Making a purse (out of a sow's ear?)

In search of creativity and inspiration beyond our everyday lives, Cuttings on a Blog and I went to the Zandra Rhodes Fashion and Textile Museum for a sewing workshop.

The FTM is a wonderful bright orange edifice in Bermondsey Street, standing out against the Georgian relics and Manhattan style loft apartments carved out of Dickensian warehouses - something like a cyber-adobe casa, cheerful and defiant against the blustery November skies.

Currently showing: 'Foale and Tuffin, Made in England', a celebration of the independent early sixties fashion house. From geometric zippered shift dresses to bumpkin-inspired smocks, the clothes are joyfully redolent of an era of freedom, Swinging London, Twiggy haircuts and leggy young women jumping in and out of Mini Coopers. 

The workshop was rather chaotic but fun: my frame purse was, as ever with these things, not as perfectly crafted as in my imagination but the whole exercise was very satisfying and nourishing.  The sense of being caught up in creative flow - oblivious to anything except the methodical, attention-demanding task in hand - is quite delicious after a hectic week of work.

Wikipedia paraphrases Csíkszentmihályi's positive psychology theory of flow as "focused motivation ... single-minded immersion ... [oneself] aligned with the task at hand" - very much the effect that knitting, gardening, reading and crafting have on me!