A Dash of Paint...

As promised here are some photos from our recent Free Machine & Painting Workshop...

It was a wonderful day with twelve students eager to learn and then thrilled at the results a layer of paint can add to a piece of work (may have some converts to painting). Thank you ladies for allowing us to share your work.

It was also a sad day as this was our last workshop and Carolyn couldn't be present as her daughter was in hospital after a traffic accident. But I am pleased to say that Rebecca is back home and I'm sure along with me you send her your best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Thank you from both of us for the support we have been given, its been a pleasure to share our passion for textiles and stitch with you all and we have enjoyed making new friends along the way. We will keep our flickr and our blog open so we can post any news of future adventures.

We hope you all continue to enjoy your creative journey.

Best wishes Sue & Carolyn x

Stitched Art Exhibition...

Carolyn and myself along with ten other textile artists are busy preparing ourselves for this...

Sat 20th Sept - Fri 26th Sept

We have over a hundred pieces to show, so it should be a wonderful exhibition. Two members of the group will be there each day to chat with and answer any questions. I will be there on the Tuesday with Margaret from 10am - 4pm.
Heartlands is a wonderful venue with free entry to the museum and exhibition, a very good cafe and childrens play area.

Visit http://textilemaids.blogspot.co.uk/ to see some of the work that will be exhibited and read the design processes.

Hope to see you there
Sue

Saints on Tour...

Grosvenor Exhibitions are taking the Saints of Cornish Churches Exhibition on tour. So, if your friends and family live near any of the venues below be sure to tell them it's worth a visit

Malvern  - October 2015
Ardingly - January 2016
Edinburgh - February 2016
Duxford - March 2016
Exeter - April 2016

The organizers are still waiting to hear if the NEC will be added to the list.

The weather is to glorious to be inside so I'll pop back soon with photos from yesterdays Free Machine & Painting workshop.

Hope you're enjoying the heat wave, back soon
Sue

Saints at the Cathedral...

This afternoon I was stewarding at Truro Cathedral for the Saints of Cornish Churches Exhibition and as promised I've taken a few snaps to share with you. Hopefully I've got most of the quilts, but I couldn't make a note of the makers, but you will see most have their Saints names on them.

There was a section of the cathedral that was closed off, but how could I resist this floor, so I managed to poke my camera through the gates.

And finally here is our piece, you will find a description of the process in a previous blog...

St. Enoder

There was a steady stream of visitors throughout the afternoon and the comments books is full of praise for the exhibition and the amount of work involved by the makers.

Back soon
Sue

Exhibition Reminder...

Just a quick mention that the Saints of Cornish Churches Exhibition at Truro Cathedral starts Monday 30th June until Monday 14th July.

Please try and support this exhibition, there is never enough of these events in Cornwall and a lot of people have put so much hard work into it, from the organisers to the makers.

Keep an eye out for our piece on St. Enoder and I'll be stewarding on Friday 4th July from 2.30 to 5pm if you would like to pop in and say hello.

Hope to see you there
Sue

Crossing the border...

At 7.30 last Saturday morning we set off for Honiton to visit South West Quilters at Awliscombe. It was a lovely drive up and leaving so early meant we missed the holiday traffic. We were invited there to do our Square Strip Cushion Workshop, which was inspired by a slate water feature I saw at Hampton Court Palace Flower Shop a few years ago.

After a brief explanation and a word of caution from us that Quilt-As-You-Go is an addictive method, everyone got into the swing of things. Here is a snap of the work in progress...

work in progress

Thank you to everyone for making us so welcome and to Gill for arranging our visit and providing us with a delicious lunch. We'd love to see some photos of finished cushions please.

Our Free Machine & Painting Workshop is booking up nicely, but there's still time for you to book and learn how to free machine a variety of patterns and then highlight areas of the stitched design with paint.

Free Machine & Painting workshop

You can book via our website through Paypal or by printing the booking form and sending with a cheque to the address provided.

I hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather and like me, taking some time to enjoy the garden.
Bye for now
Sue

Such joy and relief...

The Saints quilt is finished and ready for the exhibition at Truro Cathedral from 30th June to 14th July. As you may know we are great fans of Kandinsky's work, so we've used his style as our inspiration by stacking the carved images, then overlaying lines to represent the sundial, lead markings on the windows and the arches.

Obviously I can't show you the whole thing just yet, but here is a section and a brief summery...

St. Enoder

This piece is based on a time line starting with a painted footprint onto hand dyed fabric showing the changes St. Enoder has gone through over the years. We then used hand dyed scrim for the font and the carvings on the altar and pews.
We overlaid a window to represent looking through time made from bias strips using hand dyed fabric. It was then a case of bringing it up to date with machine quilting and finally the couched lines. For the binding we used more hand dyed fabric in purple this time, which is a colour often used in religion.

I'll put the whole piece up when the exhibition has started, but I hope you've enjoyed seeing this detail and if you get a chance please visit the exhibition, many people have put a lot of hard work into this and it's wonderful for Cornwall, so we want it to be a success. I'm stewarding on Friday 4th July from 2.30-5pm if you'd like to pop in for a chat about our piece or anything else.
Also, after this exhibition the quilts are going to be travelling to quilt shows around the country, so keep an eye out you may get a chance to see them there.

And finally, we had our Recycled Logs Workshop last week which was wonderful and everyone got into the spirit of recycling clothes, furnishings, even 42 year old lace. Here are a few pieces of work in progress...

Recycled Logs Workshop

Saturday we're off to South West Quilters in Honiton with our Square Strip Cushion Workshop, so we'll be sure to take some snaps to show you next week.

Thanks for reading
Sue