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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Shed Building

The weekend of the 30th March, Stewart and I started building the new shed in the place of two little old ones.

Now this is being used as a shed! 

With all the winter weather we had, the previous little old ones couldn't stand up by themselves and so the previous weekend they were cleared and Stewart prepared the ground ready for the new.

We built it similar to our studios, so it doesn't look out of place.

The new shed or 'Wendy House' as it's now been named is 16ft by 8ft and the walls 8ft tall then the roof. So we should be able to get lots of truck in there!!!

All of it needs sealing so it has two coats, so took along time, nearly as long to build!

We built it all from scratch, we would recommend a nail gun next time!

See pictures of my studio

HERE 

Knit Wits Class

After a really wonderful holiday in Dorset for the last week I am re-energised and ready to go again. I will post about our holiday later as it was one with a difference.
I have continued to keep a photo and journal diary everyday so I am then able to blog later! and I mean blog later! these photos were taken at the end of March!
It was a Knit Wit Patchwork session on a Thursday and it had been sessions for finishing things off and getting to grips with those UFO's
Judith put together the 'quilt as you go', blocks for her Sampler Quilt and others were finishing off gifts such as Anniversary Presents and the Union Jack is the centre of a quilt for Jenny's daughter.
Ann and Liz were so happy to finish their bags and modelled them beautifully.
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