2012/2013 Workshops

All workshops run from 10.00am to 3.30pm and fees are payable when signing up.
All mini workshops are held after the Guild meeting and commence at 1.00pm until 3.30pm.

18th October 2012 "Creative with Strip Cloth" Workshop with Magie Relph

For centuries, all over West Africa, people have spun cotton and woven it into long, narrow strips, before sewing the strips together to create whole wearing cloths, blankets and traditional garments.

We'll start with plain undyed, as well as indigo patterned strip cloth, then experiment with a variety of patterning, appliqué, stitching and embellishing techniques to make a small wall-hanging, bag or book cover. 

 

 Get Creative with Strip cloth requirements

I’ll bring along strip cloth for you to use.
Other materials needed would be

· Embroidery threads, including some thicker yarns if you have

   them.
· Any interesting beads, buttons and embellishments
· Small scraps of interesting fabrics, felts etc.
· Hand sewing kit – needle, scissors, thimble etc

8th November 2012 “Calico Gardens” Workshop with Sue Morgan

You may well ask what a ‘Calico Garden’ is. 

Examples of Calico Gardens used in various ways

Sue explained that as the name suggests Calico is involved being used as the base fabric to work on. 
As to Gardens well these are the inspirations for the designs – whether Italian, country house, coastal / seaside or cottage style. 

So how do these two aspects merge to create the finished ‘Calico Gardens?’

The idea is to use a selection of threads of different weights in a variety of hints, tones, hues and tints from one colour group for example beige or green. To create the desired garden design a range of stitches like French knots, needle woven picots, spiders web flowers, Bokaran couching, stem stitch, cup stitch, bullion knots, fly stitch leaves are then used to provide texture. Finishing touches are added using scrim, calico and ordinary beads.

Small group  tutorial for 'cup stitch'

Throughout the workshop session there were opportunities to learn new stitches and techniques through individual and small group tutorials provided by Sue and Dee. 

Flowerpot and start of the 'bush'

Comments from the participating members – ‘a relaxing experience with the project split into achievable sections’, ‘ enjoyable as there was opportunity to experiment / be creative’, ‘good support and teaching as required’,’ wonderful resources and stimulus examples’, ‘excellent workshop’ , ‘suitable for all abilities’.

Resources, instructions and 

concentration 

Early stages in the creation
 of the Calico Garden

The aim is to use the piece of work to make a ‘Scissor Etui’ or similar e.g. glasses case, phone case, e- book cover.  Full instructions and materials were provided to complete the making up of the scissor etui along with helpful hints from Sue as to how to avoid the problems and pitfalls that we could encounter.

Front view

Back view

Sue is looking forward to seeing the completed ‘Calico Gardens’ made up into the scissor etui or other item of choice on display at the January meeting.

15th November 2012 Mini Workshop 'Pattern Darning' with Maggie Phillips

 Requirements

Kit available £2.50
Medium Tapestry needle and sewing kit. 

This was a relaxing and enjoyable session in which the skills required were the ability to follow a colour coded pattern and the ability to count!!

For the pattern darning Maggie had prepared samples of bookmarks and napkin rings to show the designs and give us a finished product idea although the pattern darning could also be used to make into cards.
 
There were 4 different designs of varying complexity so we could choose the one we liked and follow the appropriate pattern on the prepared pattern sheet.  

The next decision was the choice of colour scheme and the threads to use to achieve our selected items.

Concentration on the work in hand

Pattern darning nearly complete

Shaping the bookmark

Help and advice from Maggie

Then to the needle darning and the completion of the bookmarks etc for some this was very quick, while for those who lost the ability to count the process was slower with completion required at home!

The finished items showing the range of patterns

 


17th January 2013 Mini Workshop

An opportunity for members to complete 'unfinished' pieces either from previous workshops or items that require further inspiration to progress. Benefit from  the wealth of knowledge,  experience and support of the members. 
You may even find exchanges are possible where you have a piece of work that you have started but have found it is not for you and it is ideal for someone else - recycling at its best!


21st February 2013  Mini Workshop 

"Uzbeki Flowers"  with Judy Fairless

Requirements

Kit available - either full or small (pre - ordered)

In addition to the small kit the following items need to be supplied

• Black cotton background fabric
• Wadding or felt
• Backing fabric, plain or print
• Bondaweb
• Tracing or greaseproof paper

All will need 

• Sewing kit and hand or machine threads(Sylko weight or one strand of embroidery cotton)
• Sewing machine and darning foot if machining
• Small sharp scissors

Uzbek flowers Workshop   with Judy Fairless

We had an enjoyable and busy session during which we had the opportunity to use different materials and employ a variety of techniques in the making of our Uzbek flower panels.

Judy had prepared not only the kits and detailed instructions but also the paints, paper, irons, hairdryers etc for us to use.

The afternoon started with the selection of the flower we were each going to recreate and from here we had demonstrations about mixing the paint to the correct consistency and applying it to the Bondaweb, transferring the outline of the stems etc onto the background fabric, ironing the Bondaweb flowers and leaves in position, how to use and apply the Fuse FX, then how to free machine quilt the design and finally tips on applying the binding to complete the quilt panel.

Ironing on the Bondaweb flowers and leaves

Cutting out and positioning of flower pieces

Judy setting up ready to show us free machine quilting and finishing the panel

14th March 2013 Lutrador  - Full day workshop

 











21st March 2013  Mini Workshop - Linus Quilts


18th April 2013  Mini Workshop - Linus Quilts

16th May 2013

20th June 2013

27th June 2013 Full day workshop - Goldwork

 

18th July 2013 Members Meeting

19th September 2013 A.G.M.

17th October 2013  Mini Workshop

 21st November 2013  Mini Workshop

12th December 2013