Everlasting Poppies

I had a little idea for a workshop theme to do with poppies for Autumn time and, once that idea had taken hold, I couldn't help myself and immediately got a hoop, fabrics, felt and threads to try and make my idea into an actual thing. In a big hoop, I drew around the centre pieces of my little craft hoops - which are presentation only, no good for stitching in - so I knew where my 'safe sew space' was for each flower. It's much less fiddly to work on several at once in a larger hoop. 

They are very similar to my brooches, with the woven wheel stitch being used for the poppy flowers - except this time I also stitched over the woven wheel in a contrast thread to create more obvious petal shapes. I went with black but I could have used the same red colours (there were two different reds mixed into the needle at the same time) just to pull the wheel in and create those petal shapes. 

Some of them are a little bit on the wonky side but that's ok for a first go! 

Before I got to the woven wheel bit I was having fun with leaves, experimenting with using felt and stitching into it for the leaf veins (being careful with my stitching towards the tips so that it would be pretty on the back as well where I knew it would go over the little hoop), I tried a couple with an organza but I think I should have cut that with a soldering iron, or fixed the edges in some way as it just frays when cut with scissors. 

Once I'd got the flowers and leaves on, I also added some long hairy black yarn that I found in a charity shop - either just couching it tucked underneath the flower, or twisting a little bit and stitching it inside the flower so it looks a bit like hairy stamens. The stamen ones were also given a haircut to make them shorter. Black beads were stitched into the flower centres as well which I really like. 

Green yarns or a crinkled green fabric from my stash were added to some for a little bit of extra interest, and french knots cover any gnarly or empty bits and that's it!

Once all of the designs are finished they get cut out of the big hoop and drawn up around the smaller craft hoop centres to make them nice and neat, then framed in the mini hoops and the back of the hoops glued on. You can buy the craft hoops online or in craft shops and they always come as a three piece set with central piece, frame and wooden backing but can be a variety of shapes and sizes. 

I had to be careful in this case to pull the leaves through so they didn't get trapped within the frame. 

I really like these, I think they're so sweet. I have since glued on butterfly brooch backs to them but you could also wear them as pendants or stick a magnet on the back to pop it on your fridge...or just pop it on a shelf!

TACKS Workshop

More than a couple of months ago (I’m behind on my blogging again!) I had a lovely big workshop in Meopham with a really active group called TACKS, which stands for Textile Arts, Crafts, Knitting and Stitching. (TACKS is much easier to say!) I had met some of the ladies before in Arundel and Rochester so it was great to see them as well as meeting lots of new faces.

Before we'd even started the workshop I was presented with TWO completed Stitchscapes! Both ladies had been to previous workshops or talks, one at Wainscott and one in Arundel so had either started their own hoop or purchased a kit to make. Isn't that amazing? It was a great start to the day for certain.
This big green sheep hoop was being given as a gift so had even been done up on the back, covered with felt and with a little stitched label on the back! It's very sparkly with metallic threads, shiny yarns, beads and gorgeous metallic batik fabric.

I love, love, love seeing completed kits too - each one is always so different! I find it fascinating to see which bit of the pattern other people get and what they do with it. Just in designing the kit I can only work with the bit that I get whilst thinking about what other people might receive but I can only guess at that so seeing it in reality is fab. 

The workshop had no set theme so I’d made up packs which varied between coastal and countryside, and some ladies also brought their own materials which is always fun to add variety.
There were quite a lot of fussy cut sheep, all placed upright for once, as well as experimenting with using toy stuffing stitched down to make their woolly coats. Once we had the stuffing out it was also used for clouds and sea spray, as well as for actually stuffing felt or fabric rocks - it’s a diverse thing to have in your Stitchscape stash!

I love how in some workshops one particular trimming, thread or stitch becomes an accidental focus and ends up in multiple hoops.

This particular piece was being worked on by a lady who was a crocheter at heart (we won't hold that against her) and admitted that she didn’t really know how to embroider and was far out of her comfort zone. She had brought along with her an image that she was trying to emulate, with a river and stone wall in a rocky valley - which can be a hard thing to do for your first foray into Stitchscaping because you end up comparing your textile hoop to the image and they aren't really going to look alike.

Initially she was stitching each of the stones into her wall individually, and complaining just a little bit about the length of time it was taking her and that it wasn't working out like her picture so I went and grabbed a chunky knitting yarn from my stash and started pulling one of the strands in it to make the rest all bunch up like stones. If it were me I would probably have gone the whole hog and couched down lots of strands stacked on top of each other of this pulled yarn to create my wall, but I like that she's kept her stone stitching and just added the pulled yarn at the bottom, along with some strands of eyelash yarn being used as scrubby grasses. 

