All Stitched Up: Late Night at the Victoria and Albert Museum

There’s Night at the Museum, and then there’s Night at the V&A. The Victoria and Albert Museum is known for its spectacular mish-mash of collections, and at night it’s no different. Each month the museum throws a themed Friday night party, full of music, wacky activities and drinks, and this time it was all about quilts.

Grand beginnings for a gigantic patchwork piece of art. Photo Credit: Quentin Leboucher

Not the most thrilling theme, you might think. But the creative team of Tea and Make managed to make the event, appropriately titled Stitched Up, a colourful success.

Set to a soundtrack of ’40s jazz standards and folk music from Finders Keepers Records, the evening’s war-era ‘stitch surgery’ featured activities for all kinds. Dreamers could write down their wishes and send them off in tiny paper boats; those unafraid of needles could make patchwork pieces, brooches and pincushions; the competitive types could race one another on sewing machines; the eccentric could create paper monsters to defend the city of London; and the hungry could devour all the cake. And everyone, old and young alike, could swing to likes of Frank Sinatra and Henry Mancini in the grand foyer. The museum was packed till closing time, at which point the night’s amateur seamstresses pocketed their creations and saved some fabric scraps for later, leaving the V&A to become a normal museum again—until next time.

Stitched Up: Late Night at the V&A was on 30 April. The next late night event, Dress Sense, will be on 28 May from 6:30 to 10 pm.