Quilt Making Classes

Quilt making Thursday is the last Thursday of every month at Knitwits. It is always full of lots of creative activity with quilts being designed and ones well on their way to be completed as you can see by the photographs above. Claire works at Knitwits and on her day off often comes along to class to move her projects onto the next stage. Here, she is making a double quilt using Japanese Style fabrics that you can buy from Knitwits. They have a vast selection and vary in price too! Remember there is are classes every Thursday with different inspiration each week and month.
See the classes that are available from September HERE

Norwich Maddermarket Theatre Costumes

Amanda, the costume mistress and designer from the Norwich Maddermarket Theatre came along to The Kings Lynn Embroiderers Guild to show us some of the costumes, tell us some of the stories behind them and how she puts together costumes for the show.  As you can see by the photographs, Amanda dressed a model and acted in some of the costumes to bring them alive. The theatre puts on around 12 plays a year and Amanda has £200 to spend on costumes for each show, so there is a lot of recycling going on. There are over 50,000 pieces of costume in the theatres storeroom and many are recycled over and over again in different ways to fit a show. Many of the costumes and accessories are vintage and original for the era, Edwardian, Victorian, 1940 dresses for example and all their extras. The oldest piece of accessory they have, is a 1730 Dorset Button, which Amanda passed around the audience for us to look at. It was a miniature button and had exquisite stitches. Amanda was wearing a beautiful Victorian style brooch which several of us admired and she told us it was from a friend who makes jewellery. See the website HERE 
Thank you Amanda for such a wonderful evening.
Visit the Maddermarket Theatre HERE

Alveva Quilters and Annette Morgan

Alveva Quilters of Feltwell meet once a month, on the third Wednesday at 7pm and we have some wonderful evenings with 'Show and Tell' and then often a speaker or technique led evening. We were lucky enough to have Annette Morgan come to share her work and her latest inspiration with us.
Annette is also a City and Guilds teacher so her knowledge of quilting and textiles is vast. We all had a wonderful evening and the group brought her DVD for our library box. Thank you Annette for sharing your work and time with us. You will often see Annette at shows and Exhibitions be sure to say, 'hello' or visit her website HERE

City and Guilds Colour Wheel and Machining

I love colour so when showing and explaining the Colour Wheel there is lots of ways to enjoy doing it.
We start on paper but then it turns to printing, dyeing threads and fabrics and of course ultimately to stitch and machining. Using materials and threads you have created yourself just makes it even more interesting and unique.
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Gallery Mixed Media Tuesday

I demonstrate different techniques each week and this week I demonstrated couching using hand and by machine. Jane did some wonderful couching, photograph above using different threads stitches and feet. Jenny used the couching on top of her embellished pieces to make them a more textured surface.

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Textile Tuesday 17th April 2012

Barbara has really perfected Crazy Patchwork and it shows here in her Scissor Case. Made with scraps and in a similar tonal range with lace and added embroidery, it is so subtle and beautiful.
See her first Scissor Case based on my example HERE

City and Guilds 8 Week Taster Course

Part of the City and Guilds Courses there are sections for exploring different techniques every session. I love setting up the art table and showing some basic ideas and then watching what everyone comes up with and the different combinations of techniques depending on what subject students have chosen to discover or develop. Here, they were using transfer crayons and paints.
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April Coven Quilters

Once a month the Coven Girlies meet up and I love these evenings, they are the best medicine with sharing and laughter. The quilts and cakes we share are spectacular. Jane in the top photograph made her quilt out of a jelly roll pack that she got as a gift for her birthday. Kate showed us how her square quilts were being quilted.
Barbara has nearly finished her Star Quilt and as it is so big, she has sent it off to Jennifer at Watton to be long arm quilted. This quilt was started 10 years ago and is based on my Star Quilt I have made which hangs in my studio. It was also made with home dyed fabrics.
 What a lovely evening.
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Knit Wits Patchwork and Quilting Classes

Thursdays are always busy and unexpected fabrics come in to be made into different projects because I encourage recycling. The top photograph shows a quilt made with recycled patches from another quilt and Mo has added chickens and her grandsons name. The bottom photograph shows the start of a bag made with windmill shaped pieces. The fabric is a recycled suede skirt which already had embroidery panels in it and this Maria used in the design of the bag. It was difficult to sew in places but well worth it as it looks like a designer bag.
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Tuesday Mixed Media Class

As you can see by the photos above there was the usual collection of wonderful projects being made.
The top photo, Helen is using photo transfer pictures of her grand daughter to make crazy work squares and covering a scrapbooking album.
Carol has finished off her Ribbon Work Embroidery picture, a really beautiful piece of work.
Jenny has finished off her bag. and Maria has finished her crazy work quilt made from lots of recycled strips of fabric.
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Knit Wits Afternoon Session

After the morning full on with the children machining it was lovely to see the different projects that had been brought along to finish. Ann was adding the border to her grand daughters floor cushion. The lovely detail about the cushion is, Ann had photo transferred a picture of her grand daughter dressed up as a Princess and had appliqued it in front of the appliqued pink castle. The surrounding blocks contained fabrics with shoes, handbags, jewelry and butterflies.
Mandy was putting the finishing touches to one of the sun dresses she was making for her grand daughter. What a lovely dress.
Knit Wits is now selling dressmaking patterns.
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Textile Boxes for Children

On the 5th of April during the school holidays myself and Margaret another Quilter and one Mum had a session for children from the age of 7-12 years. It was to see if there is an interest for Young budding quilters in the area. There was 5 willing participants and each made a fabric box.
There was choosing fabric, cutting up jeans, cutting and bonding pictures then sewing on the sewing machine.
As you can see by the results they all finished and had a wonderful morning. There is always the comedian and put theirs on their head! :)
It would be lovely to do some more of these. 

Knit Wits Evening Class

I teach an Evening Class at Knit Wits once a month, normally on the first Wednesday. I show the months inspiration and then students have their own projects. I love the mix of projects again and as you can see some work by machine and some by hand. It is always a lovely evening and always goes so fast, there is never enough time to do what you love!
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Gallery Tuesday 3rd April 2012

On a Mixed Media Tuesday, there is always so many different projects going on and I also share inspiration, so there is lots to choose from. From the top Jeanette had finished her Antique page using a photo of Sylvia's Grandfather. ( This had been transferred onto fabric and stitched on). Some of the pieces of media were antiques and had stories to tell themselves. See more of Jeanette's pages by clicking the written label below. Jenny had finished her granddaughters corset and had put all the finishing touches of lace and trimmings to it, fabulous!
Mandy had finished her Dresden Plate mat, this is going under her sewing machine to stabilise it and so it is easy to push out of the way across a table. We thought it was too good to hide under a machine.
More crazy work patchwork with Barbara making another Scissor Case, beautifully colours and trimming choice and Crazy work blocks which will be made into a quilt for Maria's new niece.
As for the bottom picture this was just before we started, Jenny had ordered lunch but we all decided it needed sharing! It can be a bit like that a times, with lots of laughter too!
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Patchwork and Quilting Class Knit Wits

I sometimes have a First Monday of the Month, session at Knit Wits. It enables people who are unable to come along to the other classes to bring their projects and have a try at new techniques.

Jenny was finishing off her Dinosaur Quillow Quilt for her Grandson and also made a Mug Bag to take to different meetings that now require you to bring your own.
 It's made out of 5"squares and is really easy to make but looks good too!
Mother and Daughter decided to have a try to different versions of Dresden Plate and as you can see there became quite a collection.
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