Gemma Daly (00:10)
Helen, welcome to the Sewing Social podcast. I'm so happy to have you on today.

Helen (00:15)
Thanks for having me.

Gemma Daly (00:16)
You're welcome. I was

Gemma Daly (00:17)
wondering if you could introduce yourself to the listeners.

Helen (00:21)
Yes, so I'm Helen Shine. I'm a pattern cutter by trade.

Helen (00:25)
and I spent around 10 years in the fashion industry working as a pattern cutter for some big names like Victoria Beckham and Karen Millen and Vivienne Westwood. There's more but I can't think off the top of my head. And then around eight years ago me and my partner moved down to Cornwall and that's when I started dot and cross like rock and roll with the end.

Helen (00:54)
And since then I've been running sewing and pattern cutting workshops in Cornwall and Retreats.

Gemma Daly (01:02)
Amazing and we are going to go into all of that lovely stuff today. But for anyone who hasn't come across dot and cross before, can you tell us a bit about how you started sewing?

Helen (01:13)
Yes, actually, in the sort of run up to coming on your podcast today, it was actually really nice to go back and sort of think about it all. So I've sewn for as long as I can remember. There was always a sewing machine at home and I was basically, I know a lot of people said that grandparents or parents taught them, but I was sort of just left to...

Helen (01:37)
play and get on with it. I'm sure I must have been taught the basics of using a machine, but in terms of making garments I just sort of did it and sort of made up, you know, a sort of way of doing it. So it's sort of so interesting, it's like I've always been a pattern cutter.

Helen (01:57)
even though I didn't know that, you know, that's what I was doing. did have some sewing patterns that I, you know, I went and bought from the shop. But what I liked doing was the whole thing. So making the pattern from scratch and yeah, I guess like working out the whole thing myself

Helen (02:15)
it's just been nice to think back. But I do have a lot of creativity in the family. One of my grandmothers was a milliner by trade and the other was an incredible knitter.

Gemma Daly (02:24)
wow.

Helen (02:29)
But of course they all made their own garments back then anyway, so they could all make clothes as well. My mum's an amazing knitter. And then going further back, all of my family were tailors, so maybe it's just in the blood.

Gemma Daly (02:41)
It's in the blood, that's for sure.

Gemma Daly (02:44)
So do you think that sort of interest and creativity then led you on to study fashion design?

Helen (02:52)
yeah, absolutely. I did like GCSE textiles and a level textiles. And yeah, just always loved it always loved just playing around on a mannequin and sort of making things up as I was going along. I think there's something really interesting about being I don't know if like, you know, 16 or 18 year old as a child, but like sort of

Helen (03:11)
been completely fearless and having no preconceptions on what something should be and just

Helen (03:17)
playing and experimenting and developing. For my end of year textiles A-level project we were all making our own prom dresses that we were all going to wear to the prom. Everyone else made things from a pattern and I had this idea that I was going to make this spiral dress I don't know if I bought the pattern but it was like a very

Helen (03:40)
simple like close fitting dress I made this toile I can picture it now and basically I made it the toile to fit me must have got my mom to pin it in and then like sort of amend the pattern and then I basically drew like spiral lines all around it

Helen (03:55)
And then I cut it all up and then eliminated all the side seams and sort of there was still the dart shaping in it. But, you know, it was dart manipulation, but I didn't know what dart manipulation was. I was just doing it. And yeah, I made it out of this like red silk and had these spirals and then I put like a fishtail in it. It was like, you know, even thinking now it was like, it was so amazing. Yeah, like I'm so proud of it still.

Gemma Daly (04:04)
Yeah

Gemma Daly (04:16)
That is awesome. Yeah,

Gemma Daly (04:20)
absolutely. And I think you're right. Like when you are younger, there's nothing to lose, is there? And I don't know why we get that as we get older. Why can't we just keep that, you know, creativity going? Yeah. That's true.

Helen (04:27)
Yeah.

Helen (04:30)
Mm.

Helen (04:34)
Yeah, because time, there's no time when your older life sort

Helen (04:39)
of catches up and you've got to do the washing up and the, I don't know, put the kids to bed and all this kind of was going to say about going to university after.

Gemma Daly (04:42)
That is true. Yeah.

Helen (04:48)
studying A levels and I think one of the really interesting things is I was tossing up between doing maths and doing fashion and I think that like sums up perfectly about being a pattern cutter that it's that marriage between sort of being quite precise, you don't have to be good at maths but yeah quite liking measurements and

Gemma Daly (04:55)
Wow.

Helen (05:08)
and getting things quite precise, but then on the flip side, being creative and being able to experiment and develop your ideas and not sort of get too hung up on it if the first thing doesn't work, because it's...

