Winter Shop Hours

Phew, the throng of activity that takes over our lives for the summer months is slowly starting to subside. As the weather turns wet and cold and the evenings grow darker everyone’s focus turns from weddings to cosy evenings in front of the fire and putting your feet up with a hot brew.

It’s the time of year we at Silver Lining, turn our attention to creating new types of accessories and lines for the shop and prepare for our trip to Whitby where we trade under Bride and Gloom at the gothic festival held there every Halloween.

We are changing our opening hours to reflect our activities. From now until Spring we will be open for appointments at the following times:

Wednesday 11:00 – 5:00
Thursday 11:00 – 7:00
Friday 11:00 – 5:00
Saturday 10:00 – 4:00 Closed the first Saturday of the month

Don’t worry if you have already made appointments outside these times as we will still be there to see you.

Also, we will be closed from Wednesday 27th October opening again on Thursday 4th October.

Chiffon Shirker

Yes, I admit it; I’m a chiffon shirker!

I only have to see a roll of chiffon in the corner and I break out in hives. Any other fabric (and I mean ANY other fabric) and I can turn one of Rachel’s fantastic annotated designs into a fully fledged garment, but give me chiffon and my brain turns to mush.

It’s ridiculous really, how something so delicate and floaty can mess with my head. In fact, I think that’s it! Chiffon is a mind altering substance, willing me to do what IT decides rather than conform to design. I must just be particularly susceptible because try as I might I always manage to create something different to what was designed.

No-one else seems to have the same problem. Rachel almost effortlessly cuts into the fabric without any hesitation. The other girls in the shop also seem to have no problems, and so, from this moment on (after a particularly spectacular failure), I vow never to try to tame the beast that is chiffon!

Hello Again!

So, it’s been a while and for that I apologise. There have been many occasions over the last few months that I have smiled to myself as I think how a particular story would make a good blog post, but it seems I just didn’t find my way here.

I used to have a routine; a small amount of time each day where I would clear my head with a brew and read up on life outside Silver lining Sewing Rooms, maybe write a blog or two… and then the wedding season hit; stronger this year than the last, and all routines got squeezed out by encroaching mountains of tulle and glittering landscapes of Swarovski’s.

And so, now there are far too many new things to talk about to sit here in one go and empty my head on the screen… in fact I would inevitably miss the rest of this afternoons (maybe weeks) appointments if I were to even try. There are many new things for me to talk about; changes in the people who work here, expansions, new ranges and new services, not to mention the incidental anecdotes of life in the sewing rooms.

Today I’ll keep this one short and sweet, with the promise that I will be back again before you know it, smearing scoop after scoop of silver lining glitter all over your computer screen.

Charlotte x

Artisan screen printed ties

We search high and low.

We scour the Earth and leave no stone unturned.

We travel far and wide and rummage around in the four corners of the globe.

… all to bring you the best, most interesting, hand made accessories that would compliment our creations and add that extra little something to your affair.

Of course when I say this I mean that we spend our breaks sat on our arses, cup of coffee in one hand and mouse in the other, jumping the world in a series of clicks.

On such an excursion I found myself in Detroit hanging out with Bethany Shorb in her beautiful tie lab. I was instantly sold and knew that her exquisite, original art, hand screen printed ties would be perfect for you guys.

Her designs range from classic and elegant to dark and dramatic. She has a massive catalogue of artwork and the range of ties and scarves is immense. It was stressful whittling down the choice to present to you. You have no idea how hard it was to first select artwork, then tie fabrics, fabric colours and ink colours but whittle away we did and I’m bowled over by our choices.

Aren’t they beautiful? I can’t wait to see your reactions when we offer them up for sale at the Whitby Gothic Weekend.

When I found this artist online I knew instantly that I wanted to get my hands on some of her work, and I know you will too. All we need now is for you guys to come see us at the Leisure Centre (30th and 31st October and 1st November) and fall in love with her designs as well... then I can go through the whole agonizing process of ordering some more! Trauma!

How did you get in my life?

