I started working on this piece at my London workshop last week. Initially it was going to be a pin pillow top...now I'm not sure. I am tempted to work a little more on it and mount it in one of my cloth sample books. I won't decide yet but I'm definitely leaning towards that idea.
The pink fringe has me in raptures. I bought that in London last week, I only bought half a yard and now I wish I had bought more..watch this space for a little mail ordering going on.
Every edge on this piece was bought in London last Friday, the fringe the ribbon, the silk which is folded at the base of the fringe. I chose well I think....
(there is only one artist book left over in the shop...thank you for wanting those. You can see the last one here)
At last I can show you the embroidered pockets I created for my London workshop which passed us by in a flash over this past weekend. It was amazing, incredible, so much fun, so much embroidery, too much cake and too much chocolate, lots of laughing and lots of chit chat.
Later this week I will share our creations from the weekend but first the kits.
I am sorry L ....this will spoil your surprise I guess..sorry!!
Hand embroidered folders/pockets/pouches.....sequins, French knots, gimp, bullion knots....... all finished by hand. Hand stitched edges, cords and internal pockets....
Liberty fabrics, hand stitched and pieced hexagons (me!! I did those) ribbon, trim, stitched papers, embroidered scrim and collaged white papers and tiny little hand stitched pillows along with decorative paper surfaces, grids and textured background papers.
and not forgetting little bundles of paper balls for button making!
I think it was a huge success. I think the girls were happy with their kits. I am sure they will let me know if they weren't.....
I am playing catch up now. My washing machine is calling and I have suitcases to unpack. (the wheels broke on my suitcase...I now have the right arm of an Olympic body builder and the ache to prove it)
There was shopping. I will show you later this week.
The shop is open again for online learning classes, no cakes or chocolate I'm afraid but lots of happy stitchy things which will more than make up for that and later this week I may, just may have a couple of little artist books for sale.....watch this space.
As you are seeing so much of these pieces for 'London 2018' I figured I should speak a little about the process without giving too much away. There's a short video where I attach a couple of sequins and chat a little about the process involved in creating these fabric 'folders' for the upcoming workshop.
In other news.....I have been teaching myself a couple of new stitches (new to me but much used by others) for my stitch ledger which I will be working on in ''embroidery School 2018''. You can read more about that here...we start next Monday.
If you have already signed up for that I will be mailing you later today.
I do apologise if you are fed up of seeing these London 2018 pieces over and over again. As these are taking most of my time it's all I have to show you but on the plus side for you....I am very happy with progress and I may even be finished in ten days or so. These are wonderful to create, I'm not in the least bit bored of them and will need to be careful I don't finish up with too many, get carried away. Although I said these were taking up most of my time there is other stuff going on that I can't share. I am creating stitched ''bits'' to go inside these workshop packs and have spent a bit of time on my current ''artist book '' for the 12 month ''artist book blog''.
(artist book girls....you will get your post later today not tomorrow because I won't be here tomorrow so stand by your computers)
I can show you these.....new thread cards I treated myself to with money I got from father Christmas.
and last night I wrapped some of them with thread and ribbon
Artist books runs until September. You can enrol anytime. Read more here. (you won't miss out on anything, access is given to everything posted since September 2017)
There are only two places left for the London 2018 workshop. I am so excited about this upcoming event. A full weekend of stitch, good food and incredible company. Read more here.
Embroidery School 2018. Begins in just over one week. Read more here.
I am away tomorrow at a Baptism. I will see you on Monday.
I was feeling very pleased with myself as I damp stretched the second one of these embroidered folders last night which I have been working on over the Christmas period for London 2018, my upcoming workshop. I patted myself on the back a few times and relaxed a little because I already have one completely finished piece and these two which are at a very advanced stage. That was until I took the photographs this morning. One of these has something missing which I didn't realise until I edited these images, I'm sure you can spot it. Oh well, I'm still happy with the progress I am making. There are a few of these still to be made but as I embroider on each one I get excited about how they will be when they are finished, about the pieces I am going to put inside them, the workshop kits, the cloth, the papers, the little unexpected things . You will be able to see all that after the event I promise. I will take lots of pictures.............