Helen (05:21)
process. yeah, I went to university, I did choose fashion. I went to Leeds University and I did my undergraduate in fashion design, pretty much because I don't think I really knew that pattern cutting was a job at the time. And also, I don't think there were any specialist pattern courses at the time for BA. But then after that, I did a postgraduate

Gemma Daly (05:24)
Hehehehe

Helen (05:45)
innovative pattern cutting it was called at Central St Martin's basically like the best fashion school for designers in London but it was pretty good for pattern cutting as well and I always say I learned more in my first week there about pattern cutting than I did on three years at uni because it was so specialist and basically brought in a specialist industry pattern cutter each week to teach us

Gemma Daly (06:00)
Wow.

Helen (06:10)
their specialist subject within pattern cutting. So we learnt from some of the best people. was amazing.

Gemma Daly (06:17)
That sounds incredible.

Gemma Daly (06:18)
You said you went into the fashion industry and you worked with some incredible brands. Tell us about your time with them. Have you got any stories that you remember?

Helen (06:23)
Yeah.

Helen (06:28)
Yeah, a lot. So my first sort of entrance into the fashion industry was I did an industry year, so it was the third year of uni you would go out into industry. And I worked for a very new small designer called Amy McWilliams.

Helen (06:47)
It was literally one room and like her and then some interns. was very small. And then I went to Vivian Westwood's for six months after that. it's literally any fashion students absolute dream to be there. And I, you know, and the sort of role as an intern there was mostly

Gemma Daly (06:57)
Yeah.

Helen (07:07)
tracing off patterns, they were all done by hand. So tracing them off so that they could be posted to the factory and want you know, didn't get lost.

Helen (07:14)
and cutting, like cutting for the samples that were going to be made. So yeah, I was amongst the patterns that these incredible pattern makers were making all day, every day for six months. And it was sort of like we were given so much time to trace them because they wanted them done so, perfectly, obviously, you know, that we could really see how things went together and how they would, because so much of it was draped, so they would

Helen (07:40)
highlight this thing and you'd have to see like this bit would go over to that bit and it would be on another pattern piece that was like three meters long and then this bit would go there and just even just working them out took like I don't know a long time. But it really showed me what patterns could be. I think at uni at that time I hadn't really done

Gemma Daly (07:44)
Wow.

Helen (07:59)
much if any draping. think they were only teaching us flat pattern cutting. So then of course, when I went back for my final year, like my whole final collection was draped because I didn't know you could do this. and then after that, so I then went back to uni for one more year and then my first sort foray into the

Helen (08:22)
proper industry and I worked, I think I was at Peter Pelotto for one season and then I went to Victoria Beckham and I was there for about three the company had only started a couple of years ago so it was still pretty small, like we were all of in it together, wasn't a massive team really.

Helen (08:39)
And that is at the time Victoria was living in America. So she would sort of fly in For one week, every month. And we'd have to sort of do all the meets, like all of the different teams would have one day of her time to do the meetings. And we'd sort of try and go through everything. And then she'd be gone for another three weeks and we'd have, we'd do all the development work and then we'd have another like day long fitting with her.

Helen (08:59)
was also thinking about this the other day when I was thinking of it that it was so funny because like we were all I was maybe I don't know what I must have been like 23 or 24 at that time and like everyone that was on my level were obviously massive Spice Girls fans in the day because we were all like the exact right age so it was just

Gemma Daly (09:14)
You

Helen (09:19)
I mean, it's like a pinch me thing that you're working for a spice girl. I'm actually mad. And I always say about Victoria that, you know, people ask, yeah, does she design? she this? Does she that? Like, no, no one thinks she's sitting there sketching. Of course she can't do that. But she's been wearing designer clothes since she was 17 or 18. Like she knows what she likes. She knows what designer clothes should.

Gemma Daly (09:33)
you

Helen (09:43)
feel like and how they should be finished and she's her customer and if she likes it and it's to her taste the people that like Victoria Beckham brand will also love it and so think yeah hats off to her she knows what she's doing and she's doing it really well yeah

Gemma Daly (09:49)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (10:02)
Absolutely, well it sounds like an exciting time.

Gemma Daly (10:07)
So after

Gemma Daly (10:09)
you said about sort of 10 years roughly in the fashion industry, you decided to sort of change direction and you started teaching, is that right?

Helen (10:18)
Yeah, basically after Victoria Beckham, I went to Karen Millen for a few years, which was amazing. I loved it there. And then me and my partner went traveling for two years. We literally went around the world. We got back to London and all of our friends had left, of course. And we, you know, we turned 30 out there and sort of

Helen (10:38)
You know, people were starting to settle down, have kids and move out of the city basically. And we then had to make this decision. Do we stay and, you know, make new friends or do we go and try somewhere else? So we, did live back in London for a year and a half, which is when I worked for Mary Katronsu. And I'm so glad I got to work there because it, it was the best place I've ever worked. It was so creative. Some of the things we made were utterly...

