FREE MINI WORKSHOP

For newsletter subscribers I have just sent a FREE MINI WORKSHOP, I hope you enjoy it.  My newsletter can be joined for Free by clicking on the link on the right hand sidebar and following the instructions
I am in total awe at the skill and dedication of the Paralympic athletes - London 2012 is truly fabulous.

PARALYMPIC SPECIAL OFFER

TO CELEBRATE LONDON 2012 PARALYMPIC GAMES - A SPECIAL OFFER

 

DESIGN TO STITCH - WHITEWORK

 

This is a collage of images from previous students

 

Still life, working in one colour - white - by hand and or machine

 

 

20% OFF

SPECIAL OFFER FOR ONE WORKSHOP

 

WHITEWORK

 

£12

 

Basic design or use mine provided

21 pages with step by step photos

Techniques for hand stitching and machine stitching

 

 

Offers close at end of Closing Ceremony
Sunday 9th September 2012

 

ALSO - FOLLOW MY HEART - OLYMPIC SPECIAL

£24

DONT MISS OUT

SEE 1st AUGUST 2012 POSTING for details & pictures

WOW WHAT A NIGHT

Wonderful images

Awe inspiring sculpture

Head for heights: Former Royal Marine Joe Townsend, whose legs were blown off by an IED in Afghanistan, carried the Paralympic Flame into the stadium on a zip wire from the top of the neighbouring 377ft (115m) high ArcelorMittal Orbit tower

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195366/London-Paralympics-2012-Disabled-genius-Stephen-Hawking-star-turn-London-2012-Paralympics-Opening-Ceremony.html#ixzz25187rft0

Simply wow

 

Boo to Channel 4 for the adverts, Jon Snow for just being too newsy & a bit boring.  Yeye to Claire Balding who as ever was interesting & interested

 

Watching the swimming now, this is so much better than the days when the Paralympics (PARA = ALONGSIDE) was an hour program at Christmas.

The athletes are brilliant - GO TEAM GB x

PARALYMPIC OPENING CEREMONY

I am very much looking forward to the start of the Paralympics.  I am also hopeful that the weather will cheer up for the next 10 days.  I am sure that it will be so wonderful.  I do hope that anyone who could not get tickets to the Olympic Park venues, gets to go & see a Paralympic event & cheer our marvellous team along
There is one day left for my students exhibition.  I have enjoyed meeting people, there have been some lovely comments & a few sign ups for this next year, which is encouraging given the economic situation here & also the high cost of car parking.  The main town car park was only a third full on Saturday afternoon, a real shocker

Part of Rhiannons cushion machine embroidery, all the black is thread zigzag stitch & the coloured areas thread straight stitch, a very dynamic design

 

Part of Adeles cushion, this item showed a thourough working through of design ideas based on tulips, a very popular item in the exhibition

 

SPRING FLOWERS

Two beautiful quilts designed by myself.  This was a sampler quilt course with a difference.  Most of the blocks had folded and or manipulated elements to them

This quilt is Ruths

This one is Lynnes

I am very pleased with how these have been finished off.  The course ran from January to July & included English & American patchwork.  Curved piecing.  Foundation piecing.  Applique - turned edge, raw edge & freezer paper.  Crazy patchwork & Strip patchwork pineapple log cabin

The pictures show one dark & one light version & they are around 40 inches wide by 54 inches long, made in sections and quilted with my Quilt as you Go method.  I am looking forward to seeing more completed quilts in the Autumn term.

This term I have designed & constructed a patchwork organiser & bag incorporating patchwork & applique blocks.  There is quite a bit of work to do so I am planning for it to last until around Easter next year, as the lessons are fortnightly.  I have seen some of the chosen fabrics & yum comes to mind.

At Festival of Quilts I bought some new Japanese Taupe fabrics & am going to use them to create some more blocks for a smaller organiser, well thats the plan

I am busy designing items & styles for my STITCHED SCAPES course.  This locally is once a month, exploring techniques & products to create innovative textile pieces.  Individual tutorials enable this course to flow under the headline of masterclass with yself as the mentor.

