
I hope you don't remind me repeating posts about the workshops I run. I know there are quite a few blog posts about Made & Making now and we repeat the same workshop theme repeatedly but I find that each class still presents something new. There is always a different conversation starter, there may be a slightly different stitch focus, we might have a spread of a particular type of shell or beach hut, or a stash item that everyone asks to pinch a bit of.
I love teaching workshops. Every now and then I mention to Reece that, to help our financial situation maybe I should go out and get a 'real' job, as in a 9am-5pm, every day type job which pays into a pension and gives you paid holidays. It would certainly mean that I wouldn't have the same sort of stresses and responsibilities (like the accountancy side of things and filling in a tax return - yikes!) but then he reminds me that this makes me happy. That sharing this love of stitch and fabric, fibre and thread is what fills me with joy, makes me passionate and, bless him, he wants me to be happy. Even if it means that he gets dragged around to most of my events, sets up and packs down my stalls and displays, has to know all about my kits and is chief finger poker of all new (very textural) Stitchscapes. The poor man has to feign interest in fabric and trimming deliveries and smile at potential customers when I leave him alone to pop to the ladies at events. He does incredibly well for a chap who would rather be playing computer games at home in his spare time.

I'm not very business minded. I could very much do with a partner on the business side who would keep me in check (and do the boring stuff) but currently I bumble through the motions and have an ever churning list of jobs and requirements and to-do lists swirling in my brain so, teaching workshops helps me to calm that frenzy a little bit. Many of the ladies (come on men!) who come along for the day, quite literally turn their phones off so they can't be disturbed and can enjoy the day fully, immersing themselves in the creative process and just having fun. Watching that, and being the inspiration sounding board makes me be very much in the moment too. I can't be panicking about the fact that my Etsy shop hasn't had a sale for weeks and that I really need to learn about and increase the SEO on my website, or that I haven't finished writing up the latest kit and new fabrics are piling up around the house but I need to finish the last kit before starting the next...I can only focus on what is happening, throw out creative ideas to those in my workshop...and make the coffee.
Anyway, that was a major rant and thought dump so thank you for wading through all of that angst in the first couple of paragraphs. This workshop was FUN. Seascape pieces always are because it involves shells and trimmings and loose wobbly stitching. The pressure is off to create a perfect flower because the beach is weather worn, windy and a little bit run down so the odd loopy stitch fits in perfectly! And you can just fill your hoop with shells and string, furnishing tassels, felt rocks, raffia and shiny tape so it's slightly less stitch focused.
The furnishing tassels are super effective don't you think? The trim I have for these workshops has clusters of tassel almost so there are small gaps between fluffy bits and you only need three bits of the fluffy sections to twist together and make these lovely urchins or grasses (or whatever you want them to be). You can twist a couple of colours together which looks even more interesting and they stick up from the hoop surface so immediately you want to poke and touch and ruffle it with your fingers.
Some of the ladies had gone for quite simple layers; sand, surf, sea, sky layers. Others were going for more of a rockpool (bird's-eye-view) situation, a couple had brought in photos to try and emulate, and one didn't have the sea in it at all, although it was implied with the addition of beach huts which crept in because she saw one of my hoops had beach huts.
Aren't they smashing? I hope that you find them inspiring - it shows what can be achieved by people who, quite often, haven't picked up a needle in years, or perhaps ever, who sit down and play for a few hours and can immediately create something that is really effective - even when only half finished.
It doesn't even really matter if they never finish their workshop pieces, the point is for them to have fun. I would expect quite a few of these to be finished though because there were at least three ladies who had already been to one workshop back again for a second (which is such a compliment, it really is).
Even more fantastically - two of those ladies had brought in FINISHED STITCHSCAPES from the previous workshops they'd attended. Oooh how my heart leapt in excitement!
Rosemary's little 10cm hoop is the one pictured above and she had started it in my taster workshop at the
Common Threads exhibition in March in Uckfield. I think it is just so sweet. My favourite bit is actually the multi-coloured french knots in those dark green hills, it looks like the colour is just about to turn on the leaves there so maybe the swallows are back off to wherever they go when it starts to get cold in England.
And Rachel's hoop was started at Made & Making in April - you can see what it looked like when I last saw it in
my blog post about that workshop here (see, this is why it is good to have a record of these things!). Since then, the lighthouse has had its light switched on, puffy fluffy clouds have appeared in the sky, as have some birds, and a boat has sailed into view, plus some very nice french knot work on the sand at the bottom as well.
I think my absolutely favourite moment of the workshop was when Rachel came up to me and asked if I would mind her taking some fabrics from my overstuffed scrap bag as she had an idea for a third Stitchscape and was looking for colours/fabrics to suit. I absolutely did not mind (the scrap bag is well overdue some pruning anyhow) because it means that someone else has caught this Stitchscaping bug! And I really hope that I will get to see the photos - or the actual pieces - of her finished hoops.