Helen (11:08)
ridiculous and out there and bonkers. Like we put wooden dowel in things like we put there were garments that I made that had three different types of boning because it needed so much structure. But then the one that was really strong was really heavy. So then we had to use lesser ones in other bits. It was it was amazing. And Mary would basically make the

Gemma Daly (11:08)
You

Helen (11:30)
final decisions on the collection maybe like a week before the show and then everything had to get made it was just like what are we doing? But it's so creatively fulfilling and I loved it completely. and then we made the decision to move and basically we chose Falmouth in Cornwall because my partner studied here.

Helen (11:51)
He always wanted to move back. He's a surfer. That's just the surfboard. And yeah, we sort of didn't know where to go. And we'd always come to Cornwall like a lot while we lived in London, we would literally razz it down on a Friday night, put up our tent in pitch black and then have a weekend at the beach and then go back on Sunday night. So yeah, we just thought why not? And we'd try it. We thought we'd try it for a year or so.

Gemma Daly (11:55)
Yeah.

Helen (12:17)
We're both freelance, we're both self-employed, so we sort of thought let's give it a go and if it works then we'll stay and if it doesn't we'll come back to London with our tail between our legs.

Gemma Daly (12:29)
So yeah, did you set up your studio straight away after you'd moved back to Falmouth?

Helen (12:37)
I spent the first maybe six months so we moved back in we moved in January 2019 and I think I spent the first six months basically writing all my courses was doing some group classes some one-to-one classes but like

Helen (12:54)
not that many, I hadn't really got much of a name for myself, but I spent, I sort of gave myself six months to basically write all my course materials. And I don't know if I mentioned, but my partner's graphic designer, it's extremely handy for, he then makes them all look pretty. so I sort of took my time doing that. And then I was doing some group classes, and then COVID must have happened. So then,

Gemma Daly (13:17)
Mmm.

Helen (13:19)
And I was pregnant by then. yeah, then I just basically stayed in the house for six months or however long it was. But what was good is that in December, 2019, we'd driven a van to London to buy digitizer and a plotter.

Gemma Daly (13:25)
Yeah, yeah.

Gemma Daly (13:39)
Hmm.

Helen (13:39)
And

Helen (13:39)
those work with the CAD pattern cutting system called Gerber, which I learned at Karen Millen and I now use most of the time.

Helen (13:48)
basically it's a computer program, but you then need a digitizer, which is a massive whiteboard that if you're draping something, you can then basically put it on and scan it in basically so that that pattern piece is then in the computer system. And then the plotter is this huge printer that can print the patterns out on full scale.

Gemma Daly (14:09)
wow.

Helen (14:09)
So what that

Helen (14:10)
meant was, is that I was a pattern cutter with my own studio, with all of that software and hardware, so I could work from home. Whereas most other pattern cutters in the industry, everyone in London, they wouldn't have that set up because you would go and work in house. So for a sort of year or two, I actually had a lot of freelance work because I was one of the only pattern cutters that had that set up at home.

Helen (14:35)
which was just by sheer luck that in December I'd gone and bought it off of eBay with no idea whether it would work or not. I know, yeah, I did well.

Gemma Daly (14:41)
That's amazing. Yeah, what a move. Yeah, you did. So now you obviously run

Gemma Daly (14:52)
Dot and Cross and it's really well established. Can you tell us a bit about the business and the workshops that you're running currently?

Helen (15:00)
Yeah, so I'm based in Falmouth in Cornwall and I run workshops in quite a few different venues in Cornwall. Over the years, I've sort of realized that I need to go to people rather than expecting them to come to one venue. So I sort of go an hour one way and an hour the other way and then I do them.

Gemma Daly (15:15)
Hmm.

Helen (15:20)
you know where where I am as well and I run group workshops pretty regularly like two to four times a month maybe more it really depends on the month I run one-to-one workshops from my studio at home I've got a studio set up in the garden you know garden room type thing and

Gemma Daly (15:29)
Mm-hmm.

Helen (15:40)
I also, I'm a guest lecturer at Falmouth University. They have a fashion course. So I go there a couple of times a year. And I think what I'm sort of known for is obviously my pattern-cutting workshops. It's pretty niche. But yeah, having someone that's worked in the industry work on your patterns with you is quite...

Helen (16:02)
That was quite fun.

