Teaching round-up

Rounding up this half-term's work is a lovely job, lots of great projects and a lovely bunch of stitchers who really inspire each other! Well done ladies!!

This is Lizzie's take on Curious George, adapted from a patter from Hobby Craft (sshh) we made him into a toy rather than a puppet, moved his ears down a bit and gave him the cheeky 'curious' face.

 Lizzie now admits that she got bored with stitching him, but now he is finished he is a success I think. We decided that it is frustrating not to get projects finished off as quickly as you might like - children and life get in the way etc. And we all have a virtual list of projects in our heads don't we!!

 Work in progress, Michelle had a great start with this name,  cute stitching and detail.

The buttons represent the holes in the letters.

 And this is the finished name 'bunting'.

 She then was inspired to make a small character with her new found skills!

And here he is finished!

 Suzie is working towards Christmas and a lovely collection of decorations, lots of details with embroidery, beads and she found some great ribbon from The Works which was very reasonably priced. Lovely work.

Odette is working on some trees using scraps of her son's clothing for the leaves. I think these are going to look spectacular and a lovely way to remember him.

*Someone is making some booties for some new arrivals to the world, but if I tell you who is making them, the mums might work it out, so I'll keep quiet until they arrive in the world :) Cute though huh?

....and this is Lizzie's next project, something for HER, not for the boys in her life! Simple patchwork squares with fabrics we just had lying around, and each time I see Lizzie, she has thought of another way to embroider the plain ones - great skill building, go girl!

Northampton Vintage and Homemade

Coming up next Saturday, just the posters look lovely, so I know I am in for a treat.

Hope to sell lots too!

Quilts and Zentangle!

A stitcher I met 3 years ago is now working in the creche of another group I teach in, it's great to keep in contact and I asked Eleanor to bring in her quilt she has been working on for the last 3 years. Yes, 3 years! But as she reminded me, she has done 2 NVQ courses over that time as well as working and looking after her young son. So here is an update photo and this is the original post from long ago.

My new group were completely impressed with her work and could not envisage making this by hand, so all credit to you Eleanor!!

Suzie has worked well on her cross stitch, she chose not to plan it out exactly on graph paper and I cannot blame her - I would just get on with it myself. But the pattern has not quite matched up and being a very graphic image, it does stand out. We thought about a suitable pattern to use as a filler and came up with a diamond. I look forward to seeing the finished piece this week.

Odette is working on a quilt of her son's old clothes, she has become obsessed with cutting out squares and we laid them out last week. A really lovely balance of colours and patterns. This quilt is going to get bigger and bigger I can tell.

We started off last week with some Zentangle, I suggested it might be a good starting point for an embroidery or some doodling on a scrapbooking page.

I set it as homework, so I hope they have had fun!

New Skills for everyone.

My happy group of stitchers have started on a new creative journey......very exciting for everyone. They are such a sharing caring group that they share their ideas, resources and time with each other. The encouragement is amazing and just what the group was set up for.

Lizzy was keen to start some scrap booking with pictures of her lovely boys, so with lots of encouragement and bits and pieces from others she set to work. I know that it is very addictive and you can easily get carried away with buying lots of lovely papers and trimmings. So I encouraged her to just make one special picture first, one that could be framed and put on the wall. She put this together with lots of encouragement and over the weeks has bought bits from discount stores and sales at craft shops and has now got a growing collection of stuff to play with.

Back to stitching, Karen made this over a number of weeks to hang in her kitchen.

....and Gemma made this very quickly for her mum and now wants to make one for herself.

Many of the stitchers choose to make things for others, Susan challenged herself with recreating this lovely printed card as an embroidery for her friend. An extra challenging project as it was done directly onto felt and needed a lot of planning. I suggested that she draw out the design and draw round it as a template as you can just see in the left of the picture, the details were then easier to measure and place.

It looked rather grand and splendid in a simple frame, with the name of the theatre and the date it was performed to finish off the design.

Back to Lizzy, this was her stitching from last term, which she finally finished off and was actually pleased to see the back of! But its good to get things finished so that you can move onto something lovely. I think the frustrating thing with this project was that she choose a muslin square to stitch the design on and it was very tricky to keep flat and neat, it will look good on the wall never the less. Good work!

More scrap booking, well done Gemma :)

.....and now for something completely different!

Cross stitch is not something I have ever really done, I don't think! So when a new crafter came along, I suggested she look in a charity book shop for some inspiration to get started. This is the first little design, which Suzie cleverly adapted to suit her style.

Week one, choose a design and get started:

Week two, get carried away at home and finish the design, so cute!:

Week three, decide to give it to a friend as a new home gift and turn it into a little padded cushion to hang up:

So, thinking I ought to have a go myself so I know a bit more and can advise others. I found a pattern I really loved and set to work, I had not realised how long it would take! Oh my goodness, hours.......and hours.......but it was less of a chore because I did enjoy just following the graph and not having to think too had about the design. So here is my tree ready to be pressed and framed.

I have now purchased the lovely new Embroidery Companion by Alicia Paulson and there are some cross stitch patterns in there, so perhaps I will have a go at another one??

Never to sell though, they take far too long!