Rodmell Sunday Stitchers

Following on from my last blog post, I had a whole weekend of workshops. No sooner had I finished up with the Made & Making workshop on the Saturday I then had a private workshop with the Rodmell Sunday Stitchers - on the Sunday, funnily enough. (By the way, the link to the Rodmell group may not be entirely up to date as it's to the village hall website, but the contact email address for the group is still current at the time of writing this blog post.)

Rodmell is just next Lewes in East Sussex and is somewhere that I have driven past loads of times before but had never actually gone into the village. It's very quaint, lots of thatched cottages and flint walls (which is very typical of the Lewes area anyway) and quiet. But it does have a lovely village hall where quite a large quilting and sewing group meet. 

I was invited to do a workshop with them after their bookings lady saw me at The Stitching Post during Artwave in September last year. I quite often get approached by groups and booked for the following year - it makes me feel oddly professional. Not that I'm not professional, but there is just something about having that event in your diary for a years' time that feels a little bit more special. I can't explain it any better than that so I hope I don't sound very odd. 

Anyway, this group were a really interesting mix. Several of them go to different types of workshops in other places and had a few different techniques and ideas in mind that they were blending with what I was showing them to create a slightly different way of working, some had never hand stitched but were dyed in the wool machine sewers so the slow stitch aspect was more difficult for them, and others just sat and quite happily stitched away in their own little worlds, just happy to create. 

These groups are absolutely essential, in my mind, to a community and to bring together people who may otherwise be quite isolated. If you are a crafter/stitcher who stitches at home; in front of the TV or in the garden, or at the kitchen table, and you are always alone during this process, I really urge you to see if you have a creative group like this in your area - even if they only meet once a month. It has such huge benefits. The ladies all talk each other up, share their resources, skills and experience and have a common interest to be a starting point for conversation. Depending on the group, extra day trips are booked, exhibitions looked at and friendships formed. You cannot be unhappy when you are creating just for yourself, and when other people are all chipping in with their "oh wow, that's amazing, what a great idea, what a clever clogs you are, such talent, so neat, what a great colour choice, where did you get that trimming, that's a perfect addition to that piece" comments. 

This was a mixed bag workshop so some ladies had asked for the beach - the majority of them were going coastal actually - and some were after more of a floral/countryside type theme. My workshop packs are very relaxed, they are just to be used as a spring board and the fabrics can be swapped around, changed or removed to suit each person and the idea that comes to mind. Even with a coastal theme you can put in a floral fabric so nothing is set in a themed stone. 

This lady (above) was going great guns with the bead sticks. I can't remember how it came about that I suggested she might like to have a go at creating the bead stick, but I had a few bead tubes with me and a beading needle. I turned my back for a few minutes and when I came back these enormous, long and spindly bead sticks were waving at me from her hoop - aren't they splendiforous? Apparently she has lots of beads at home just loitering with intent so I think we all know what she's going to be doing with them now!

This lady (also above) finished her hoop! It rarely happens actually so it was a novelty - we had two finished hoops by the end of the day on this workshop - but as she wasn't a confident hand stitcher, she was very happy with what she had achieved, and rightly so. Organza had been brought along from her stash and she's stitched that down to make a scrunched wavy texture for her water, added beads and a fluffy chenille trimming for her water's edge, stitched seed stitch with a variegated perlé thread on her sand, cut shiny sequin tape and stitched it down with the shells for some wet look pebbles and had a go at french knots to add a sandy texture. It's lovely. 

The hoop below (for a change) was by Sabine who has been to several workshops and events that I've been to. I would class her as a 100% Stitchscape convert success story - I've even taught a workshop at her house with her friends! She is a very neat stitcher, as I'm sure you can tell from her blanket stitch flower in orange - and she has used an eyelash yarn to add texture to the other stitched flowers, such a clever idea! 

There were some really beautiful ideas and different approaches in this class which made for a fascinating day. If you are in the vicinity of Rodmell perhaps it would be something you might like to join in with. I can recommend it completely. 

Made & Making Seascape Workshop

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. 

Little Things

 

Little things making me smile recently include:

♡ Teatime picnics on our fire escape balcony in the sunshine.

♡ Adding cup stitches to a current WIP. I love how they work so well with the stem stitch circles around the blobs in the fabric pattern, creating textured circles within circles. Plus they are fun to make!

♡ Completing thread cards ready to go into kits for upcoming sales events and to stock up my shops. Fire Flower II has been flying off the shelves recently so there is lots to do! The thread cards themselves take forever to make but I can't see any other way of getting so many colours into the kits so I'll have to keep on making them. 

♡ Guide meetings held outside in a local Division campsite. This particular site is in Chiddingly and, this time of year, is absolutely full of wild garlic releasing the most incredible scent! I love love love being surrounded by trees and woodland, with just the call of the birds and the cows in the field. And the happy shouts and cries from the Guides too, obviously. 

♡ Amazing sunsets out of our kitchen and living room windows. The view we have from the balcony is absolutely the best part about our home and especially at this time of year where we get to appreciate it with the long evenings. 

♡ It being warm enough, and light enough, to sit outside in the evenings to work on computer stuff. This photo in particular was from a newsletter writing night so; Friday night, PJs on, sat in the golden sunshine with Easter egg chocolate and a coffee. 

♡ Cheeky little snails. Toddler F is fascinated by snails at the moment and spends a lot of time searching in flower beds for them. This one was waving us off from my parents house one evening last week. 