Sometimes you do have to go with the feel of something rather than an accurate representation. 

This lady is the one who made the big green sheep hoop at the start of this post and, interestingly, I think there are quite a few similarities between the two hoops. Lots of couched edges and sparkly bits, but this time with shells and furnishing trimmings! Really lovely. 

You can also tell, I think, who was sitting next to each other! The layout for the workshop was tables arranged almost in a 'U' shape but the tables themselves sort of had little pockets of people in groups around it and I think these three hoops were all created on the same table, with inspiration being taken and given between the three ladies! I wonder if you can see what I mean?

If you are in the area this would be a brilliant group to join. They not only have workshops but, if you didn't fancy joining in with the workshop on offer, they still have areas for you to bring your own projects, they had a show and tell, a raffle, a little pop up shop, shared news...it was so brilliant to see!

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. 

Wainscott Sewing Studio Workshop

Gosh this feels like such a long time ago - and I suppose it was, all the way back in April. I hadn't realised this post was still in my drafts until I went looking for the very post to reference a more current post back to!

I have recently been cutting a swathe through Kent it seems and the last few workshops I've blogged about are sort of all on a line, as if I'd stuck a pin and string on a map above my home and swirled it round, everything is sort of that distance away from us. 

Each time I have a workshop and I pull out my bag of threads I'm reminded that I really mean to go through those threads and get them all organised and pretty, rather than in a tangled jumble which is difficult to extract from and/or find the right colour. The problem is that I don't get a lot of time for that sort of thing - the last time they were properly sorted was during the Pandemic when all anyone had was time - so utilising travel time with some good old fashioned sorting out seemed like a good idea. Amazingly I didn't get very far into the bag. 

I usually get dropped off to the workshops as we only have the one car and being about an hour away from home means that Reece and Toddler F generally find somewhere fun to go and visit and have a special day together. This time round they went to Diggerland and had an absolute whale of a time. Toddler F is obsessed with vehicles and things on wheels so this was right up his street. It's nice to know that they are having a good day whilst I'm busy doing stitchy things and we can exchange stories when I get picked up at the end of the day.

Meanwhile, I was laying out my Stitchscape display and chatting to the ladies, some of whom I had met before when they came to visit a showcase event put on last year with the Sussex Stitchers. 

I wasn't providing workshop packs for this workshop, they were all providing their own materials and hoops following my kit list and someone had brought along sheep fabric they'd found (the same as in my Woollydale kits) so sheep invaded pretty much every hoop which was quite funny. 

There were more than six ladies in the class but some had to leave earlier than others so I haven't got them all included in the end-of-day photo. There was a lot of chatter and tea and cake so not quite so much stitching got accomplished as in other workshops but that's kind of what these days are about really, providing the inspiration and ideas of how to take it forward, demonstrate how to look at trimmings and threads and then just leave everyone to it to carry on and see where it takes them. The hardest part can often be trying to get someone to believe in their own creativity! 

This was a really fun piece as the lady had a beautiful batik fabric at the bottom there with printed gold lines that looked like water. Yellow wool roving was twisted and couched along some of those lines to look like a reflection of the sun peeking through those hills further up and it was really effective! I suggested she add some sun rays and metallic threads as well for additional sparkle, and to match the glittery-ness of the water. 

Norma was one of the few who didn't add sheep into her piece and I think her sea piece is really lovely! She struggled a little bit with creating a sense of perspective so I chatted to her about playing around with her little islands, which initially she had both on top of the dark blue water line, and bringing one down to create more of a cove and giving some movement into the hoop. Your eye travels around that island on the left there to go out to wider waters hinted at over on the right which is really lovely. She had some fantastic glass/gem beads which she's stitched down as well for water washed rocks. 

This lady (above) hadn't done any embroidery like this at all and was slightly nervous I think. Her batik fabric spoke to me of trees so I suggested trying out a little woodland and, in the same way as the island on the water, layering the trees under different horizontal layers and making them thinner as they got higher to give the perspective of a path almost between the trees, taking you off into the distance. Once I'd shown her how to make blanket stitch for the tree edging she was away!

There were some fantastic fabric prints brought along to this workshop, lots of very textural looking ones with grasses, water lines, bark lines and even a stone wall! I do get a lot of fabric envy, there are just too many beautiful fabrics and prints being produced and I want them all!