On Saturday my lovely assistant and I had a trip to London.
We breakfasted at The Wolseley, Miss Belle loves a good eggs ben.
Look at the lamination on that!
We had to keep fuelled up because our first stop after breakfast was Goldhawk Road on the hunt for fabric shops. She counted 16. If you need fabric this is the place to go, we usually head for Berwick Street but we've already been three times this year so we thought we'd venture a little further. A wide variety of shops are to be found, we particularly liked the stock and the service at UK Textiles 45b-47 Goldhawk Road. A couple of the shops had extremely pushy staff and one had completely inaccessible fire escapes, we hear about garment workers dying in factory blazes due to blocked escape routes and for me this is completely unacceptable anywhere. Not a place for the feint hearted but definitely worth the trip if you are on a mission.
We found a super little place as we headed to the V&A in South Kensington, Brompton Food Market. The pancetta and sage sausage rolls were spectacular and the accompanying piccalilli and I even bought a box of Joe's Tea Co. Earl Grey it was so good.
We shared a Rocky Road.
On to the V&A, we've been to a few exhibitions there lately and listened the lovely Jacqueline Wilson but we never seem to have the time to look around the museum itself. Sadly the textiles that I always loved visiting aren't on display at the moment due to building work so we browsed the fashion and the tapestries. Miss Belle was particularly excited to see the one that JW had mentioned having a Princess Anne look-alike in it. One of my favourite areas are the ironwork and the fantastic display of locks. We also enjoyed The Tale of Beatrix Potter and Ernest Aris illustrations and letters covering their creative dispute.
After a good few hours we needed another pitstop, so another cup of Earl Grey and some shared banana loaf at Brompton Market again.
Then we did a bit of Miss Belle shopping in John Lewis, 6.30 on a Saturday evening is an excellent time to shop the kids department, it was absolutely dead and she spent ages in the changing rooms. On to Liberty and a tootle around the not very exciting anymore Carnaby street. My newly made Harris Tweed coat from the Lotta Jansdotter book, Everyday Style, got it's first outing. I've never lined a coat before but I will definitely be doing it again, it makes such a difference and a raglan is always a winner with me. I adore this book, it shows pieces made up in different fabrics and worn by teens up to I think ladies in their eighties, showing how a simple pattern can look so different depending on interpretation. I recently had lunch with a friend of mine in her seventies and we were both wearing the Esme dress from the book, hers was a flamboyant knit fabric that I wouldn't have even considered and mine was a cable pattern double gauze. Needles to say, she looked better.
All the excitement was just too much for a 10 year old and she conked out on the train home.
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