A maker's wardrobe: embroidering a vintage tweed waist coat

This week I'm talking about a waist coat I bought at a Philips auction house in Edinburgh when I was 15 or 16 — for less than a pound, from a sale that included Balenciagas and Chanels. It sat in my mum's attic for decades. When I finally got it back, I covered it in embroidery inspired by Romanian and Bulgarian folk dress, using leftover wools and threads I'd dyed myself from the garden. Along the way, I got thinking about what it actually means to love handcrafted things — the real economics of embroidered clothing, what we're actually paying for (and what we're not), and why making something yourself changes how you treat it. If you love decorative, layered, heavily handworked things — and you've ever wondered whether it's worth the time — this one's for you.