Gemma Daly (16:03)
Yeah, absolutely. I think people

Gemma Daly (16:06)
do want to learn that skill more and more these days though. Are you finding that?

Helen (16:11)
think people sort of come into home sewing because they're having problems finding things that are fitting on the high street. So they start making their own clothes and they realize they're hitting the same problems because unless you're sort of a standard size like your bust, waist and hip are the same size on the pattern envelope, you know, then you then you sort of run into the same

Helen (16:30)
issues potentially. So yeah, a lot of my most popular workshops, I do a four week dress block course and a four week trouser block course where people come for three hours each week to develop their own unique block.

Helen (16:48)
And those ones are always really popular. They're always done by people that have been sewing for a little while that want to start understanding pattern drafting and fit a bit better. So yeah, those are some of my most popular ones. I do them maybe two or three times a year. Like I said, it's quite a niche thing. And in Cornwall, you just sort of...

Helen (17:12)
You don't really have the audience that you have if you were in London or in Bristol, you know, two or three sides of Cornwall is surrounded by sea. So there's not, you know, people that can come in from other...

Gemma Daly (17:16)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (17:23)
You mean, you mean people don't sail there?

Helen (17:27)
Do you know, in September I have got someone coming from Jersey to do a full week one-to-one class with me and she was going to sail here so maybe I will have someone to arrive by boat, yeah. And I do sometimes have people arrive by ferry from Flushing, they yeah, they take the ferry to come one-to-one with me so yeah.

Gemma Daly (17:29)
gosh.

Gemma Daly (17:33)
Amazing!

Gemma Daly (17:40)
It's not that silly you see!

Gemma Daly (17:51)
Awesome! Awesome!

Gemma Daly (17:55)
So you mentioned that you run retreats as well, which sound amazing, and if they're in Cornwall the the scenery is going to be stunning. But talk us through what people can expect on the retreats.

Helen (17:55)
Mm.

Helen (18:04)
Hmm.

Helen (18:08)
Yeah, thank you. So my retreats are new for this year I'm focusing on pattern cutting and fitting because I know there's loads of amazing sewing retreats that are already out there. So I'm sort of trying to something a bit different by really focusing on pattern cutting.

Helen (18:29)
When I was sort of planning these I my main sort of thought was what would I? Want there to be if I was coming on a retreat so it needed to be in a really really gorgeous location So I've got I've managed to hire house in Prussia Cove. It's called porthin ales, and it's this incredible that is right

Helen (18:53)
literally right by the sea. It's got its own beach literally just a couple of steps down. Most of the bedrooms have these like stunning views of the sea and we've got this big studio room basically that's going to be set up for the whole time that you can go in whenever inspiration strikes in the know in the middle of the night or whenever you like.

Gemma Daly (18:58)
Bye.

Gemma Daly (19:14)
You

Helen (19:16)
What I'll be teaching varies on the different retreats, but the first one I've got, which is in November, is a clone your clothes or copy your clothes.

Helen (19:27)
retreat. So you'll bring along a favorite garment and in the first day we will trace the pattern from it. And this is one of my most popular classes that I do anyway. I've been teaching this for seven or eight years. I know all the tricks of the trade. And I basically teach you from scratch. we start with the

Helen (19:47)
the basic technique and then we get harder as the day goes on. So we start with a piece that you can get completely flat because that's the easiest piece to trace. And then I'll teach you how to trace a piece that's got a dart in it or a piece that's got pleats or gathers in it or a piece that you can't get flat all in one go like a sleeve or the back of a pair of trousers that you have to do in

Helen (20:10)
two goes. So that's the first day, but I'm sort of saying that people can bring things that are a little more complex than I would advise them to bring on the one day workshop that I do. So that might run into the second day. But the idea on the second and third day is that we will then sew the garment up together and I'll sort of.

Gemma Daly (20:11)
Hmm.

Helen (20:32)
teach you how to sort of read the original garment to see how they've constructed it, to work out the order of construction because the big thing is that if you make your own pattern it doesn't come with an instruction booklet. You've got to work that out yourself. So yeah, I'll be teaching people how to work that out.

Gemma Daly (20:45)
Yeah.

Helen (20:51)
Yeah, and hopefully by the end you go away with this garment that you know, your favorite garment that you've managed to remake. And you also have the pattern that you can use again and the instructions that you've sort of made yourself and that, yeah, all that knowledge that comes with it.

Gemma Daly (21:05)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (21:08)
Sounds really interesting. And are you planning to run those several times a year or what's the plan going forward?

Helen (21:17)
The plan is I think three a year. So I've got two of the one I just told you about. I've got two of those which have both sold out already. And then I've got one other which is in February, 2027, which is the dress block one. So the one before was three days, four nights stay, three days tuition.

