Notty Hornblower

Hi All,

Well, I had a really nice afternoon yesterday at a Lutterworth Embroiderers Guild Event - a costume show by Notty Hornblower.

The costumes were great and the models were very good and walked past very slowly so we could have a good look and take photos. 

So here are lots of photos.

Hello all

Hello all.

Apologies for yet another large gap between posts.  We had a few urgent things that needed to be resolved and then we went on holiday. YIPEE.

I would say we went to sunny St Ives - but it wasn't awfully sunny. But it was still great to have a break.  So here are a few photos from our break:

 View from the beach in St Ives

 Porthgwidden Beach

 View from Tintagel Castle

And below are 3 photos taken of the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway

Busy busy

Front view

 Hello all,

I hope you're making the most of the sunshine.  I'm off out for a walk after this post.

I've really been enjoying my sewing recently and thought you might like to see a few things I've been up to.

So here are the 4 sides of a house I've made inspired by an article in Quilting Arts December 2013 and January 2014 edition.

I'm really pleased with the results.

Side View

Side view

Side view

 I'm really pleased with this piece.  It's combined a number of techniques: screen printing, machine and hand embroidery using sheers.  I had great fun with this and am very pleased I have a couple of other pieces to use.  

 I'm making reasonable progress with my crewel embroidery and have really surprised myself with my ability.

And finally here are a couple of examples from Angie Hughes talk at the Leamington Embroiderers Guild talk.  Unfortunately I could make the class, but I'm sure those who did had a great time.  The talk was very inspiring and I came home with my head buzzing with ideas.

Talk care all and make the most of the sunshine!

Busy busy busy

 Hello all.

I hope this post finds you all well and hopefully dry.

I thought I'd start my post by sharing a photo with you that I took last Sunday of our local church, St Peters and the beautiful snowdrops. It really was a lovely day.

I've also had a great time with the Lutterworth Embroiderers Guild at a talk and then a workshop with Nicola Jarvis.  You may recollect I have attended a workshop with her previously.

You can see our group here, all working very diligently.  It was a very quiet class.

The photo below is what my piece should look like - after a lot more work.

I learnt and perfected some great stitches: long and short stitch, stem stitch, split stitch, laid work, trellis stitch, buttonhole, satin and Turkish Rug.  

Nicola was a great teacher - she spent the whole day demonstrating stitches and offering encouragement.

Nicola's talk was really interesting.  I had no idea that May Morris had written a book and it was still in print. 'Decorative Needlework'  was originally published in 1893.  

Nicola selected some great quotes from it.

Anyway I must get back to stitching as I think this one may take some time.

Classes

Hi all,

Hope you're well and enjoying this beautiful dry sunny day.

I've been to a couple a really good classes recently.

First was a class with Hilary Beattie at The Bramble Patch.  It isn't the type of class I would have normally picked, but I've seen her at a few events and knew I'd have a great time.  

So the class was painting stylised flowers.  And here are the results:

As you can see I've painted the flowers on both plain and lightly patterned fabric.  The aim is to combine this panel with other fabrics and painted elements.  I'll let you see how it progresses.

The next day I had a class with Ineke Berlyn with the Leamington Embroiderers Guild.  A great day.

So - in the Black Magic workshop I learnt how to use a discharge paste with Thermofax screens.This is activated by a steam iron.  Once this part is complete I used the same or similarly themed screens with metallic paints.  I think I may have overdone the first piece.

At the same time I tried the technique on calico.

This is half the piece before it has been machine embroidered.

And here is the second half of the piece with some machine embroidery work.  I'm going to add some hand stitching.

I'm pleased with how this is progressing.  It's been a great way to practice machine embroidery and see how using the different threads produce such different results. I think it might end up as a cushion.

I hope you're all well and I promise to show you how it progresses.

Work in progress

Hi all,

I hope you're well and dry.  Yet again it's rained hard for most of the day.

 We had a sewing day with Leamington Embroiderers Guild where the aim was that we all sewed name badges.  And this is my effort. It was interesting to see how we all came up with such different designs. And you can see some of the other designs on their blog.

And here is the current work in progress.  It's taken from the latest Quilting Arts magazine.  Although the magazine provides ideas and a pattern you can really make the houses your own.  This still has some more embellishment to go.  

Promise I'll show them to you when it's finished.

Take care all.

Work in Progress - Walk II

 Hello all.

I have been working on the next piece in my Walk series.

Below are some of the photos that inspired this - harvest time. 

I collected grasses which I took home to study further.  Some of the seeds dropped, I photographed these, traced them, scaled them up and had Thermofax screens made.  I have screens made by Thermofax. They are always very good quality.  If you don't want to use your own designs you could select one of the vast range they have ready made.  Again, great quality and design. Here are the design pages for my screens.

I really enjoy this part of the design process - focussing on one small element.

Before going any further I needed to draft out the background  - colours and ideas about stitching.  These may change as a result of sampling.

And here is the fabric background with some screen printing (bottom and on the right on the yellow fabric).  I used a subtle yellow fabric paint from Colourcraft.  You will see this was just what I wanted.

Before screen printing on my pieced background I sampled to ensure the screens worked as expected on the pieced background. I used the screen printed seed images as a guide for sewing. I noted all my progress in my sketch book as although I often think I can remember how I made a piece, I often can't - so good notes are the best thing for me.

I have another aspect I'm sampling at the moment and promise to share it with you very soon.

And just as a bit of a tease.

Keep watching to find out more.

Take care all and try to keep dry.  If you live the UK you'll know exactly what I mean.

Happy New Year

Hello all.

Just a very short blog to wish you all a

happy and healthy 2014

Here's to lots of creativity...