Classes at the Festival of Quilts

We went to two classes at the FOQ.  The first was a half day workshop, the second a one-hour taster class.  The quality of the classes varied enormously, and not how you'd think.

On the Friday we did a Shisha mirrors class.  It was, hands down, the worst class we've ever taken.  We had three hours, the first 20 minutes was the teacher passing round the materials for us to choose.  She started with the fabric, when we'd all chose the fabric she passed round the threads... stuff that could have all been done at the same time.  The she gave the first group of ladies over the other side of the room a piece of fabric and a cotton reel to draw around.  She then demonstrated the first stitch to these four ladies.  We couldn't see anything.  Then she showed the next group of ladies.  Then the first group had questions, so she went back to them.  Then back to the second group to help them.  We just sat there twiddling our thumbs.  Finally it was our turn and we were taught this stitch.

I'm afraid I have no idea what it's called, we weren't told.  It has nothing at all to do with Shisha mirrors.  

After this we were told to get on with decorating our panels however we wanted.  It was a satiny fabric with wadding spray basted to the back.  She gave us silk threads.  Clearly she had not tested this combination as the thick fabric shredded the thread.  We were just left to "do what we wanted" for the next hour or so.

The elephant was block printed on the fabric so I was just stitching over the lines.  I added some beads and sequins too.

Finally, she started teaching the first group how to put on shisha mirrors.  Then the second group, back to the first, back to the second, back to the first, then over to us.  We had 30 minutes of the class left.  A few minutes into my first one, I realised I had a problem as the thread was falling off the mirror.  She told us to keep the foundation stitches taut, which she hadn't told us before.  At this point a couple of ladies left, saying they'd look it up on U-tube!

This photo shows my foundation stitches.

Above you can see the finished shisha mirror.  Not very neat and even, but then we didn't have long to do it!

Needless to say we were very unimpressed and I was delighted when she asked us to give online feedback, oh I'll certainly be doing that!

The next day we had a one-hour taster class which was brilliant fun.  Oh - before I tell you about this - people of Britain, did you know there is a lake at the NEC?  And a big shopping centre?  We had no idea until we stumbled into it and we've been going to the NEC a couple of times a year for about 12 years!

Anyway - sari silk flowers.

We were given strips of sari silk and a large bath washer to wrap them around.  The fluffy bits are just from where the sari silk is torn.

We then wrapped the smaller washer with thread, round and round, over and over.

Cut along the edges of the flower, take out the washers to use again and sew it all together.

Top with a button and sew a brooch back on - done!  It was good fun, though the finished flower came out a bit too thick for my liking, we used a 3m strip.  I've bought some more sari silk strips but will make future ones using 1.5m or even 1m.  I was thinking of using them to decorate the chalk board I showed you last week.

Hardanger #5

Ladies and gentlemen.... I have finished!

I have finished my second SAL project which is  Mabel Figworthy's Fancies Song of the Weather SAL Hardanger sampler.  I started it in 2013, so it took a while, but the last couple of weeks I've been stitching like a demon to get it done.

There are 2 panels, each with 6 blocks.  This is January to June.

We have a wrong-way-round photo here... damn you photo!

And here is August to December, which is the one I've been stitching on for this SAL.

See, I finished that ribbon rose!  It doesn't match any of the blues, and it's 6mm rather than the 4mm called for, but finished is better than perfect!

I knew I wanted some sashing between the blocks, so I consulted my embroidery book library.  In The New Anchor Book of Hardanger I found this zig zag hem stitch which seemed perfect.  I really enjoyed doing it!

So here we go, both pieces together.  I have no idea why I started the second one so close to the edge and I'm kicking myself for it.  I couldn't put in an outer border and it will make it difficult to frame.  BUT, it's finished!

Tune in in 3-weeks time and I'll show you my next project.

I'm sewing along as part of a SAL, you can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina, Susan

Birdie embroidery

Eagle-memoried viewers may remember a little birdie embroidery kit I wrote about back in February.  I got three little kits from Nancy Nicholson for Christmas.  Nancy didn't buy them for me (she didn't buy me anything, can you believe that??), they were from Mr CA and wonderful parents.

I finally finished another one.

I actually stitched it in just a few evenings, but it took me a while to get started.  The kit contains a piece of cotton with the bird printed on in colour.  You get some embroidery floss and a stitch guide, but of course you can go it alone and do whatever you like.

Oh - I meant to put a little yellow french knot in the middle of those blue flowers, I'd completely forgotten!  The tail is a six-strand of floss couched down.  I haven't really done couching before and I was thinking of lots of possibilities for this technique as I was stitching it.

It's mounted in a plastic hoop.  The reason being that the first kit I did was oval shaped.  I assumed they were all oval shaped so went on line to find an oval hoop.  The wooden ones are the wrong proportions/ratio, only the plastic ones came in the right size.  When I then discovered some of the embroideries are circular, I had to buy matching frames.

The kits come in a little bag with a design printed on the front.  I embroidered this one.  I can't find the last one but when I do I will embroider that too, oh and I have another kit too!

When I showed you my Silk Ribbon, I promised to show you a shot of my "gallery".  These embroideries aren't in the gallery, they're on the opposite dining room wall along side my beautiful glass piece that the wonderful parents bought me for my birthday one year.

I might have to rearrange a bit when the third one is done, especially as I can't remember if it's round or oval!

On the opposite wall, where there is an arch through to my living room, is my gallery and here it is.