Helen (21:39)
The dress block one is four days of tuition and a five nights day. So that one's a little bit longer and I'm going really in depth with this one.

Helen (21:49)
So the first two days we will make your dress block and make all the amendments and put those onto the paper pattern so you've got your unique dress block to take home. Then on the third day I will be teaching you an introduction the basics of pattern cutting and we do that on half scale so we can make quick

Helen (22:08)
mock-ups and trials of different things. So I'll be teaching you dart manipulation, how to add fullness, how to add seams, including sort of dart shaping or just any seam that you like for a different design.

Helen (22:25)
necklines, there's lots of different things, basically as much as we can get through in that day. And then on the fourth day, what's really, really exciting is that you will have a design, sketch or something that we've sort of developed using your dress block that we made on day one and two and using the skills we learned on day three, you will make your own pattern to your own design that

Helen (22:51)
will fit because we've used your own unique dress block. So you will go home with that pattern, you'll need to sew it up at home.

Helen (23:01)
Unless you, I don't know, sew it up that night. But yeah, that's what I'll be covering in those four days. And the amount of tuition, there'll probably be definitely 10 to four. And I'll see if people are lagging by four, but I could, I can carry on till five if you need. Yeah. So those are the two different retreats I've got.

Gemma Daly (23:13)
You

Helen (23:20)
already sort of booking now and then in the pipeline I've got lots of lots more ideas for other things but yeah I think I'll probably do about three or four a year and yeah they'll all be at well I say that I think that they'll all be at pressure Cove because it's the the dream venue and I've got

Helen (23:35)
a professional chef coming to do all of our meals and all the washing up and I've got a masseuse coming that will give everyone a massage if they would like one there's a sauna on the site and you can just jump in to see whenever you want it's just gonna be dreamy I can't wait

Gemma Daly (23:39)
Hahaha

Gemma Daly (23:45)
Wow.

Gemma Daly (23:52)
Yeah, it definitely sounds dreamy. my goodness. And I will put all of those details in the show notes if anybody wants to book on. And if that wasn't enough, you also do one-to-one wedding dress pattern cutting classes as well, don't you? Yeah.

Helen (24:02)
Thank you.

Helen (24:10)
Yes. So

Helen (24:11)
this is also pretty new. It sort of took off this year as well. Yeah, the idea is that you come to my studio in Falmouth for three full days, six hours of tuition each day for three days. And sort of prior to you coming, we will have had phone calls where we've your dream design.

Helen (24:31)
fabrics, how good you are at sewing because you're the one that has to sew it up. So that's got to be a factor. How you want the construction to be inside. Do you want to course it or do you want something a bit more flowing? We sort of discussed everything beforehand in a couple of phone calls so that when you come to me, we've got a sketch that we're sort of pretty confident with that we want to try and...

Helen (24:57)
work through and we know the kind of fabrics that we want so I'll have got in twirling fabrics that will be similar to the final fabric that's really important and then yeah the way it works is that probably on the first day we make a bodice block to fit you and we twirl it up, fit it, put the amendments back on the paper pattern and then we start work on

Helen (25:22)
doing the actual pattern cutting, so creating all the pieces for your individual design. That might take probably the first day, maybe a bit of the second day. Then we sew it up. And because there's two of us cutting and sewing, the twirl comes together quite quickly actually. Then we fit you know, discuss.

Helen (25:41)
every single part of it, what we like, what we don't like, what we're going to change, what proportions are working, if seam lines should move, if the fit is right, if the silhouette is right. So we really dissect it and then we do all the amendments, put them back on the paper pattern and that's the sort of point that I...

Helen (26:01)
I really want everyone to get to, but it might be that we then have time to really quickly make another twirl after that, but usually not. sort of fit the bodice and then make pattern and the twirl for the dress and then fit that and do the amendments on the paper pattern. That's like the stage that we get to. So yeah. I mean, it just means that people that...

Gemma Daly (26:19)
Yeah it sounds really exciting!

Helen (26:24)
want to make their own wedding dress but don't feel confident in either fitting side of it or if they're kind of confident in that and the sewing but they can't find a pattern that you know is their dream design it means that we can literally make whatever we want and I love a challenge so the wilder the better

Gemma Daly (26:43)
sounds amazing and I don't think I've

Gemma Daly (26:45)
seen that service anywhere else.

Helen (26:48)
Yeah, I don't think so. think, I think it's pretty unique.

Gemma Daly (26:51)
Well that's great that you're offering something that isn't, you know, it's not widely out there but you hear of so many people wanting to make their own wedding dresses so sounds really great.

Helen (26:52)
Yeah.

Helen (26:56)
Yeah!

