Catch up

Hmmm, has it really been about two months since I last blogged here; many readers have probably deleted me! I have, however, been updating the group blog for our monthly workshops and there is lots of news over there on the Show and Tell blog so I won’t repeat t all here.

In Australia, today is Mother’s day, so I feel justified in indulging in the writing of this blog instead of catching up on the housework. This year I have started working a ‘proper’ job which means many more hours of preparation and co-ordination. Although I technically work 3.72 days a week, in reality I am often working 5. This has slowed down the completion of my thesis considerably, but I am aiming to submit on May 17th, which will be a huge load off my shoulders.

Last month I attended a fantastic weekend workshop at the Embroiderer’s Guild of Victoria Melbourne branch. The Guild is celebrating its 50th Anniversary and invited Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn (also known as double trouble) to present two 2 day workshops. Jan and Jean were both professional and entertaining and the workshop was a pleasure. Gillian and I shared a table and both of us enjoyed a weekend dedicated to our art and inspired by these very creative ladies.

Our first project was a machined grid of fibres positioned on sticky wash away covered with juliette, then hand stitched, tied and beaded:

Here are some examples of the variety of grids originating from this technique:

This was Jan or Jean’s:

This was a really fun process and I can see this being applicable to many different projects.

I especially loved this grid of trees which was one of Jan and Jean’s sample pieces:

Our second & third techniques were using the embellisher, whic was great fun and has made me decide it would be a worthwhile investment. This one was a very quick technique firstly embellishing double pieces of different coloured organza which were then embellished to hand dyed scrim. The first picture shows the scrim peeping out, the second picture is framed out and this will then have handstitching and beading added.

Our next exercise on the embellisher involved drawing a rough sketch onto wash away and hand stitching with long overlapping stitches. This was felted on the embellisher, washed out and hand embroidered and beaded:

The final exercise was creating a dense textural picture on sticky wash away with a grid of bridal veil, fibres, threads scraps of fabric topped with a fine fabric and juliette, FME ing to hold together, putting through the embellisher to mesh together and finishing with hand embroidery and beading. I will not post a pic of this as yet as I am still building up the base layer.

Here are a few of double trouble samples showing the possibilities of using/combining these techniques:

Last weekend was the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne and I tried out a project using the new cut out software from Bernina:

And this was some fun on the Brother embroidery machine, free towel to embroider and entry into a competition to win one of these machines:

Some of these photos may be a bit fuzzy as they were taken with my phone (forgot the camera). I was super controlled and only bought a fat quarter of Japanese fabric and a silk cap for our creative group’s workshop next month.

Off to enjoy Mother’s day now with a latte and chocolate

Cheers