Our sewing room is never dull. Get a group of girls together and the giggles follow and with it our own vocabulary and the evolution of ‘Phrase of the Week’.

This week Amy was fighting a losing battle with a particularly persistent piece of thread. It followed her everywhere and no matter how many times she thought she’d got rid of it she found it stuck to her in some new ingenious way... to which she was compelled to ask it:

‘How did you get in my life?’

Well that was it; from then on any slightly irksome incident was greeted with our new phrase of the week - ‘How did you get in my life?’, which is fine when you’re asking the spider that’s crawling over the table or the piece of double sided sticky tape that you’ve found stuck to your elbow... not so well received when you get carried away and ask your husband... oops! Thankfully he laughed - he knows what we’re like.

It’s not all laughs at Silver Lining though. It’s been a sad week. Kim has gone back to uni and we already miss her. We’ve started a countdown until she returns at Christmas...

These rambling make is sound like we don’t do much but sit around laughing and lamenting the absence of our friend. I assure you we’re hard at work ALL the time... see, even after a long day at work we sit around the table to sew patches onto leather jackets, which is actually quite hard! (This is where the spider and sticky tape came in...yikes! That sounds like the spider met a sticky end, but I assure you he is still alive and well).

I bent my big sturdy needle and Rachel wore a hole in her nail pushing the needle into the leather and Tracy got cramp in her thumb trying to grip the pull the needles through the tough leather. I can totally understand why leather and not satin is the choice for bikers... now there’s an image!

Sashages

We've been working furiously all week. Not only on the essentials of running a business, but also on the nice parts of working in a creative industry. At the end of October we will be wending our way across the country to play with the Gothic community at Halloween.

Once again we will be promoting the darker side of Silver Lining Sewing Rooms... Bride and Gloom, and showing off our dramatic and extravagant gothic wedding dresses. One of the new items on our stall this time will be our sashes, and boy have we had our tongues tied over this one!

I can only guess that we were thinking about dinner when we named these stunning adornments, but since the first cut of the fabric of the very first incarnations of these creations we have all been tripping over the letters in this seemingly simple word… sash and spurting out all manner of adaptations with Sashages being the only version able to leave our lips with any frequency!

I’m not quite sure that Sashages is the best description of these beautiful embellishments but it definitely makes us all smile and so it’s likely to stick. Try not to think meaty product prepared by a butcher and think more of sumptuous silk, taffeta or satin sash crafted by bewitching seamstresses in a plethora of dazzling colours.

I just love the way these Sashages hang and can transform any outfit into the most amazing and elegant affair.

There are several sizes to choose from; delicate and dainty to all out brazen bustle.

Originally designed to decorate some bridesmaid dresses and adapted to be worn over corsets these additions to your wardrobe can be worn with anything. Wear them around your waist or hips, or just under your bust to create an empire line… and if you absolutely must around your head in a Rambo styli as Rachel insisted on modelling for us (and I actually have to admit that it didn’t look half bad :))

Don’t tell Rachel, but I already have my eye on several fabrics to make a whole rainbow of Sashages for myself.

What about the 7 deadly sins?

That’s the first thing people have asked me after reading the previous blog – and I am kicking myself over how I could have missed that.

You hear stories about bridezillas that want the moon on a stick and wreak havoc if they don’t get what they want and it’s easy to see how the 7 deadly sins apply in those cases, but we haven’t had experience of that.

It’s only natural that a bride-to-be will be filled with ideas and enthusiastic about what their wedding will become, and true, we have seen tears… but these have been from a mother gazing at her beautiful grown up daughter or a bride-to-be smiling on her adorable flower girl. And that’s the way it should be.

More often than not the studio is filled with laughter as the wedding party try on their garments, and none more so than Lesli and Jane:

(Sorry for the poor picture quality!)

Now if I ever were to venture out from the sewing room into the studio it would have been for them. The laughter that filtered through into the workroom was infectious and more often than not I felt like I was missing out on something. Every step of designing and making their bridesmaids dresses was a delight.

Thanks ladies