions to the design whilst maintaining the exacting standards required for such an intricate piece.

A project like this required a huge amount of preparation, for example each one of the 1028 PP32 Swarowski crystals were placed in their settings by hand by the team.

In collaboration with Mr West’s team we produced a fully embroidered, diamante and beaded jacket depicting a tiger’s jaw and head markings.

This was an exhilarating and challenging project to be involved with and we thoroughly enjoyed working with Mr West and his team.