Starting our Sumptuous Sacs, workshop with Sandra Jenkins

It's always a great help on a one-day workshop when the tutor provides everything you need to get on with the fun stuff, including pre-cut silk pieces, dyes, stamps, surfaces for printing and dyeing on, mixing pots, pins and even baby wipes and kitchen roll for cleaning up!  Sandra's former life as an art teacher obviously meant she realised how much time can be wasted looking for all these things.

So, we spent a happy morning printing and dyeing various types of silk fabric.  The more tricky part came in combining the printed and dyed fabrics into a coherent design - not nearly as easy as it may seem.  Nevertheless, some lovely compositions were emerging .....

The importance of achieving a satisfactory design meant that it was time-consuming, and not many of us got to the point of stitching the pieces down.  However, completion of our 'sumptuous sac' (or book cover or panel) can be done at home ....

Something like these samples made by Sandra is what we will be aiming for:

 

Many thanks to Sandra for lots of useful tuition, and a very full and satisfying day.

Exploring Design Sources for Embroidery

Sandra Jenkins' talk next Friday 4th May, will focus on how she has developed her skills as a maker and designer through experimenting with a variety of textile techniques and materials.  

Sandra has, over the years, been involved in engaging and motivating both young and older design students towards making satisfying creative statements.  She feels the starting point for textile work should be an interesting design idea.  Techniques learned and practised will have a longer shelf life if students are able to continue to develop ideas after a workshop.  

Sandra's courses start with simple methods of design production, and she will have 'step by step' plans using a range of materials to help explore the theme.

Come along on Friday evening and get some inspiration for that ever-present challenge for stitchers and embroiderers - finding the design idea that gets you started.

Members and visitors are welcome.

Sandra will follow her talk with a workshop on 

Saturday 5th May: 

Sumptuous Sacs

This will be a chance to experiment with resist techniques and combine the resulting patterned fabrics with velvet into a sumptuous surface that can be turned into a small pouch drawstring bag. 

There is a place available on this workshop.  

If you are interested in learning more, please contact our Booking Secretary: jennyarcher401@gmail.com