October rushes into Christmas....

I say October, because yet again I have neglected my small space in Blogland to concentrate on the real world - planning, teaching, evaluating and stitching like a demon for my own Christmas sales - I have not stopped believe me!

In the mean time, my merry collection of stitchers have been coming up with some cracker ideas. Christmas is featuring heavily of course, but there are some larger plans in the making too.

This is the work of Suzie, she is very new to stitching but has been inspired already to make a quilt of her baby daughters outgrown clothes.

She just got on with the cutting out before the class and we spent the time, trimming, arranging and balancing the colours and patterns.

I then introduced her to the wonders of 'bondaweb' and a name appeared, Suzie plans to embroider around the letters this week.

Without standing on a table, you cannot see how good this looks, but believe me it's fab. We kept the 'shapes' of the clothes to make this hotchpotch quilt I hope it will go together in a collage fashion quickly, there will be a border of charm squares to enhance the colours and patterns. A great start for this new stitcher and her lovely new project.

......and now for some more projects

Lesley is making a quilt for her son for Christmas, a mix of Union Jacks and a 'nearly' Dutch flag to celebrate his european roots!

Lesley is also making this adorable sleeping lion, from instructions found in a vintage book. The instructions were a little vague and we didn't believe they would work, but as you can see, he is just lush. Lesley could have a few orders for more but she has vowed never to make another one!

Her is the work of another doubting stitcher....Kate is on a mission to complete a rather huge Advent calendar for her boys this year. This is the work so far and we have spent time working out how it will go together, I think it will be about 4' tall when finished!

Staying with the festive season, Emma is making 3 stockings, the attention to detail is amazing and 'sew' neat! Another stitching doubter, I think she is hooked, every week another book of inspiration arrives via the post. She has a very supportive husband - who I hope is impressed with this new talent?

Then quietly beevoring away in the corner is Rebecca, making her very own wedding bouquet.

They are working beautifully and co-ordinate perfectly with her colours, an everlasting keepsake, good work!

WoW!

I proudly admit that I had nothing to do with these fantastic creations by Sue, one of my students in a Children's Centre. But I think I can take credit for inspiring her to stitch and have the confidence to create these brilliant pieces -at home, on her own!

She has a wild visual sense of style and eye for detail.

As part of our felt collage for the Centre, this was the first thing Sue stitched- a lovely detailed cat. He is sitting with our seasonal tree, at the moment Work in Progress, but will be finished soon I hope.

This is the most recent addition to Sue's collection, a weasel in top-hat and tails! I have requested a badger for next week, both for our collage and in full 3-D glory.

Up to and over christmas she created a huge amount of beautiful decorations and toys for her children. Lovely work and a real inspiration to the other members of the group.

The children apparently love these and request more of the same, the partner raises an eyebrow of surprise at such the new obsession of buttons and felt!

Monday funday

It's always tricky starting a new group, the first 20 mins of the session are spent talking about possible projects, exchanging ideas and thinking through the process of work. There is often some uncertainty about what each student wants to make and how this should be done. Today was one of those sessions, but I can proudly report that after about half an hour everyone was cutting and stitching and chatting about what inspires them and things they wanted to try.

Here are the results:

A lovely racoon from Doodle Stitching, and Cheryl is hoping to continue at home.

A rather cross looking pumpkin pin cushion with a fetching flat hat, to be finished next week:

This is Pierre (!) another french inspired pumpkin pincushion all finished and ready for action of the stitching kind.

Karen started on a collage for the Centre and was really pleased with the progress of her blanket stitch. Over the weeks, I will get the whole group to contribute something.

........and 'trumpet fanfare'........This lovely mobile was started way before the summer holidays. Sarah has put a lot of time and thought into every detail and has enjoyed creating a beaded wonder:

Sadly it was too long to get a decent picture off my camera phone :

So I tried some close-up's, bit out of focus:
You can see the lovely button, bead and embroidery details here:

This weeks update....

What a busy week! I have had full 2 busy classes packed with eager stitchers to get on and stitch - fantastic!

This is the beginning of a lovely project, I am looking forward to the applique and embroidery planned for it.

Here are some little characters for a collage based upon the Government scheme 'every child matters'. We have borrowed the images and enlarged them, then coloured them with fabric pens and made little cushions, any fine features are embroidered on afterwards. They will be stitched onto the collage to give a real 3D feel to the picture. This was all done in one morning, well done ladies!
Maggie is working on a mobile for her daughters based on weather and seasons. She got the idea from this lovely Doodle stitching embroidery book and has worked really well at home on her own. Good work.
This morning I started stitching with a new group. Last week we planned a collage for the Children's Centre based around first sounds in language - cat, dog etc and also native british animals - bat, badger, fox. This is work so far: not a great picture, but a good start to the project and there are lots of brilliant ideas for the rest of the term.

Summer workshop

As the rain pours down over Milton Keynes, I can sit and report about a Summer stitching workshop! The Children's Centre co-ordinator has always wanted us to stitch something for the walls, so I thought we would give it a go. I took in bags of fabric, fabric pens and bits of inspiration and the group came up with these ideas. We in listed the help and hands of children in the creche and made trees, bushes and a lovely sunny sun. It is still work in progress, we will continue in September, come on sunshine we still need you!

Hurrah! the secret is finished!!

Well done to the stitching ladies of P. Children's Centre!! Your work is finished, a lovely master piece of team work and hard work. You should be very proud.

This was work in progress, still some spaces to fill.

A detail of the the finished piece, sorry the colours don't show up well, but I think you can see the detail and effort they all went to.
The colours show up better here and you can see the size. There are a few gaps for promised birds and rabbits and perhaps a monkey, we cannot remember! The staff at the Centre are very impressed with this and are inspired themselves. Good work.
Now for something completely different.....

M made great use of these trims for a bag for her daughter. The small crocheted flowers come from a hair scrunchie from Portugal. M used embroidery finger knitting to make the bag strap.
This is L's first project, I think it's too lovely for a pin cushion, but it suited the photo at the time. L is now working on a re-cycled quilt for her baby daughter, made form a collection of out grown clothes. I will take a picture this week i hope, please remind me L!

Collage and craft

The new stitching group on a Wednesday morning are very keen each week to try something different,  this week we made some scrap fabric flowers for our collage.  Playing around with different thread, buttons and beads.  

They also try a bit of 'home work' each week to make as much as they can in the time we have, great work girls.....

This is the collage so far, lovely use of different techniques and detail, I have tried to balance the design.  We are planning more animals, a pond, a sun and some clouds......watch this space.
M worked had to finish her tractor and trailor for her son.  He wasn't happy in the creche last week, but he cheered up when he saw what had been made for him.  This week, he had a very happy time.  The hand puppets were made by his big sisters at home and M finished them off, great teamwork.
J is making a mobile for a new baby in their family.  She has lovely ideas for detail and her stitching is very neat, we have asked for a bird for the collage, thank you J! :-)
E has never stitched before, in the first week she was getting very frustrated with herself, just with threading the needle.  After 3 weeks, her confidence has grown and her work is neat and bold.  A great use of colour and detail, well done E!