The joy of stitch and gardening...

Apologise for the absence but I've been rather occupied with this...

Saints Exhibition

 ...as we mentioned a while ago we are making a wall hanging as part of the Saints Exhibition and as always the deadline has crept upon us. I've finished the quilting so now it's time for the hand embellishments which will be a nice evening job.

It's not been all work though, I had a chance this week to go to a workshop by the wonderful textile artist Jean Littlejohn. I can't remember the last workshop I attended so it was nice to sit back and let someone else take over. It was a lovely day of hand stitching techniques with bark/trees in mind. We started with thick wool, very large stitches and continued to build the layers to form a raised surface.

building layers

We then went on to a different stitch with foiling and chiffon over the top and filling the spaces with stitch. I love this result, it will need a lot more hand stitching but it's a good sample with lots of possibilities.

stitch with foil and chiffon

And finally...we stitched onto water soluble fabric and tried Jean's embellisher. Now, I've eyed these machines from a distance thinking...I don't need one of those...HA!!! How wrong was I, it was the same feeling of freedom you get from free machining but without thread, so if I go missing at any point you'll know I'm in the sewing shed with something new to play with. Here is my small sample so you can see how easily I'm led!

embellished sample

A quick garden snap for you, last year my dear friend Fran gave me some foxgloves, so I thought as they are so gorgeous I would share them with you...

Don't you just love this time of year in the garden, with Chelsea Flower Show to inspire us and the bonus this year of Monty Don presenting.

Thanks for reading, bye for now
Sue

Changing Times...

Dear Friends,

As life commitments change it is with great sadness that we have taken the decision to dissolve Beyond Patchwork.

We are continuing until after our existing workshops - Recycled Logs on Thursday 5th June and finally Thursday 24th July and our old favourite Free Machine and Painting.

Thank you to everyone who has come to our workshops and to the groups that have made us so welcome. We have met many fantastic people and we would like to thank you all for you kind support.

While this decision hasn't been taken lightly, it will allow us more time to use the experiences gained for our personal work and we are sure to bump into you on the quilting circuit.

Thank you all for four wonderful years.

Carolyn and Sue

Begin Patchwork...completed

Here are five of our ladies with their wonderful quilts from our Begin Patchwork Course. From left to right we have Ruth, Christine, Caroline, Pat and Denise...

Begin Patchwork Quilts

..just a little hand stitching to finish but I think you'll agree they are looking rather gorgeous. Thanks ladies it's been a lovely six weeks, we thoroughly enjoyed your company.

Here's another snap for you this time from Linda, who kindly brought her finished piece to show us from a Fabric Collage Workshop we did recently at Creative Textile. Such a beautiful piece of work which even has lichen attached. Thanks Linda, it's always nice to see finished pieces and allowing us to share it here.

Linda's Collage

 
Hope you enjoyed seeing these pieces.
Sue

Better late than never...

As promised here are some photos from our latest workshops. Carolyn mentioned in her last post how we had a lovely day with Trevithick Quilters and our Marvellous Markals.
After demonstrating the technique for applying Markals everyone ran with it, from using their garden as inspiration to gathering vegetation from around the building.
Here is a taster of some of the pieces created...

As you can see it was a very productive day with beautiful work being created. Thank you ladies for the warm welcome and lovely lunch. We had a wonderful day and the journey brought back memories of visiting my Granny in Knave-go-By as a child.

To finish, here's four of our Begin Patchwork ladies and their beautiful quilts, just the borders and binding next, aren't they looking wonderful...

Begin Patchwork - work in progress

Thanks for reading, enjoy the Bank Holiday.

Sue

What a busy couple of weeks!!

Well, here I am again, after a busy, but good couple of weeks.  I have reduced my hours at work now, so you should hopefully hear more from me from now on!! 


We, as a family had a lovely Easter Break which was spent on Dartmoor celebrating my husbands birthday. The children and grandchildren joined us for the Easter weekend and we had a couple very lovely walks over the moor.  Beautiful even on a wet and windy day, although I am pleased to say for the most part it was sunny and warm!  Our youngest Granddaughter Mia, every the intrepid explorer (at 4) found a sleeping Adder, although after coming into contact with her wellied foot, it wasn't asleep anymore.  I am pleased to say that she (and the Adder) survived the ordeal un-scathed!

Yes Tor

Since we got back Sue and I have been busy with workshops and have visited two groups and had week 5 of our Begin Patchwork course.

Sue has already shown you the photos from our Fabric Collage workshop, and I am afraid that I do not have any to show you from the other days, but Sue does so hopefully you will see them soon.  As normal the work was lovely and the company great.  Thank you to Creative Textiles and Trevithick Quilters for making us so welcome.  We hope to see you both again and would definitely like to see photos of your finished projects, please!

The quilts from the 'Begin' workshop are coming along really well and we are both delighted at how they are looking.  I think celebratory cakes are in order for the final day!!

As well as the new date for Free Machine Embroidery we are looking forward to the Recycled Log and Marvellous Markals workshops, all taking place in June and July.  Please see our website for more information.

You can follow us not only on the blog but also on facebook at Beyond Patchwork and on twitter at @beyondpatchwork.  You can also contact us on enquiries@beyondptachwork.co.uk

We look forward to hearing from you

Bye for now

Carolyn

Requested Workshop...

As you know from an earlier post we had a number of requests for our Free Machine Quilting Workshop.
Therefore, we would like to let you know we have set a date for 24th July at Fraddon Village Hall from 10am - 4pm.

Free Machine Quilting

This workshop is suitable for beginners or more experienced sewers. We will guide you through the process, show you a variety of patterns and then highlight areas of the stitched design with paint. This new fabric can then be used in future projects, such as a book cover or purse.

Hope you can join us and learn this very enjoyable technique.

Buy for now
Sue