Helen (27:02)
And I think most of the time what you just need is a fitting buddy. You need someone that knows what they're doing to fit it properly on you. And that then knows how to transfer those amendments onto a paper pattern. And so, yeah, that's what I am. I'm your fitting buddy. But also I've got, yeah, all of those years of experience.

Gemma Daly (27:06)
Mmm.

Helen (27:24)
in the industry which means I can work fast we can get a lot done I'm speedy you've got to be my gosh when it's like one in the morning and they want the dress the next day you've you've got to be

Gemma Daly (27:28)
Mmm, not only does she know a lot, she's speedy!

Gemma Daly (27:38)
my word.

Gemma Daly (27:42)
So just sort of recapping on your time in the fashion industry, I'd love to get to know your thoughts on fast fashion and why you think maybe people should repair their clothes or make their own.

Helen (27:56)
Yeah, it's something, because I've always worked in the sort of high end part of the industry, I've sort of not really seen firsthand, you know, like that sort of speed and the way those factories work and what sort of, that, you know, that treadmill.

Gemma Daly (28:08)
Mm.

Helen (28:14)
But it can't be a good thing. It can't be a good thing that we are... is, say like we, but I don't know anyone that buys like, you know, 10 new things a month and then just chucks them away after one wash. But I know that that is, I know that there are people out there that do that. But yeah, it can't be a good thing to use the Earth's resources like that.

Gemma Daly (28:21)
Yeah.

Helen (28:37)
It can't be good thing that we're making everything out of plastic. And it can't be good that, what is it that there's on the planet, there's now enough clothes to clothe the next six generations of people. I mean, it's just bonkers. even you think back a generation or two, like our grandparents age, it's just exploded since then in the last sort of.

Gemma Daly (28:49)
That's crazy.

Gemma Daly (28:59)
Yeah.

Helen (28:59)
I

Helen (29:00)
don't know, 30, 40 years. And I sort of see it also from...

Helen (29:04)
don't know how to say this, but a lot of the people that I learned from in industry, they weren't originally working as sample makers, which is what we did the sort of high end studios. You're making samples that then get eventually made by factories. They were people that did originally work in factories in the UK. So like some of the cutters that are...

Helen (29:26)
not necessarily pattern cutters, but actual just cutters, like the people that cut the fabric, all worked in factories and sort of hearing from them how the sort of demise of the industry in the UK and then all of the skills being lost, it's just a real shame. But I just think it's sort of endemic in every...

Helen (29:48)
part of our lives now. Everything is throw away. Everything is for convenience and nothing is built to last. And it's just really, it's just really sad. There's a lot of rubbish out there.

Gemma Daly (29:52)
Mm-hmm.

Gemma Daly (30:00)
It is sad, but I feel like there's hope. There's hope on the horizon because people, well, some people are starting to see the point of making things with your hands, the use of it, the enjoyment of it, and that you can make it to last. There will hopefully be a turning point or a tipping point, and hopefully it's not at the end. Hopefully it's sometime soon and we can change the course of things.

Helen (30:13)
Mm.

Helen (30:25)
Yay.

Helen (30:28)
Yeah, I can't remember if it was my textiles A-level teacher that said that everyone should be made to make their shirt and then everyone in society would know everything that you buy is handmade.

Gemma Daly (30:43)
Yeah.

Helen (30:43)
people

Helen (30:43)
sort of think it's like this robot and maybe one day it will be but everything is handmade someone is sitting at a machine doing that and it doesn't just happen like that you know to make something takes time and so many people are involved in that process and yeah if i think if everyone in society made a shirt you'd think that not many people would then think it was okay to buy one for 10 quid

Gemma Daly (30:46)
Yeah

Gemma Daly (31:03)
I know, and you'd

Gemma Daly (31:04)
see how much actually goes into it because that isn't... that's not simple, is it?

Helen (31:10)
No, no. Yeah, and in terms of mending, yeah, I'm all for it. There's this amazing group that meets up once a month in our town in Falmouth called Meat Make Mend.

Helen (31:23)
which is run by Laura from Threadpeg. So I think you interviewed before, but she runs that. And yeah, it's lovely. and actually it's really needed because if you're sat at home, you don't think, yeah, I'll just get my mending out. But everyone's got, you know, a stack of three or four things that need to be mended. So I just saved them up and I go there once a month and just smash through it basically. And it's just nice because you're chatting with people and you're drinking a cup of tea.

Gemma Daly (31:27)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (31:46)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (31:48)
That's it. sounds lovely. Yeah. Brilliant.

Helen (31:50)
she always makes a cake. So yeah, it's enjoyable. Yeah.