You can just see my printer in the bottom right hand corner, this is where I'm sitting to blog right now.  I'm putting loads of different embroidered hoops on this wall.  Square or rectangular "art" (hahahaha, I just said art.  About the crap I make!) is hanging on the stairs.  One day I will show you a shot of that too, but it's a bit sparse at the minute.  I need to get my finger out, get hanging and get embroidering.  

I haven't been very consistent with my blog post tags, so I can't link to all of the posts on these individual hoops, but you can find some of them here and here, if you're interested.

Goldwork mushrooms

Wonderful Mum and I have found a new venue for craft classes - Lincoln Castle Heritage Skills Centre - there is a wood turning one I really want to do, but I haven't managed to persuade mum yet, maybe I can get Mr CA to come with me instead...

The first course we attended there was goldwork embroidery with Sarah Homfray.  Sarah is an excellent teacher so we're really glad we also booked into her stumpwork class which we're on in July.  The class was small - I think there were 6 or 7 of us - so she had plenty of time to work with each student individually.  She started with a demonstration of the first technique, couching, then we all had a go on the middle mushroom.

If I remember correctly, we're using 2 strands of Japanese gold thread here and couching it with ordinary thread.  Why didn't I take notes!

I need to work on getting the spaces between my couching stitches more regular, but I don't think it looks too bad.

After the couching is done, the ends of the Japanese thread are plunged to the back and stitched down "neatly".

Next we worked with Pearl Purl, the picture above shows a gold Pearl Purl and a silver Pearl Purl, they resemble tiny springs and have to be very gently stretched before couching down.  The heart is beeswax, essential for goldwork.

Here you can see that I've couched down the Pearl Purl all round the mushroom on the right.  Sarah would show us a particular part of the pattern, then we'd go away and do it.  So she was catering for all abilities as well and keeping the class running on time, we didn't always finish each element before we were shown the next, so after I'd couched down the PP, I went back and finished the Japanese couching on the middle mushroom.

Next was chipwork.  We cut little chips of the Pearl Purl in both silver and gold and sewed them on just like sewing on a bead, using a double thickness of thread.

Next came the raised element - the stalk.  This is embroidery cotton, folded up and stitched down, then cut to the right size.  This is just padding.

Pearl Purl is then threaded on to sewing cotton and couched down over the top in diagonal lines, starting in the middle.  It's really hard to judge the length of pearl purl to use!

This is as far as I got.  I still haven't finished it though I know that mum finished hers!  It's on my long list of workshop project UFOs....

I really enjoyed this class.  I liked doing the techniques, though in future I think I'd mainly work in silver and coloured metal threads as gold is not so much my style.  You can get all colours these days and I do in fact have a kit or two using the coloured metal threads... I'll have to dig that out too!

Hardanger #4

Another 3 weeks have gone by and it's time for another update on the Mabel Figworthy's Fancies Song of the Weather SAL Hardanger piece that I'm stitching.

3 weeks ago this is how far I'd got:

I finished November's block.  Each of the cutwork bars has been wrapped and the eyelet stitches put in some of them.  The black marks are from my Frixxon pen, trying to find the starting point, they will disappear when I iron them.

In the photo below you can see the wrapped bars more clearly.

I also started, and finished, December's block.  There was a lot of stitching on this one!

Whilst doing the cut work, I accidentally cut the wrong threads.  A lot of people have commented on my Hardanger posts, saying they'd be afraid to cut the wrong thread.  Well, here it is...  can you see the two loose ends hanging down?

And below you will see that it's all fixed.  I just wrapped them with the bars and noone is any the wiser.

The dragonflies are done in satin stitch with a row of couched beads for the body.  I had used the beads in August's block so it was lucky that I actually remembered what they were as they weren't with the rest of my kit.  They are the only navy beads I own so I knew they were size 11/0 Preciosa seed beads.

The beads are also used in three of the open squares - the ones where it looks like there are white fingers in the corners, that's what happens when you photograph navy beads on a black background!

So it looks like I'm finished, but I'm not.  I STILL haven't done the ribbon rose on October's block and I'm going to add sashing between the blocks on both this and the January-June sampler I've done.  Let's hope for just as much progress over the next 3 weeks!


I'm sewing along as part of a SAL, you can go and see what the other participants have been up to here:

Avis, Claire, Gun, Carole, LucyAnn, Kate, Jess, Sue, Constanze, Debbierose, Christina

Casalguidi

Back last month, or the month before maybe, wonderful mum and I went to another embroidery workshop at The Living Threads group.  This was a Casalguidi class.  This article for Mary Corbet at Needle 'n Thread explains a bit about it and has a tutorial for the raised bands.

We started with a piece of white linen and some white Perle cotton in sizes 8 and 5.  It was to be a needle case or a small bag which is why I've only stitched on half of it.  We started with four-sided stitch to make a border.

Then added in a grid of four-sided stitch in the centre.  No Blogger, I have not spelled centre wrong, when will you learn that I am English!

Then we started the raised band.  We used some random threads that the wonderful teacher (alas, I don't remember her name) gave us and couched them down in a rough circle on top of the grid.

Then we did a close satin stitch in the perle 8 all the way round.

This was overlaid with supposedly-evenly-spaced stitches which we would use to form the stem-stitch on top.

Below I have done 2 rows of stem stitch, I will keep going until the circle is full up.

Honestly, I will.  I just need to get some other bits and pieces started finished first...  There is more to this in the form of bullion knots (my firsts ever!) and needlewoven picots, but I do need a bit more practice before I add any of those to this piece.

We also made a button using just thread and bullion knots.... no idea where the photos went though I gave the finished button to mum as she declared she wasn't making one!

Keep your eyes peeled for this finished piece in, oh, say 2 or 3 years?