Today I gave the Madeira lecture at the Scottish Regional Day. Boy it was nerve racking but I managed to get through it without falling off the podium or dropping my notes. The talk was EXTRAV-ORGANZA and I was relieved when the presentation I had prepared opened on the venues laptop. At the end of the day I was fortunate to be able to visit the Arts complex where I viewed the 3000plus post cards made by Embroider’s Guild from all over the country. They were awesome all hung together in one room. It didn’t take me long to find Bedford’s post cards based on Germany.
Esssence of Black Work by Machine
Yesterday I spent a very enjoyable day at Patchwork Corner Hemel Hempstead teaching a lovely group of eager ladies how to achieve this lovely dramatic collaged panel of black and white flowers.
The technique appears to be very simple but it needs to be executed with a fair amount of control to get the neat and clean effect that suggests black work. All of the ladies worked very hard and many realised it wasn’t as easy as it first appeared to be but they all went home with loads of ideas and eager to get to grips with it. I like working at patchwork corner as it has very good amenities and is very well stocked both with fabrics and inspirational ideas and up to date projects.
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| An essence of black work worked on pelmet vilene bonded with white cotton and stitched with satin stitch in black rayon thread. Flowers cut out once stitched and beaded and sequined to help give the depth and tones that appear in hand stitched black work. The panel is made up of three blocks which have been collaged together on to white mounting board with narrow black ribbons forming a grid behind them bringing the whole piece together as one |
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| Close up showing the added detail of free motion stitching to infill and give texture to inner shapes |
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| Close up showing the beads and sequins worked on to the cut out flowers |
Crochet Flowers
Oh I have been having fun. I came back from teaching at Alston Hall up in the Pennines and felt that I needed a complete change from working with Organza fabrics and the soldering iron SO i have been re-skilling myself in the art of Crochet.
There is nothing better to get the creative juices working again than doing something completely out of the norm and this certainly is not the norm for me as many of you will know as you view the pictures.
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| This little bag took one ball of variegated double knit acrylic wool The handle is from Stef francis |
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| This bag is a sackule type casual bag to be worn across the body and low on the hip This bag took one ball of pale pink and one ball of cerise double knit wool . handles made from left over wool and made using a cording gadget |
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| Close up of crochet flowers with centres decorated with stamens and french knots worked in left over wool |
Alston Hall Residential [The outcome was great]
Well several days have gone by since i last updated my blog and i have been feeling frustrated because i couldn’t get a good enough signal to keep you up to date. I suspect the Pennine mountain range and the bad weather might have had something to do with it.
I finally made it home after a repeat wet journey of the Wednesday going up. I couldn’t believe how much water was laying on the fields as i drove home from Alston Hall.
On Thursday I had a fab time teachinggold work. All ladies went home thrilled with what they had achieved, even ifit was only a piece the size of a postage stamp. Goldwork can’t be rushed andis terribly time consuming so even a small project can take weeks or even months.
Finished teaching at 4pm and clambered to my bed room where Icollapsed on the bed and did something I never do. I had a before dinner nap.
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| It doesn’t look much when you have spent all day working at it does it. |
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| I’m not leaving until I have finished this bit |
On Friday after a lovely cookedbreakfast I taught stump work. We were making an Elizabethan sweet bag and asyou can imagine there wasn’t much of that to show for a hard days sewingeither.
I had a couple of hours to myself at the end of the day and as thesun was shining I decided to get some fresh air and took the time to take somemore pics of the lovely building I was teaching in.
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| The chapel. Not in use now but very pretty |
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Taken from the Crochet lawn
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Friday night at 8.15pmI started teaching again.This time I was teaching Machine embroidery with organza and the soldering ironand was looking forward to helping my ladies design and worktheir own designs instead of one of my designs. They were a great bunch andmost were willing to have a go and play Earlier in the day I had vacatedmy room of two days and moved to the garden room on the other side ofthe house. I didn’t mind because this room was great and had everything inone place. Also because I had a larger number of students, it made senseand gave everyone a good amount of room to spread out and get comfortable. Andboy did they spread. There was organza and sewing equipment everywhere.
