Fibre Fest - All Things Textile

(Toddler F set out some of his favourite cars on my stand before I could unpack the frames!! I wonder if he'll set up a little car shop one day?)

This year is a year of trying out new events to try and find some that work better for me and my products. Stitchscape kits are actually quite difficult things to sell - people who buy them (or who they are bought for) tend to be those who actually like embroidery, don't mind the slow pace and are willing to have a go. My most regularly heard excuses for not buying kits are; I don't have time, I'm not at all creative, I only do cross stitch, I wouldn't have the patience, I can't see that sort of things anymore, my hands aren't that good at holding needles, it's not fast enough - I'm more a machine person. 

It's a fairly niche area - I often wish that I was actually a painter, or a potter perhaps, where more people would appreciate it and buy it just because it was pretty, or they understood how to use it, or it was considered practical. 

I was invited several months ago to have a stand at Fibre Fest - All Things Textile in Eastbourne Enterprise Centre. The organiser had come across me online, and I think I'd been recommended by another textile artist who regularly attends their events (but I'm not sure) so I had an email ping into my inbox inviting me to go along. 

The idea of an 'all things textile' event really appealed to me, and Eastbourne isn't far away so I jumped at the chance although, never having been in the Enterprise Centre before I wasn't sure how big it was going to be. When festival is used in the title it makes it sound really big and grand but, actually, it was surprisingly small! And held in an upstairs balcony corridor type place which was a bit strange. It was marketed very well and I felt really chuffed that so many people had come along because I had also advertised it and put it in my newsletter. There were lots of friendly faces saying hello. 

It was the first event where I also had a proper basket of fabric fat quarters/samosas, and had deliberately taken some haberdashery items. I took my IKEA peg board and propped it up at the back to give myself a little haberdashery wall. This was a great idea, although not particular sturdy but I think another trip to IKEA is in order to get another one and some other bits to make more walls. 

The building is an old train garage and has the original ceiling and features with lots of windows so it's beautifully bright and airy, it was just a bit strange being in this suspended corridor where you could look down into little shop streets below on either side. There was a very popular tattoo studio up there as well and we had several heavily tattooed people marching through the textile customers to squeeze another tattoo somewhere on their bodies. 

Other stalls included a fashion designer with clothing, crochet, felt hats, eco-printing with wildflowers, hand dyeing with natural dyes, sashiko, machine stitch textile artists, knitted creations...it was a good range!

The morning was fairly busy but then the afternoon just kind of dropped off and went very quiet. Luckily I had a project to sit and stitch and, I happened to notice that one of the yarn twists from Folkestone Harbour Yarn perfectly matched my hoop in colour so I spent some of my earnings on a little hand dyed hank of wool to play with. 

It was a very nice day, in a nice atmosphere - just a little on the quiet side customer wise (which seems to be happening more and more really) - and we can teach workshops so I think if it's on next year I would arrange to offer workshops on the day to keep more of a flow going. 

I managed to get a fair way with my little hoop too, all made with fabrics available in my web shop! 

FQ Pack Challenge Hoop

Every now and then I try to give myself a little challenge. Usually it's completing a hoop that's been hanging around from a workshop as no one wanted to take on the colour range I'd suggested within it, but this time it was to only use fabrics from one fat quarter that I picked up in a supermarket. 

A car nap session (for Toddler F, not for me) seemed like a good time to start this and I grabbed some essentials whilst Reece waited in the car, then settled down to see what I could make from the fabrics in the bundle. 

It was quite a spring-y floral fresh sort of a collection of prints but there was a difference in the types of pattern used. The creamy/yellow background ditsy print I thought stood out a bit as there is no other use of that background colour anywhere in the pack - it didn't quite look like it fitted in properly. 

I liked the stripes and the yellow flowers though. 

I played around with how I was going to layer them a little bit, then cut them up, tacked them down and popped them back into the hoop to give a window into this little world. One of the fabrics I didn't end up using, mostly because I didn't think it would fit in the 10cm hoop - too many fabrics for one small space. If I'd used a bigger hoop then I would have tried harder to get all five fat quarter fabrics in. 

I filmed some of the process and you can find that on my Instagram/Facebook pages, but I basically got most of the bottom layer covered in seed stitch and started a few areas of the top fabric before the Toddler woke up so that wasn't bad going. 