♡ Working on April's ATC cards. The theme is Farmyard Friends and I've not given myself much time to complete these so am totally cheating with my sheep fabric. Even with the cheat they are still taking a while so I have them as my bus project and they are popping out all over the place! 

Treyarnon Bay Stitchscape

 

It's finished! One of the biggest Stitchscapes I've ever stitched (25cm hoop), and that has taken me many months to chip away at, is finally having its ta-daah moment. Huzzah! 

I really love these bigger seashell hoops and, whilst I'm typing, I've realised that I quite miss having a large project lurking in the corner of the room waiting for little pockets of time to stitch on. I have a load of big hoops hiding in the back of my wardrobe so I may need to dig one out and fill it with shells and rockpools and other fun bits. 

The name for this Stitchscape comes from a beach in Cornwall which is known for its sandy beach and large rockpools. I don't think I've been to this particular place but this is definitely an incentive to go!

I really need to go shell searching again as my stash is looking a little bit depleted. There is something so lovely about going out looking for beautiful shells and interesting sea treasure and then being able to stitch it straight into your hoop - after a little wash -  what a way to make a holiday memory last. 

This one was purely inspired by the need to create a shell themed Stitchscape so I rummaged through my fabric stash to find some coastal colours, settling on a classic watery blue and rocky brown selection. The shells were arranged and stitched down next as they are the predominant part of the piece and there is no point stitching all of the fabric background and then plopping a big ol' shell on top. 

I may have got a tad carried away with stitching my textures down first though, especially as I had just received a present from Reece of amazing beads from Old Bicycle Shop Beads which I was desperate to try out. There is nothing more irritating later on than having to keep unlooping your stitching from around the pokey-uppy bits you stitched down first because you were impatient. 

Around the shells I've stitched a tangle of furnishing trimmings, dagger beads, craft stamens (with fun clear little beaded ends), cotton scrim (the green stuff) and some other fun coloured beads. I especially like the flat topped blue ones.

 

Gorgeous shiny boucle yarn has been couched down to help create a frothing waters edge, and french knots and little tube beads have been added to that for some sparkle and fizz. 

Working downward from the shells, the top water fabric just has single strand rows of running stitch through it, following the curving lines of the shells so that the lines kind of crash and meld into each other and have a sort of wave shape. 

The bottom blue fabric still has running stitch across it, but in two strands so it is bolder and it is much smoother to kind of hint at calmer waters further away from the beach. The fabric edge still has quite a lot going on though with couched embroidery threads and un-spiralled purl wire, silk throwsters waste (the blue fluffy stuff) and folded clear sequins with beads keeping them on. It kind of reminds me of the seaweed that floats near the edges of water sometimes, ready to wrap its fronds around an unwary leg. 

 

The shells are resting on two different fabric layers, the bottom of which has a grid pattern on it, a little bit like a computer chip or something where there is a mix of squares and rectangles. Where it pokes through the shells and other fun bits, some of those shapes are just lines so have been covered in whipped back stitch, others left just as back stitch, and some smaller shapes filled in with satin stitch - all facing in the same direction so that they go against the direction of the lines. The little bit of fabric edge you can see has been edged with bullion knots. 

Above this fabric is a kind of marble print with crackles printed in gold metallic. I have used a single strand and picked out some of those crackles, stitching back stitches just next to the gold lines to give a little bit more texture. 

Cotton scrim in a dark peachy purple has been stitched along the fabric edge, twisting in some pearl bead trim so that it appears and disappears along the edge. I've made clusters of cast-on stitch to kind of look like crusty corals or sea fungus (not really sure what they are, they just look cool) using a perle thread and making them longer than they should be so that they bunch up and twizzle a bit more than they should. It feels fantastic to run your fingers over!

Little matte beads have been stitched in and around this layer as well. 

The next layer, with the pebble print, took AGES to finish - mainly because I was satin stitching each of the pebbles on the print, working backwards and forwards along the row and filling them in in slightly different shades. I didn't end up stitching the entire layer in the end because I was fed up with working on it but I think that creates a nice depth to the layer with little shady holes between the pebbles. I've worked moss stitch to give fluffy green bits over the pebbles, using two colours in the needle at once (and I think two strands of each at a time) so that you get a fun mottled effect. 

This fabric has been edged with a leatherette cord couched down with a couple of colours of beigey brown. 

The brown batik fabric has a few different things going on as well. I started by working stem stitch around the splodge lines in the print, then filled some of them in with two strand seed stitch, and other areas in single strand seed stitch. I've then got a single strand whip stitch worked through the seeds, and french knots drifting around the lines to build up texture. More french knots have been used to finish the fabric edge. 

The three sky layers are equally simple, the bottom blue layer just has single strand back stitches along the watermarks in the batik fabric and is edged with a slightly shiny rattail cord, the creamy fabric is whipped back stitch along lines in the fabric print, with bullion knots to the top, and the white fabric at the top is edged with blanket stitch and just a couple of simple single strand rows of running stitch at the bottom to fill in a gap without adding any heavy texture. 

Fly stitch birds have been scattered through the sky to finish it off.

I've had so much fun with the different trimmings and stitches in this. Seascapes are a brilliant way of just chucking in lots of bits and bobs and everything goes. I have more gorgeous beads too that I'd like to stitch into something special. 

So, the stitch run down for this is; blanket stitch, running stitch, whipped back stitch, bullion knots, fly stitch, couching, back stitch, french knots, stem stitch, seed stitch, satin stitch, moss stitch, cast-on stitch and beading.

It's been a longwinded joy to stitch - watch this space for another one!