Ailsa Craig Workshops

Over the festival week all of the British tutors taught a wonderful range of workshops. As well as myself the wonderful Jennie Rayment, Paula Doyle and Gillian Travis taught and lectured.

I of course had to teach some woad workshops and the woad fabric successfully found its way over the ocean. These lovely and talented ladies (who were brave enough to stand before the camera) made up some large blocks (32" square) after considering the many design possibilities of half square triangles.

Maria made her block to measure 24" but still as effective. 

On the only rainy day of the week I taught a dyeing from the kitchen cupboard workshop. We did this in the picnic area which was under cover. Thankfully everyone was well bundled up against the cold. It was a bit like camping though as the closer you stood to the camping stoves the warmer you got. We did have a good time dyeing fabric and threads a range of colours. 

The results of a tulip petal bundle are below

The talented and brave ladies below signed up for a half day paper bird workshop.

This is a fun workshop and most people get to finish a wall hanging in a half day. You leave without a UFO!

Finally my favourite photo - a selfie take by Paula Doyle with Jennie in the middle and me on the left. 

A blue week.

A few weeks ago (where does the time go?) some lovely ladies spent a week at the studio working with woad. Woad is a plant whose leaves have been used to create a blue dye from Neolithic times.

We dipped.

And tied.

Unwrapped.

And hung things out to dry.

There was homework with fabrics and laces to rinse and wash .

The studio assistant was very bored as we were so busy.

Festival of Quilts 2013

I have finally done my unpacking from Birmingham and thought I'd share a few images. It was fantastic to meet so many people and have all my workshops full. It always amazes me how universal the language of stitch is no matter what the spoken language. 

I was in the fashion show this year and made two outfits. The first was a representation of the local landscape. It was dyed with daffodils (the skirt), red cabbage and weld (the tunic)

The second outfit (and my favourite) was this woad dress. It was made from a burda pattern which had to be tweaked to fit my quirky body.

This was an image from Stitch for Texture which was a machine quilting workshop. We were lucky enough to have new Brother Sewing machines to work with. I forgot to take any images of completed samples though. 

I taught two Design for Stitch using an iPad workshops, this was one of the designs from Sundays workshop. This is being taught again at my studio in Spalding on October 19th and there is one place left.

Finally two mixed media book making workshops. This are only an hour long yet a lot is packed in. I'm teaching this at the Knitting and Stitching Show in London in October. See you there!  

Words and pictures

 

These are two of the photos that were missing from my last blog post. Despite all my good intentions I have found it hard to maintain blogging. DS2 has been very ill and we have been on a series of tests to try and find out what is wrong. 

This was Zoe below making her cushion. I have no idea why blogger did not let me show these images.

Zoe, her sister Veronica and mum Ann outside the studio with their cushions.

At the start of May something exciting happened in Boston and South Holland. Can you guess where I was?

Making cushions

A few weeks ago I had three very talented ladies in the studio who all made a cushion out of a shirt. Two of them had only bad memories of using a sewing machine at school whilst their mum had using a sewing machine before for dress making.As Zoe had a "bucket list" and on that was making a cushion I was determine that she should go home with something she was proud of.



We discussed techniques and Ann decided to make a nine patch cushion front whilst Zoe and Veronica made raw edge appliqué  cushions. The shirt front became the back of the cushion so we did not have to worry about fastenings. 
                             
 Zoe drew out her own flower and then managed to sew around the edge accurately using both a hand and electric machine. Veronica decided to put a bird sitting on a branch onto her cushion front.

 These were the completed cushions below. You can't see the tiny bird legs that Veronica stitched under her bird but she had excellent control of her sewing machine. 


I was so pleased to show that sewing is not a scary thing to do but too many people seem to have very negative experiences that come from school. The best part of the day was when everyone said that they had to confidence to go and make another one at home.   

You can read all about Zoe's day here 

Stitching for Texture

Today I spent an enjoyable yet very productive day with the ladies of Country Roads Quilt Group. They worked so hard to make up lots of stitched samples which were then made up into a book.

Lots of concentrating, especially from Lis. She has written about the workshop on her blog here.

Some ladies worked in the dining room, others in the conservatory.

Thank you Christina for hosting the workshop and including the partially dressed young man and Thomas the spaniel.

I am teaching this again at the studio in Spalding on June 16th and July 28th, limited places on both workshops now so contact me for more information.

Stitching for Texture

The Stitch for Texture workshop is full and I have added another day on Saturday 7th July 2012. This will be at Unique Cottage Studios in Spalding Lincolnshire.