It made for a very nice bus project for the week. There wasn't a lot to it really, the chunky trimming I've used is the webbing that was tying the fabrics together, kind of rolled and then couched down. The bottom layer I have covered in seed stitches to blend into the fabric, added some little detached chain stitches into the yellow flower motifs and filled in the stems and leaves with straight stitches. A little blue bead was added in to the flower centres because I happened to have that colour in my bag at the time. 

Extra french knots were added between the flowers to break up the white space and bring some of the colours from the top layer down to balance it out. 

The daisy fabric was edged with a baby cream ric rac that I also had in my bag, and I've gone over the diagonals of the trimming in two different colours, working one way in green and the other way in yellow for a little extra pizazz! 

The stripe fabric has a single strand row of back stitch along each stripe and I've then also blurred the fabric edges a bit more by making rows of french knot tapers started from the top of the bottom fabric, working up over the stripes to break them up. Fly stitches have been added to be the green foliage accompanying these tapers. 

I've used a creamy yellow for the flowers, which match the warm yellow of the fabric above (the one I mentioned that sort of stuck out as an oddity). I think it has helped to blend that fabric back in to the landscape so it's worked really well. 

I've worked simple rows of running stitch on the yellow layer, and edged with french knots. 

The tree layer above has several different stitches going on. I've matched the colours in the print (sort of) and then worked detached chain stitches, fly stitches, straight stitches and stem stitches where the pattern called for it. It has been edged with white bullion knots and finished with tiny tiny little cross stitch kisses at the top. 

All in all, an excellent challenge. The only irritating part is that the fabrics have quite an open weave so you can see any patterns underneath but I suppose that it helps to blend them together even more in a way. 

The stitch run down for this little piece is; bullion knots, straight stitch, stem stitch, fly stitch, detached chain stitch, couching, french knots, running stitch, back stitch, seed stitch and beading. 

Kits & Workshops

 

I used my newly acquired first week of being a work from home person whose son was at nursery to start on my Kasumi Koi kit! The fabrics for this arrived ages ago but it just never made it out of the packaging, other than once to oogle the fabrics and gasp over the shininess and printed gold lines.

I kept putting it off because I needed serious concentration time and had to be in the right headspace, which just so happened to come along a couple of weeks ago! 

The Kasumi Koi kit is made up of only Makower printed fabrics and it's such a gamble to see if these fabrics will work together as some of them were only printed pictures in a promotional booklet I was shown so, to try and match these with the samples was a little bit of a guessing game. It was fun to have a pre-order though and know that they were going to arrive with me before it was all released to the public. 

I had initially been going to make this in a 15cm/6" hoop but, when playing around with the hoops and the fish in particular, the size would only allow for about one fish per pond. I didn't like the idea of a lonely, sad koi fish stuck all alone in his fancy golden pond so I have scaled this up to a 20cm/8" hoop (the same size as the Harvest Sun kit) which then allows for three or four fish per hoop depending on the piece you get. I will likely have to allow for a much bigger piece than each kit needs so that there is a chance for everyone to fussy cut around the sections they want and play with where the fish end up. 

I've been trying to film more reels and videos as I go through making up these hoops and, thank goodness for zoom because the table just ends up an absolute mess with bits everywhere. It's good fun though and I'm trying to get better with it all. Lighting is my current problem as our home isn't all that bright and we have very warm inside lights which distort the colours a bit.

As it happens, I haven't touched the hoop since I started it - but it is started! - I have got some lovely trimmings and yarns which match in perfectly and I will hopefully be using metallic threads as well so there will be a little bit of a sparkly situation going on. 

So, watch this space!

On another subject, I had such a lovely little private workshop in Bexhill-on-sea the other weekend. It was organised by a lady I'd met a couple of times before and who had come to a similar private workshop organised in a wonderful marquee in a back garden! 

She had paid so much attention to detail in the workshop - putting together her own fabric kit packs for the ladies to choose from using fabrics from her own stash. Aren't they amazing? I love the cows especially, they work really well in terms of scale and print direction. She also had loads and loads of different threads and trimmings and beads, bead shells and all sorts of things! I had taken my scrap bag with additional threads and trimmings so there was just so much to use and draw inspiration from. 

I especially enjoy the conversations that I end up having during workshop days. Talking very seriously about requiring hardstanding for the cows and how to turn fabrics into fences or making the best kinds of grass. Taken out of context, some of the conversations would seem very strange!

Pretty much all of these ladies were stitchers - or quilters which we'll let them off for - so they didn't need all that much direction really. I was there to give ideas and to reassure when doubt struck but there wasn't a huge amount of stitch teaching going on. I think we covered drizzle stitch, bullion knots and cast-on stitch, feather stitch, fly stitch and french knots?