Gemma Daly (31:57)
So tell us about the most exciting project you've ever worked on.

Helen (32:02)
Ooh, it's probably a dress I made whilst I was working at Mary Katron Zoo. And it was for Cate Blanchett to wear to the Cannes Film Festival. I think it was in 2018, around that sort of time. And it was this corseted bodice and then this huge bubble skirt.

Helen (32:23)
And for people that don't know Mary Katronzu, she's really known for her engineered prints. So that is a way of making prints whereby it's almost seamless because the print designers use the pattern cutters pattern files and then build the print the paper pattern.

Helen (32:43)
which means that they can match the seams perfectly. So even if it's got seams running through the skirt, it looks seamless because the is engineered to just flow between the different pieces. So the idea behind the print was that it was this paint by numbers print. So half of the dress was black and white.

Helen (33:02)
outline with numbers on it and then the other half was coloured in and the whole thing was completely fully embroidered with these incredible beadwork.

Helen (33:13)
So yeah, we made the toile and we printed the fabric so that we could see what the print would look like, but obviously the toile wasn't embroidered. And then we literally had 15 minutes to fit it on Kate. And I just remember that Mary, the designer, was just keeping her talking and I was just madly putting in pins anywhere that I could sort of pinch anything out or sort of, yeah, anything that needed an ending.

Gemma Daly (33:24)
Wow.

Helen (33:37)
We took a few snaps and that was it. That was the time. And then I had to make the amendments and then that was it. was then the pieces were sent off to be embroidered and then we made it and then it had to, and then it went to her. We didn't get a second fitting.

Gemma Daly (33:49)
my gosh.

Helen (33:55)
But it was so amazing. And that was one of the, I think I mentioned earlier, one of the garments that had so many different layers inside it because it was such a heavy garment. So there were multiple different types of boning to hold this bubble skirt out. The whole thing was like stuffed with tulle to get this sort of rounded bubble. And we didn't know how much stuffing we'd sort of need. So I remember I came up with this idea of making this

Helen (34:24)
like this zip entrance like inside the sort of train of the skirt and invisible zip so that if it looked too flat when we'd finished making it we could actually unzip it and stuff more in so we ended up stuffing it and it was this yeah it was this beautiful garment I'd love people to go and have a look at it because it yeah it's definitely my proudest project that I've worked on

Gemma Daly (34:34)
you

Gemma Daly (34:46)
I've seen a picture of this dress and it looks absolutely stunning, but I've never heard of that technique the print matching, because like as sewists we all know it's quite tricky to match those prints. That's incredible.

Helen (34:50)
Thank you.

Helen (34:54)
Yay.

Helen (34:57)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, Mary's Mary's known for it and she sort of made a lot of it's called Trump Loi prints. So sort of these hyper realistic photographic prints. But the thing with it is, is that for every different size, once it's graded, you need to make a new print file.

Gemma Daly (35:05)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (35:18)
my word.

Helen (35:18)
because all the pieces

Helen (35:19)
are different sizes. So it is incredibly labor intensive to set up those artwork files.

Helen (35:26)
The printing there were incredible. yeah, you wouldn't be able to do it on the high street because it's just, there's just so much work that goes into it. And also the cutting of the actual fabric and the sewing by the seamstresses all has to be so precise so that it perfectly lines up. It's a real skill that the makers have.

Gemma Daly (35:34)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (35:50)
Yeah, sounds intense. Amazing. Wow. Fantastic.

Helen (35:53)
Yeah, yeah, and most of her pieces were like that, so.

Gemma Daly (36:00)
So do you have any exciting plans coming up for the business, Helen?

Helen (36:05)
think the retreats are the big thing. Yeah, that was big thing this year. I'm always trying to think of new workshops to run as well. And I am hoping to, now that my kids are a little bit older, to start trying to...

Gemma Daly (36:07)
That's enough to keep you going, yeah.

Helen (36:22)
venture out of Cornwall and go and teach at some other not too far away locations as well. So I am hoping to sort of start that up next year. Maybe do like a little tour. I think that could be quite fun. Yeah.

Gemma Daly (36:29)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (36:33)
Brilliant.

Gemma Daly (36:36)
Sounds good. Yeah.

Gemma Daly (36:38)
And I saw you at the Stitch Festival, didn't I, this year? Are you planning to go again or was that a one-off

Helen (36:42)
Yes.

Helen (36:45)
Yeah, I think I will. It was it was so fun. I've never talked as much in my life before. All day, every day just talking. I was just telling people about my retreats. It was so nice to meet people. I got so ideas just by chatting with people, you know, because you sort of have these ideas yourself. But then until you sort of

Gemma Daly (36:51)
You

Helen (37:08)
ask the real people that might be the potential customer. You sort of don't know if it's a good idea or not. You think it might be, but yeah, you want to ask them. And yeah, I knew that my first retreat was going to be the clone your clothes one. And I knew that I wanted to do the dress block one, but I didn't know if people would.