This workshop is suitable for all levels and you learn about how stitch can create texture within your work. Please contact me via the website if you are interested. I already have had some bookings so I would love to see you. I will be adding more workshops on my newsletter. If you would like to sign up just click here.

BEGINNERS KNIT & CROCHET WORKSHOP WITH CAROL PARKER

SAT 14 JAN 10-12PM & SAT 11 FEB 10-12PM 
UNIQUE COTTAGE FARM STUDIOS
ALL AGES WELCOME BUT UNDER 8S ACCOMPANIED BY AN ADULT PLEASE 
£8 EACH 

Come and learn a new skill in the wonderful environment of the Lincolnshire countryside. Refreshments provided and lots of different techniques to try: extreme knitting and French knitting, finger and body knitting and crochet.

Workshop may be of particular interest to teachers/TAs and Health and Wellbeing workers. Knitting encourages coordination, develops concentration span, is great for social engagement, is a therapeutic ‘relaxer’ and is said to delay the onset of dementia. All this and you can create something too!!!

Carol is a freelance artist with over 15 years’ experience of facilitating workshops with all ages and abilities. She was lead artist on knit2getherlincs, a Cultural Olympiad 2012 project where a 200mtr knitted Olympic track was created by working with hard to reach, community groups and schools in Lincolnshire (for images and more info see knit2getherlincs.wordpress.com).

Look forward to seeing you on Saturday!

Curved Piecing Workshop

Last Tuesday I ventured up to Louth through the fog for a fantastic day teaching a workshop on free curved piecing. It was a group of very talented and enthusiastic ladies.

 Everyone quickly learnt the technique and began to make their own unique blocks.

 Everyone used different fabrics and some worked outside of their normal comfort zone. I loved the bright pinks with orange and my favorite lime greens. I also showed the ladies how to turn their curved blocks into sketchbook covers. I think the cover above is heading for a Delia Smith cookery book.

These two photos are from the end of the day, I did have others but they are very fuzzy as my camera battery went down to one bar. Thank you Lindsey Patchworkers for a wonderful day and good luck with your Lincolnshire Wolds Quilt.

Christmas Workshop

Last week I traveled up to York for the annual Young Quilters Christmas Day at The Quilt Museum. I stayed overnight at The Bar Convent. This as the name suggests is a convent which is the oldest one in England founded in 1686. It still is an active convent with a resident religious community. All the guest rooms do not have numbers but have Saints names, I was in St Aelred. The accommodation was really good and very close to the station if you ever need to stay in York.

We had 12 children in the morning and 12 in the afternoon, all completed the Christmas Bunting project and really got to grips with using the sewing machines.

They made a stocking, heart and bauble and attached them to a canvas strip.

Everyone made something individual and lots of sparkles were used.

Yesterday I traveled to Louth and did free curved piecing with a very creative group of ladies. I have photos to share but will do that tomorrow as "mum's taxi" is needed by DS.

Natural Dye Workshop

Last Saturday I taught a Natural Dyeing workshop at Unique Cottage Farm Studio. It is a workshop I enjoy teaching, especially  if we can get outside on a hot July Summer day. Not this time, it rained heavily all day and despite being confined to the studio progress was good and we used eight different natural dye products throughout the day. Some were native to this country, others like Logwood chips had been harvested in other parts of the world. I do always make sure that I buy things from a reputable source though. It is a good class as we cover dyeing with flower heads, powdered roots, bark and wood chips as well as the tiny Cochineal bug.

Julie and Kat, can't remember what was in that pan though.

In the studio

The washing line was full of samples I had brought with me. The clothes dryer was becoming full of the samples from the pans.

The cochineal pan, Nigel had the job of crushing them before dyeing.

On the day we dyed with dry daffodil heads, these are marigold heads from a previous session.

The Brazilwood pan, can't nature produce amazing colours?

Birch bark before being added to water.

And finally a rescue. On Wednesday Simba cat had been very interested in a baby sparrow. A short while later I saw him looking very smug with a very full mouth (think hamster). I realised that anything in his mouth would be dead but couldn't bear the thought of him eating anything with feathers. After catching him I made him give up his mouthful and imagine my surprise when instead of sparrow I discovered tiny mouse. It looked very dead and was placed in a container until I could dispose of it without the cat seeing him. When DS came in from school the mouse started to jump up and down in the container very much alive. DS then took it into the cornfield in front of the house and realised it (cue Born Free music), I couldn't resist sharing this photo of the tiny tiny mouse.