Mostly it's answering the question of 'what can I stitch on this bit?' 

I do enjoy that question though, it's an opportunity to think about colour and weight of line - do you mix colours in the needle at once, or use a variegated thread, perhaps you stitch an initial layer in one colour and then come back and stitch something else on top in a second colour. Perhaps it's all monotone and blends in so it doesn't shout out but adds some simple texture onto the surface. If it's far away, do you use a single strand of a stranded cotton, or do you use a big chunky perle or tapestry yarn, does it need to be fluffy or smooth.... there are so many options for each layer! 

Polegate & Patchwork Cat Workshops

 

Apart from April, September was my busiest month this year with all of the workshops and other events I had going on. It's brilliant to feel so wanted! I wish I could do more workshops really but to run your own is a lot of risk unless you have a premises already - I would have to hire somewhere and pay for the hire than hope I have enough people attending, advertise it all etc...I did use to do it but I never really liked the places I could hire as they are often village halls which aren't light enough or can be chilly, or have hard chairs and, after a few hours of sitting still in a cold hall on a hard chair, those in the class would be getting a bit wriggly. 

Plus whenever I go to a new venue I have to lug my box of example frames and hoops, the big IKEA bag of fabrics, threads, trimmings and extra tools, a bag with sketchbooks in, the box of kits for sale, presentation baskets and my rucksack with lunch in so it is quite an ordeal. I'm not particularly portable - plus we only have the one car so I usually get given lifts to everywhere which means I have to ask someone to help and give up their own time so my workshops are not undertaken lightly. 

This first workshop was for the Polegate Stitch Ups on a, mostly, sea theme. They ranged in experience from a lady who had never done any embroidery and only liked crochet, to someone who used to teach stitching and textiles who seems to have been the founder of the group in some way if I recall rightly, to everything in between. 

As in most workshops, some people are very precise and spend a long time thinking through their fabric placement and the colour of the thread they're using or the stitches themselves, and others are a little bit more care free, sticking down fabrics and choosing threads that are vaguely the right colour but not worrying about it. It can create a very different looking landscape but none of them are incorrect. Stitchscapes embrace all skill levels, neatness levels and preciseness levels. (Ooh I didn't think preciseness was a word but it's been accepted by the word gods without a red underline!!)

Seascapes are also very accepting of some rougher areas - there was some really interesting gathering of ribbons (by working a line of running stitch through the length of ribbon and pulling it to tighten and gather the fabric), some destruction of knitting yarns to make wild and wavy grasses and stitching down of toy stuffing bundles to make frothing waves or bubbles left on the sand. 

I really need to add Drizzle stitch to my printed workshop handout of stitches as it comes up all of the time - but one lady started calling it willie stitch (I'll let you figure out why from the photo below) and the afternoon took a bit of a raucous turn after that with lots of giggling ladies . 

My next workshop was at The Patchwork Cat which is a quilting shop and café in Newhaven. Now they have an astounding amount of fabric in their shop, all stuffed into boxes as pre-cut fat quarters or on bolts around the walls. How they manage to fit it all in, as well as some tables for their café and a couple of tables for a workshop corner - it's like the Tardis!

We had a mixture of seascape and autumn woodland themed hoops in this class, and it was a lovely welcoming venue with people popping in and out all of the time. It was quite inspiring to be surrounded by lots of different patterns of fabric too. 

Some people had brought along little bits of their own stash, like beads or silvered fibres, and others just used what I had brought along but everyone uses the trimmings in different ways, or to be different things. Part of the fun is to experiment with what a material can do. Rather than just having a flat ribbon, what if you twist it, or wrap it around something else, or bunch it up in some way so that it's 3D? If you have a loosely woven fabric, can you tease it apart and use the fibres for something, what if you keep pulling them apart, do they fluff up, can that turn into something more exciting?

I hope that by sharing these photos of the workshop pieces (created mostly between the hours of 10am and 4pm, with a stop for lunch) that you can see what is possible in a short space of time, and also the range of ideas and techniques that have been created or used. I personally find workshops so inspiring just because ideas can be worked on so quickly across several different hoops and it often springboards my own ideas, or gets me itching to stitch a new hoop to practice one particular element I've been talking about all day with someone else. 

Hopefully everyone who attended found these workshops inspiring and good fun! I've been invited back to the Polegate Stitch Ups for a Christmas workshop soon so that will be exciting.