Friday 26 September 2014

Hemingway Design fabrics…and a chance encounter

Somebody recently tweeted a link to the new Hemingway Design fabrics and I was immediately smitten. If you're not familiar with the Hemingways, they're a UK husband and wife design team (Wayne and Gerardine) who started out with a stall on Camden market in the 1980's, before creating fashion label Red or Dead (from which I bought a wonderful pair of brogues, long, long ago). Since then they've designed more or less everything - wallpaper, furniture, haberdashery - organised many a Vintage Festival, and managed to pick up a couple of MBE's along the way too. They've now added a mid-century inspired textiles collection to the mix and I just LOVE it - here's a small selection of the designs:


Yellow Tulip

Emerald Texture

Brick Knotted Up

Duck Egg Grid

The first one is my favourite as it manages to combine tulips, crosshatch and yellow all in one go. The last one is probably the one I'll buy though…. I've already got visions of a shirtdress.  

Now to the chance encounter in the title of this post…. another event that Wayne Hemingway organises is the Classic Car Boot Sale which took place last weekend at the Olympic Park. My boys were keen to try out the Olympic pool and I like nothing better than mooching around a car boot sale, so off we set for virtually the entire length of the Central Line. Just as we approached central London, a man got on the tube with a dog. Charlie is a bit nervous around dogs, so whilst I was reassuring him of its friendliness, the man started chatting to us. "Is that Wayne Hemingway?" Jon murmured out of the side of his mouth. "YES!" I replied, just slightly over excited! The man (let's call him Wayne) asked where we were off to. We mentioned the Classic Car Boot Sale and then got chatting about lots of things: his new fabrics (naturally), 'Oh, You Pretty Things' on BBC4,  dressmaking in general, the importance of UK production (his fabrics are manufactured by British textiles company Makower), dogs, Northern Soul, and because we're all British - the weather. His dog - a Springer Spaniel/Labrador cross - was the loveliest, most gentle dog I've ever come across and Mr Hemingway himself as friendly and charming as I'd always imagined him.  He's also from Lancashire so I may be a bit biased!

You can see more of the Hemingway Design Fabrics here and here. And no, I'm nothing to do with his company, I just happen to like the fabrics.

You never know who you might meet on the tube eh?! x




20 comments:

  1. What day did you go? I was there on the Saturday!

    Amazing that you bumped into him, though!

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    1. Aw I was there on Saturday too! I was there late morning/lunchtime, it was raining but that didn't stop me! Shame I didn't bump into you too! x

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  2. And just think if your lil boy didn't mind dogs you probably wouldn't have noticed him! Three cheers for Charlie!
    Frankie
    Www.knitwits-owls.blogspot.co.uk

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    1. Oh I'd have noticed him, I knew exactly who he was as soon as he got on the tube! The dog bit helped though, thanks to Charlie! x

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  3. OOh exciting or what....I am a huge fan of the red or dead style! and these new fabrics are the icing on the cake!
    Daisy j x

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  4. Oh WOW, that's wonderful! Thank you so much Tracy. I'll send you an email today, really excited now! x

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  5. Oh what a fun encounter, and love the new fabrics too.
    Happy weekend,
    xx

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  6. That's so serendipitous! I love those fabrics too but would probably choose the last one first and the first one second, if that makes sense!

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    1. I'd choose them that way round too if I was braver at wearing yellow! x

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  7. How is that for education? I did not know Makower were a British company. I am pleased as I am using some of their fabrics at the moment to make Christmas gifts. I assumed they were American.
    Wayne gave an inspirational talk at my son's graduation (all mature students) a couple of years ago. He admired my son's suit (somewhat different from his fellow students)
    What a lucky girl you are being offered some of the fabric by Tracey. If you have any scraps left over I would love them for my patchwork ;0)
    Hugs

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    1. I am VERY lucky! Of course I'll pass on any scraps for patchwork, I never know what to do with them anyway! x

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    2. Thank you.
      I am looking forward to seeing what you are going to make.
      Hugs

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  8. I didn't know about this fabric, so thanks for the info! I love the last two fabrics, and agree that the bottom one would make a great shirtdress. And yey to meeting Wayne on the tube!

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  9. I was working at the Vintage by the Sea event organised by the Hemmingways a few weeks ago. I admit I was rather star struck when I saw Wayne, and I wasn't at all brave enough to speak to him.

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    1. I definitely wouldn't have been brave enough normally - the dog was the ice breaker! x

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