Category Archives: Goldwork

Launching My New Gold Work Book

Here’s my first dabble into publishing my own Gold Work designs. This is for you to learn the traditional techniques of Gold Work with my own unique brand of contemporary glamour. It cost £10 And there are 11 projects and several patterns for you to play within this compact A4 edition.  Published to give you access to my designs and to encourage you to explore and play around with traditional and everyday gold bling in a relaxed manner. The book is for all levels and I actively encourage you to change and add a little of yourself to each project you try.  For too long many have felt that they couldn’t attempt this glorious heritage embroidery skill. Now is the time to have a go and find out if it is your thing. If it is then you can move to other techniques, authors, further reading and more expensive materials knowing that you do indeed like Gold Work. You will also know whether you’re a traditional kinda embroiderer, a contemporary kinda embroiderer, or a bit of both.  Whichever you turn out to be is really irrelevant, as we need to push the boundaries and take our creativity into the future. I hope you enjoy using the book.  

You can find it in my online shop here.

Kathleen x

Goldwork flower

I have just finished my next project and it’s now ready to teach later next month. This project isn’t to complecated and is designed to get to grips with couching gold cord to an outline and how to apply padded and raised gold leather. Add a sprinkling of sequins and seed beads, along with some straight stitches and you get this modern flower window that could be mounted on a book front cover or used as a box lid. If you have never tried gold work before this is a good one to get you started

Gold work dragon workshop

It’s only taken me four weeks of working on this dragon every evening to get him finished for my upcoming work shop. I just love a bit of extra pressure in my life to get my samples done. When will I learn to start earlier.

Jasper the dragon has been a true creation from the outset and most if not all things I had planned in my head did not happen as planned. He sort of developed by trial and many errors, but hey I call that designing on the go and change as I need to as I work through it.
I have used traditional gold work techniques to work him and the background fabric had its colour added to the surface with a brayer roller applying acrylic paints. The paint does make it harder to push the needle through but it’s nice to be able to work on to a colour of your choice.
All I have to do now is take Jasper to the shop for the ladies to see and sign up to do him.
That’s another job jobbed. Now for the next sample.

Gold Work Poinsettia

I thought you might all like to see that I have at last finished my Gold work Christmas workshop. This piece has been on the go since early July and has been all the way to the other side of the world [New Zealand] and back again. “Did I do any sewing on it when I was in NZ”. That will be a big fat NO No because I was to busy teaching and enjoying myself meeting new people and travelling.
Never mind its finished now and today I delivered it over to Tudor rose patchwork shop for display and signing up to.
If you have never had a go at Gold work before, then you really should. It doesn’t have to be worked in traditional techniques. Today I use a lot of modern approaches such as the use of gold acyclic paint to give a smooth surface against the couched cords and purl pearl and I quite like to use leather as a free standing item and not always heavily padded with felt. Basically as long as I am using everything gold it is gold work and just to stop confusion I refer to my pieces as contemporary Gold work so I can then get away with MURDER 

Goldwork Beginnings

Morning 

Late night last night. I really got into my gold work Christmas project. Yes I know it’s only May but if you don’t start these things early it’ll be Christmas again before you know it . Lol
This is how far I have got. Still mases to do but at least it’s armchair ready to pick up and put down

Goldwork in Bishops Stortford

Spent a great day at the Rhodes Museum in Bishops Stortford yesterday teaching Gold work to a LOVLEY enthusiastic group of ladies. They were given a choice of designs to work and once decided they quickly settled down to marking the design on to their fabric and setting it into an embroidery hoop. The two main techniques taught were how to couch a twist or cord round the design and how to pad and apply raised leather work to specific areas with extra tips and ideas thrown in along our journey.
All ladies were excellent with some even drawing up and starting their own designs which I look forward to seeing in the future.

Gold work hummingbirds

After a really hectic day of clearing an overgrown garden ( not mine, my daughters) I found a spare hour to finish and stretch my gold work embroidery ready to be framed and displayed at the shop next week.
It’s been a real pleasure having this embroidery on the go in the evenings. It is predominately worked in satin stitch where I needed the hummingbirds to say blue/green, with couched gold cord. No padded gold leather on this piece which should please many of the students. They find the leather work hard going on heir fingers. As usual my signature painting in of areas using gold acrylic paint has snuck in giving another texture and tone to the gold being used to outline the design. The flowers have been worked in long stitches with variegated yellow/orange stranded floss with gold machine thread worked in-between each one.
I painted the background fabric with my watercolour paints to get a soft blue Hugh

Gold Work Snowflakes Workshop

Next Tuesday isn’t that far away now and I have a full class of lovely ladies eager to get started on their gold work snowflakes for this fast-approaching festive season.
Thanks to Sandra at Tudor Rose Patchwork shop I don’t need to worry as she has got all the goldwork supplies sorted and is kindly giving me a basket of goodies to sell, meaning I don’t need to worry and my ladies will have what they need if they don’t own any supplies already.
I have worked my snowflakes as a panel which hangs in a specific place each year in my home. My ladies may have some different ideas as to where or what they are going to turn theirs into. One snowflake would make a stunning special greetings card and one inserted into a box top would look glorious especially with hand made Xmas decorations made and contained inside.
If you have never had a go at this technique before its time you had a go. Find a local teacher to get you going or put a gold workbook on your Christmas wish list.
Must fly now as I need to sort the Stitch diagrams and patterns.

Tidying Up Before I Can Get Creative

Yesterday I couldn’t even see my desk to even think about getting creative so there was nothing for it but to get stuck in and clear it up. After a hour or so trying to push it all back against the walls I managed to find the desk, immediately stopping and sitting down to get creative. It would of been easier to go down the studio but the weather was horrid and wet and I couldn’t be asked to weatherproof up to go down there.

I then spent the rest of the afternoon drawing and trying to iron out the logistics of my next sample for Tudor Rose shop (a flower obelisk).

It’s going in the right direction but like most things I need to get going on it to iron out the things that inevitably won’t work.

Felt lazy in the evening so plonked myself in the chair and finished my gold work sample of snowdrops while watching something on the telly that I didn’t need to concentrate on a lot

All in all I achieved quite a bit today.