I'm hoping to make progress with the cover for my personal cloth book today and tomorrow. I am desperate to finish that so I can begin to add my embroidery samples to it. If you remember I measured it wrongly.....I speak about thathere.What with measuring errors and forgetting embellishments on this work I think I have Christmas brain fog.
The embroidered band for the edge, to rectify the measuring error still needs a little more embroidery but once that's done it can be damp stretched and I will be good to go putting it all together....
I have made very good progress with the next piece for London 2018. I don't actually know what to call these things, pockets? cloth books? they are more like folders I guess. I don't suppose it's essential to give them a name, it's the purpose that's important. These hand embroidered 'folder, book, pouches' will hold the workshop supplies I am giving to those coming to my London embroidery weekend in February. They will hopefully have contents similar to this but with more pieces including stitched papers. (you've seen the next image before)
I'm confident I can get all these made before February and I am going to crack on over the Christmas break.
The other piece today is the first finished inside page for my cloth book. You can read about that here. I have added beads. You might have known I would do that. If it wasn't beads it would have been sequins. Karen you are so predictable...yawn...
So....there is a big guy coming tonight I heard. If he stops by your place I hope he's good to you but whatever you are doing over the next day or two take good care of yourself and I will see you on the other side x
Yesterday afternoon I had a hankering to put another cloth book together similar to this one which will hold embroidered samples. The first picture shows embroidery so far.....it's all white, put together with white cloth and embroidered with white French knots, bullion loops, buttonhole stitch and cross stitch hearts. I'm not saying there won't be colour appearing on the surface at some point but for the moment I am sticking with white.
In the second image laid under my latest cloth book is a glimpse of my first ''goodie bag'' for the London 2018 workshop. It has a pocket label although it is in fact a cloth book too. The label references the inside pockets which I can't show you until after the workshop. That's the first one finished.....I best get cracking with the rest.
I am going away now, my bags are packed. I will be posting to Instagram whilst I am gone if you want to see what I am up to.
In this post I said you wouldn't see these pockets again until after my workshop. I should have said you wouldn't see them in their entirety until after London 2018. It's ok if you see this piece. This is the start of the inside, the pockets which will hold the workshop supplies I am providing. This morning I was thinking about what I could include and laid a few things out to help me make decisions. This isn't the final selection, some of these things may not make it past this audition. I am however very happy with the simplicity of these pockets,the minimal stitch. That will allow the contents to shine, to not be overpowered by heavily embellished cloth and in all honesty as there are a few of these to make I can't go overboard with hand embroidery no matter how much I want to, there just isn't enough time.
There's been a change of plan. My intention was to create pockets for the ''workshop kits'' for London 2018. I've changed my mind. I am now going to make cloth books with internal pockets to hold the supplies, the hexagons, the little snippets of things, the stitched papers and other stuff I haven't even thought of yet.
More embroidery will be added to this, it isn't finished yet. There will be web stitches for sure and the embroidery will continue inside too. I can't get too carried away though as I need to make several of these....I best crack on. You won't see these again until after the event as I would like there to be some element of surprise on the day for those who are coming to play. There are only two places left................you can read more here if you are tempted. We will have to be on our best behaviour as someone is coming all the way from the USA...wow.
A little bit of everything for you today, glimpses from the past week....
I bought this basket in Spain. It holds everything and anything. I need to stop taking the easy option and just dropping things into it instead of putting them away properly, in the right place.
I've been cutting a lot of hexagons over the past few days . These will be stitched to templates and made into ''grandmothers flower garden'' patchwork pieces for my London workshop kits. (London is selling well...big smile here, thank you!)
These images were taken whilst I was making videos for ''hankie class''. There's quite a bit of this kind of thing going on here. Hankies piled high, spread across the table before being cut up and adorned.
I'm not sure about this one, when it was taken. It could be ''artist book'' class but there's a little bit of me that says no, it was something else.
And sequins......there doesn't appear to be any shortage of these around here at the moment. These little things are fast becoming my new ''essential''.
And some videos from Instagram which you may have missed....
I'm making good progress with this work, with these 7 inch embroidered squares for a new cloth book of embroidery. The paper piece featured in my last post and I...
