Saturday 4th March: A perfect disguise for your iPad, notebook or tablet

Led by Sue Frances, this workshop facilitates the making of a cover using scraps of fabric and pieces left over from previous projects.  The piece you will be making could also be made into a book cover or panel, and you can incorporate any past workshop creations (a good way to use up some of those UFOs).

Those with some experience and confidence with their machine will be guided in the process to make their own piece. There is a formula for this, but creative as you are, there is room for personal expression.

For Sue's biography, please see post "Starting 2017 ...", 2nd January.

There are one or two places left on this workshop, 
so if you are interested, please Post a Comment below, 

or contact our Programme Secretary: jennyarcher401@gmail.com.

Fifty Shades of Whipping and Lacing - mini workshop

Friday 3rd March will be something a bit different.  Caroline Lindsay is giving us a mini workshop on

Fifty Shades of Whipping and Lacing

After a brief talk about her work in general, Caroline will explain what is meant by whipping and stitching, i.e. taking a few very basic stitches and whipping them into shape, plus unlimited creativity.

As we get to grips with these simple stitches, Caroline will bring round her samples to show ways in which one stitch can be reinvented with a simple whipping or lacing stitch.

Caroline belongs to a number of textile groups, including Sutton Coldfield Creative Stitchers and the International Feltmakers Association.  She trained at Leicester to teach needlework, specialising in Dress and Embroidery, and mastered a wide range of hand and machine embroidery techniques. Caroline often uses her own computer designs as a starting point for her work, which she then develops through working directly with the fabric, threads and stitching.

It promises to be fun!

Mixed Media Quilting with Maria Thomas

Maria Thomas's Friday evening talk gave us a fascinating overview of the ups and downs of her personal stitch journey, which she illustrated with copious examples of her work.  This was followed on Saturday with a workshop based on the mixed media quilting techniques Maria uses in her work.

As a starting point, we used simple images of everyday/household objects and combined them with a variety of layered and collaged printed papers and fabric.

As you can see, we had all come armed with a not inconsiderable quantity of papers, dressmaking patterns, food labels and fabric scraps, 

which, under Maria's guidance, we proceeded to laminate, stick and arrange into a roughly log cabin style patchwork panel.  Sewing pattern tissue was adhered with emulsion paint to fabric for strength, while copious amounts of PVA were used to create a quilt 'sandwich' of paper/fabric/paper.

Once we had tinkered with the layout and got it to our liking, out came the sewing machines for the quilting part.

There's no doubt further stitching and finishing to be done at home, but we had a super day 'playing' with our paper quilt panels, and it will be a good technique to carry forward.  

At the end of the session we laid out all our panels together:

        

and Maria photographed our work for posterity ...