Super Saturday- Stratford and THE SUN!

Oh yes, the sun has finally made an appearance and has therefore significantly improved my mood!

A while ago I booked a free-machine embroidery course at Sew Me Something (www.sewmesomething.co.uk). It had taken so long to come around that I had almost forgotten about it. I left Mr Jones at home and ventured off to Stratford-Upon-Avon. Miraculously I managed to get there bang on time despite leaving late and missing the car park. There were a lot of people in costumes, I later found out that it was Shakespeare's birthday so there was a parade in town, sadly Mr Jones and I missed it but worth remembering for next year.

At Sew Me Something I was welcomed by Jules (the owner), Julie (the teacher) and about 6 other participants in the workshop.

We started with the basics of free-machine embroidery, followed by a play on the machines.

My practice embroidery - house, stick-man and penguin

After this we thought about the pattern that we wanted to create. I decided to stick with penguins and set about finding my fabrics and cutting out lots of oval paper templates.

Thinking about the layout and fabrics

The longest part was finding a suitable fabric for my penguins to sit on, I wanted it to be quite bright but also quite iceberg like- apparently this is a tough ask! Once I had settled on my fabrics and had all of my pattern pieces cut out I ironed the fabrics onto some bond-a-web and then cut all of the pieces out.

For the larger pieces of fabric I zig-zag stitched them on. I then ironed down the other pieces of fabric.

Ready for the free-hand part

No came the scary part; the free-hand embroidery. I found this really enjoyable and easier than I had imagined. If I was doing this at home I think I would have been tempted to unpick all of the lines which weren't perfect but as I was thinking about time, I decided to leave them and I am glad that I did because I think it really adds to the effect.

Progressing nicely

Having got to this stage I started to think about eyes. Julie made a fabulous suggestion to use buttons and Jules made it even better by suggesting that I sew them on with orange thread. This is the benefit of workshops rather than working by yourself; the chitter-chatter, the cake and the genius ideas! Julie kindly stapled my finished embroidery onto the frame and my work was complete.

Finished!

I ran back to the car (as my parking ticket was running out) with my penguins proudly on display!

Once at home I continued the crafty theme by doing some screen-printing in the garden with Mr Jones

Preparing for some screen-printing in the sunshine

Mr Joneses raven stencil

Trying with poster paint - not a huge success but OK

Trying with emulsion - just needs a stronger stencil

And then made a liberty patchwork cushion which Mr Jones had bought for me at Christmas but I hadn't found the time to stitch until now.

Liberty cushion

We finished the day, very happily, with a film and a curry!

Love,
Mrs Jones
x

Mum's Weekend (Part Two)

Berylune Saturday

I had recently found out about a craft shop in Lemington Spa called Berylune (www.berylune.blogspot.co.uk), whilst mooching around their website I noticed a screen-printing course on the weekend that mum was coming down for the NEC so I decided to book us onto it.

When we woke up, the world was very white!

The view when we woke up

 After a few attempts I managed to get the car out of the driveway and we made our careful way to Leamington Spa, found Berylune and started a morning of playing.

Our tutor for the morning was Lara Smith of SewSmith (www.sewsmith.co.uk), we were the only two people on the course so we had her undivided attention which was absolutely lovely.

Firstly, we made our screens. We used an old photo frame for this, which I had never considered before. We pulled our gauze tightly over the frame and stapled it in place, then we covered the edges with masking tape and our frame was complete.

Mum listening for the next instruction

Next, we thought about our design, I had spent a bit of time thinking about mine before hand and had found this picture on the internet

Picture I found from http://vintagericrac.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/for-bursar.html

Which I translated into this

My screen; ready to print

We practiced with another design to start with, along with some talcum powder to make a nice effect

My heart bag - the practice

 And then worked on our own design. Mum had decided on a heart and both attempts made a wonderful, clean, image.

Mum's tea-towel

I was nervous as mine was so much more complicated (we had made the eyes from stickers and different sized hole punches and stuck them onto the screen. Although the practice image didn't come out perfectly (the penguins appear to have fingers) but it wasn't too bad and I was quite pleased.

My practice run - penguins with fingers!

 Lara did some quick touch up's to my screen and the second attempt was much more successful.

Final screen-printed penguins

 I came away from the day very happy with my collection and eager to try more screen-printing at home.

My collection

My afternoon was spent wandering around the quirky shops of Leamington while mum attended a last minute needle felting workshop. My prize purchase of the day was a foot warmer which I thought was a bargain at £3.50.

My bargain foot warmer

Our Sunday was much more quiet as we helped mum to pack her bag and then dropped her off at the airport for her quick hop up to Scotland. Hopefully we will get to have another crafty weekend soon.

Love,
Mrs Jones
x

Mum's weekend (Part One)

I visited the ICHF sewing for pleasure show (ICHF- Sewing for Pleasure) last year, by myself, and really enjoyed it, so this year I decided to invite my mum along and bought her tickets for her mother's day present.

I am a big fan of looking at all the student's work, looking at how an idea generates from the smallest object and generally getting inspiration from these shows. My mum is a big fan of shopping! Naively I didn't anticipate that this would entail standing by a lot of stalls whilst mum was purchasing! Still we had a fantastic day, got to see a bit of everything and to top it all off I won a workshop with Karen Delahunty (Karen Delahunty Designs) which I will be trying to fit in at some point. Karen was commissioned to make this fantastic dress for Cadbury's world which I love:

Here are a few of my images from the day:

A fabulous quilt on the cotton patch stand

One of the many A4 quilts

A cushion made from can can wool

It was a long, enjoyable day and I can't wait to go again next year!

Love,
Mrs Jones
x