'Sparkling organza Gingko Leaves' - day school with Susie Stehli

 We had a lovely sunny day for our class, and the gorgeous array of sparkling yellows and greens of the vast array of organzas Susie brought made us feel that Spring is nearly here. Susie brought a large picture of gingko leaves she had made (first photo), and we made a more modest picture using either hand or machine embroidery. Susie had brought our chosen colour of background along, all ready cut to size and prepared with backing, ready to go in the frame she also supplied.

We selected paper templates of the leaves, which we drew around on the background fabric, and then arranged little snippets of various fabrics in the outline, to make some texture and shadows. We added pieces of larger organza in layers to build up the form of the leaves, pinned it on and then stitched the edges and a few of the veins. Once this was done we could use different threads to build up texture and tones to create the leaves. The machine stitchers had the advantage of greater speed than the hand stitchers, and one or two people actually got as far as framing their picture. The photos below show some of the stages of building up the piece, and some near completion.

It was a lovely day, thank you Susie, and thanks to the ladies who brought fruit cake and homemade biscuits!

'From Jewellery to Textiles - a Journey' - talk by Sam Townsend

 Sam gave us a lovely and interesting talk about her career from making jewellery to making quilts. Having been told at school by one of those wonderful inspiration teachers (there's one in every school) that she couldn't draw, Sam went on to go to art college, first interested in ceramics, but then finding her metier in jewellery. She had brought along examples of pieces made in silver that she had designed herself, and her sketchbooks showed wonderful drawings of concepts and workings out of her creations. For a while she worked for a jeweller, but then went freelance, running a successful business in Edinburgh.

Unfortunately arthritis crept up and made this line of work painful and difficult, something we people of a certain age can empathise with! Sam had always stitched, but she then did various courses on different types of quilting, and she had brought along a large selection of her works. It was interesting seeing the progression from more traditional patchwork quilts as her art background came more to the fore and the design morphed into more free and experimental quilts. Many of the quilts had painting on, such as the owl and the tree, beautiful. It was such a colourful and inspirational collection. There was such a variety, from little miniature quilts, to one made with sashiko embroidery. The photos below are a small selection of what she brought, and when I have located her Facebook page I'll post it here so you can see more.

Update: Sam's Facebook page is DesignedbySam, you can see more of her work and her work process.

'Crewel Work', - day school with Isobel Law

 Isobel did a well attended day school on crewel work and stump work, which had been postponed because of the snow. I wasn't able to attend, but thank you, Jean, for the photos, I will try and get some more if anyone has them.