Helen (37:27)
be interested if it would be a bit too technical and everyone there was like, yes, do it. We definitely want to come on that. So yeah, I put another date on to Stitch. Yeah, it was fun and it was just fun to be back in London as well. Yeah, loved it. I think I will go next year.

Gemma Daly (37:40)
Amazing.

Gemma Daly (37:45)
Yeah?

Gemma Daly (37:47)
Oh brilliant. So just to tie up the interview Helen, I like to do a little game of this or that. Is that okay with you? Okeydokey. Knits or wovens? I knew that was... yeah. Bold prints or classic planes?

Helen (37:55)
I'm ready.

Helen (38:00)
without a doubt.

Helen (38:05)
Plains.

Gemma Daly (38:07)
I'm on that train too, so yeah.

Helen (38:10)
Yeah, I think probably most pattern cutters would be because we want the sort of interesting, innovative pattern cutting and the seams and the way something is constructed to be sort of front and centre, I think. so prints can sometimes distract from that.

Gemma Daly (38:17)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (38:24)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (38:27)
Yeah, that's true. An organized studio or creative chaos.

Gemma Daly (38:33)
Let me guess.

Helen (38:34)
Well, I'm not in my studio now. Otherwise I'd show you. It

Helen (38:39)
is chaos, but that's how things happen. If you're there tidying up all the time, you're ruining your creative flow. I sort of give it all tidy like, I don't know, once a week, just sort of sweep it all up, get all the pins off the floor. But if I'm sewing, I just chuck everything on the floor because it's a hard floor and I can just sweep it up.

Gemma Daly (38:42)
That's... Yeah!

Gemma Daly (38:59)
Yeah, makes sense. Scissors or rotary cutter?

Helen (39:03)
scissors it was how I was taught. I use a rotary cutter for bias binding but scissors all the way.

Gemma Daly (39:10)
To your coffee.

Helen (39:11)
Cup of tea please!

Gemma Daly (39:14)
Spring, summer or autumn, winter?

Helen (39:17)
I know, maybe autumn winter for the clothes because then you can have more layering and you can have, I don't know, there's more fabric to make more interesting stuff. Some of you are shorter.

Gemma Daly (39:18)
You

Gemma Daly (39:28)
Yeah, good point. Sweet or savory.

Helen (39:34)
Sweet.

Gemma Daly (39:34)
One project on the go or multiple.

Helen (39:37)
I give this for myself, one project, but I've always got a million things on the go for clients.

Gemma Daly (39:39)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (39:42)
Yeah, fair play. And the last one, pre-wash or live dangerously? You don't! I'm trying to weedle out the people that live dangerously.

Helen (39:47)
pre-wash. You don't want that thing shrinking after you've spent all that time on it.

Helen (40:00)
That's not me.

Gemma Daly (40:02)
So where

Gemma Daly (40:02)
can people find you Helen?

Helen (40:04)
So my website is www.ncross.com which when I was making the name I didn't realize how hard it would be to say it but it's basically D T N C R O S

Gemma Daly (40:12)
Yeah.

Gemma Daly (40:20)
you're on Instagram, aren't you?

Helen (40:21)
I'm on Instagram. It's the same, but it's got dots in between it, which is even harder to say. it's dot, dot, dot, Stupid. All of these things you don't think about. But there we go. Yeah. So I'm on Instagram and yeah, that's the, that's where you'll usually find me. I have just signed up to the new social app.

Gemma Daly (40:31)
I will link it all. Yeah.

Gemma Daly (40:46)
Mmm.

Helen (40:47)
So can find me on there. And I didn't have the dots on there because I was able to get it without the dots. So that's a bit easier. so let's see how that app goes.

Gemma Daly (40:55)
Yeah, interesting.

Gemma Daly (40:58)
So lovely. I will link all of that in the show notes, but I just want to thank you for being an amazing guest on the Sewing Social podcast today.

Helen (41:01)
Thank you.

Helen (41:06)
you're very welcome. You know what I should just say, I don't know if I said this but I do do the one-to-one classes in my studio in Falmouth so if you're ever on holiday in Cornwall and there's not a group class listed on my website you can also book me for half a day or a day and come to my studio.

Gemma Daly (41:08)
you

Gemma Daly (41:16)
Mmm.

Gemma Daly (41:24)
Perfect. Thank

Gemma Daly (41:25)
you, Helen. You take care. Bye.

Helen (41:27)
Thanks, bye.