We had all met up for the first time at dinner that evening andthen went to work afterwards. We only did an hour of me explaining andinspiring so that we could get going straight away after breakfast onSaturday. Everyone was generally worn out on the Friday eveningas they have had to travel, but you always get one or two who want to burn themidnight oil so I signed off at 9.30pm and headed for the bar for a nice glassof chilled wine followed by an early night to bed.
Saturday we got going while making friends and stitching. Demonstrations happenedthroughout the day and I got the job of trying to extract informationfrom each student to help them achieve a stunning piece of work across theweekend, which they all did. I could have brought every piece home with me butthey wouldn’t letthem go and tucked them away quickly so that I couldn’t pinch any
My ladies were all lovely and we all got on a treat. Ihope I bump into them again in the future.
They produced some great work all of which I could of run awaywith. Have a look and see!!!!
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| Paula’s piece based on photos from a derelict church |
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| I love the bronze through to blue and green appearing in this architechtural sample |
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A lovely sample of layered organza, stitched with straight lines and cut out with the soldering iron
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Based on Andy Goldworthy’s stone photos
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| Ghost tree based on Andy Goldworthy’s photos |
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| Soldering out the material to be removed from the background and sealing the edges |
Alston Hall Arrival
Oh my god. How can we possibly have a drought when i have just driven through some of the worst weather i have experienced in some years.
I left home at 11.00am this morning to make my yearly teaching trip to Alston hall, Preston and it has deluged all the way up here. At some points i really couldn’t see the road and just had to guess i was driving straight which is a little off putting when your driving over the Pennine mountain range and you have a dirty great lorry next to you.
Never mind i have made it and have struggled in with all the stuff i will need across the next couple of days. I’m now pooped and sitting down to write this as i may not get to it over the next couple of days depending on how my students decide to work me.
I always enjoy coming here to teach as there are no televisions in any of the rooms except the common lounge area and i can really think and get some designing done in peace and quite. No kids yelling. No adults yelling. No house hold jobs to do. It’s lovely.
The house is a old house overlooking the Pennine mountains and is set in lovely gardens with a wood to walk through, The rooms are en suite and the beds are comfy. The food is all home cooked and next week i will not be eating as i will be at least half a stone heavier.I say what the hell as i will be working hard and we all know its lovely to be cooked for.
I am going to spend the evening finishing my miniature Baltimore quilt and i might start to make the crochet flowers needed for the bag full of crochet flowers workshop coming up.
Alston Hall
Arrived at Alston Hall today having driven through some of the worst rain I have experienced in a couple of years. HOW CAN THEY SAY WE HAVE A DROUGHT I’ve seen more than my fair share today and every reservoir I’ve passed has been full full full. Oh well I’m here now and ready to teach tomorrow.
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| Minstal landing My bedrooms off of here |
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Love the arches! |
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| Sky light at Alston reception Lovely stained glass work |
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| Taken from my window [Yes i know its blurred but you get the gist] What a miserable day |
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| Through the blur you can see a deer |
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| If it ever stops raining I’m gonna read my book here when i get my free time |
Another wet day. Another small embroidery done
After several very wet days today was no different although it did start bright going down hill as the day went on. Archie our mad cocker spaniel was dancing around bugging me for a walk and i kept putting him off saying i would take him later. I really should of taken him when it was dry because when i finally got round to it the skies had opened and it didn’t stop all afternoon hence Robert and i had to take him at 6.30 after work and walk him in the pouring rain. One bedraggled and smelly wet dog arrived home and then proceeded to try and dry himself all over my furniture.
I suppose I’m lucky Robert was able to walk with us today as yesterday the mad man was running up and down our very large garden, mowing the lawn with a mower made of metal in a thunder and lightening storm until i yelled at him and told him to get inside.
Apart from this i had a productive day sorting everything out for my residential week at Alston Hall Preston and even managing to finish mums miniature Baltimore quilt. Mum has been helping me with samples for up coming workshops and its a nice feeling to actually be somewhere on top of all the samples i have to produce.
Mum has mainly hand stitched her small quilt with simple traditional surface stitches such as stem stitch, fly stitch, french knots etc and added sequin flowers and buttons for the bouquets, wreaths and baskets. My little blocks are still being embroidered and sequined and hopefully will be assembled sometime next week to form a larger miniature quilt.
I will have to see what other projects are coming up and get mum going on them too.
Miniature Baltimore Quilt
As I have been quilting during the day i have needed to have some armchair fodder to do in the evening. As I have an ever lasting list of samples to work with deadlines for them to be completed it made perfect sense to me that the evenings need to be used for this. So I have been hand stitching my small blocks for the Miniature Baltimore hanging planned to be taught end of May.
These little blocks are 4″ x 4″ and are worked using simple hand stitched embroidery, seed beads and yes sparkly flower sequins which i absolutely love working with and if i could get away with it would stitch them to everything.
Later this week they will be sewn together and have a final pain border added around them before i finally embroider and sequin a swag design round the border. I might even bead the edge of the quilt just because i won’t be able to resist. We will see.
Train Quilt Days
Hi there
It’s been a while because I have been having a lovely time doing lots of things that I shouldn’t be doing. When I next complain that I am running behind schedule i will only have myself to blame.
Or i could blame it on my daughter Julia who had a weeks holiday over Easter where she got all crafty. I cant remember the last time we did anything creative together due probably to the fact that she has spent the last four years getting her teaching degree and there has been little and no time left for creativity but boy did we make up for it with four small quilts being made and lots of quality time spent together doing them.
One of the baby quilts went to Gemma, Julia’s friend when we hosted her baby shower last Sunday and was very well received. The only problem was my niece saw a picture on Facebook prompting a post to me asking where her one was that I had promised for Jamie who is now one year old and minus his quilt. So there was nothing for it but to get going on his quilt while I was still inspired.
It made such a pleasant change working with a different medium as I usually work only in Organza fabric.
I kept the main design very simple so that it was quick to make and also durable to wash over and over again but i just had to pick the train design from the fabric and make bigger interpretations of it to go round the central blocks. I used bondaweb to adhere the train and carriages with a fairly open satin stitch over the edges followed by free motion detailing in the form of writing Jamie’s name on the engine and adding pattern to the carriages. Simple ditch machine quilting was done around the blocks with free motion quilting giving texture to the train border. Finally a narrow edging was added and hand stitched over to the reverse to finish the edges.
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| Oh its for me |
It’s not a technical quilt and it wouldn’t win any prizes but it is practical and hopefully will with stand my nieces washing regime.
Mermaid Doll No 2 and Quilting with my Daughter
Today I finished another mermaid doll and I think I like her better than the blue/green one. I certainly enjoyed drilling and colouring the small cockle shells and then sewing them on to her body and tail to add texture and a 3D feel.
Yes I hear you say mermaids are not pink. But having never seen one and pretty unlikely that i ever will has allowed me artistic licence to create her.
She was a devil to turn through and stuff but patience being something at long last I have learnt enabled success in the end. I love goats as they produce this wonderful curly fleece which when dyed makes fantastic curly hair for any doll. Add a few beads and sequins to control the hair style and it makes wonderful idiot proof hair for many dolls not just this mermaid.
Julia has been very busy again today and has managed to make and finish another cot quilt for a colleague leaving in the next month or two and she is ready for Christmas having made up and finished her class room advent hanging. Shes so organised. I’m just getting over the last one let alone looking forward to the next.
Sewing over for today as off to the pics with Adam and his friend.