Back soon with more yummy textiles to delight

Sitting here in my sitting room looking out the window and a huge red, white & blue bouncy castle.  My sons business BOUNCY WOUNCY CASTLES, what a year to start this business, the castle is too big for his garden & it is sopping wet, so he has to clean & dry it here.  A lot of hidden work that anyone who hires one does not see.  I wish for a much better summer for him next year, he looks exhausted, he even has all the crash mats to clean & dry, no wonder he has lost alot of weight, looking good x

 

 

 

 

 

STUDENT EXHIBITION PART TWO

Rhiannons sample showing use of water soluble fabrics, sweet little seahorse

Adeles fabric collage shows good depth and perspective and is mounted most effectively

Innovative use of Evolon & the soldering iron

Showing straight stitch on a hand dyes background

Marys assessment piece (part) a stunning large folio cover

Showing use of zigzag stitch, none of this is fabric its all thread

Janices wallhanging on the theme of Seasons.  This was a tutor set theme & this piece shows all the seasons, for spring a photograph taken by the student of blossom was printed onto fabric, stuffed and applied to the branches.  The tree is knitted.  This is her applique piece

These are 2 blocks of Joys outstandingly beautifully crafted quilt, there are 15 blocks a piece border and fabric applique.  All hand pieced.  This is Joys first quilt & took 18 months from start to finish, wonderful I would love it in my home

 

 

This is Sallys quilt.  The motif is using one of my Accuquilt GO dies by Ricky Tims.
She used the positive & negative of the shape bonded onto the fabric & then beautifully outline stitched with a stitch pattern on her Bernina, a true undertaking, only possible because she has meticulous precision.  The print fabric has a glitter  finish

This is Adeles wallhanging, a beautiful adaptation of her design work

More to come

Dont forget the SPECIAL WORKSHOP offers still on for the duration of the PARALYMPICS, see the side bar and the pages tab at the top of my blog
Off to sleep after a fabulous day catching up with old treasured friends x

STUDENT EXHIBITION 2012

A busy couple of days and a sleepless night & nightmares, but I did remember to take some pictures to show my students wonderful work.

This is Carolyns piece from DESIGN TO STITCH - MASTERCLASS - MOTION
An excellent interpretation & very apt at the moment between the the Olympics & Paralympics

Judiths piece for DESIGN TO STITCH - MASTERCLASS - FLORAL

Beautifully stitched by hand, the little flowers are exquisite

Marys stunning sample, for her City & Guilds Machine Embroidery level 2 qualification

This piece has texture & wonderful perspective and is stitched beautifully.  I think I could have sold this yesterday to a gentleman who was very taken with it, so well done Mary

Elinors very classy handbag, this is the front, various fabrics and lots of stitch on a wool background with beautiful piping, a handbag to treasure.  This was her City & Guilds machine embroidery level 2 assessment piece

 

Ill be back tomorrow with more

 

QUILTING ARTS

So who has just got her Quilting arts mag and created this

and is now pleased that she asked for Photoshop elements for Christmas even though she didnt know how to use it

MEEEE!!!!

Slightly confusing instructions which didnt marry up with my version but I am so pleased with this

 

Exhibition at Bee Inspired is going really well, met some new people and new students which is always a pleasure and saw some existing & previous students, had a lovely day, pictures to follow, so busy today had no chance to take any! (which is good but I do promise) thanks for reading, try out he exercise if you have the magazine & the program

By the way if you have microsoft WORD 10, check out all the effects that can be done to an image, incredible x

EXHIBITION

PLEASE VISIT MY STUDENTS EXHBITION

 

AT

 

BEE INSPIRED STUDIO

 

MARKET STREET MEWS

 

KETTERING

 

NORTHANTS  NN14 1PH

 

01536 514646

 

11 AM TO 3PM

 

FRIDAY 23 August,  SATURDAY 24 August, TUESDAY 27 August, WEDNESDAY 28 August, THURSDAY 29 August

 

CITY & GUILDS LEVEL 2 MACHINE EMBROIDERY  -  PATCHWORK & QUILTING

 

LEISURE CLASSES - PATCHWORK & QUILTING

 

DESIGN TO STITCH - MASTER CLASS

 

Pop by & see a demonstration of the ACCUQUILT GO cutting machine & take home some pieces ready to sew FREE

 

Hope to see you there

MORE FESTIVAL OF QUILTS

These pictures are from Brenda, thank you.  We have been experimenting with DROPBOX, it has worked really well, great for sending over photos

Its so interesting to see what each of us takes at a quilt show, look how different Brendas & Carolyns pictures are.  They know each other & are part of the same Masterclass, but very different images

 

Reminds me of my Lindisfarne piece

 

 

 

Bit peturbed by the big black spot, must mean something?

MORE OLYMPIC PICTURES

Here are some more Olympic pictures taken by my son and his girlfriend at the BMX
Look at the fabulous velodrome roof
My son was let into the velodrame to visit the little room, he was totally overawed when he pushed open the door to be in the arena, what a bonus
They really enjoyed the BMX, between the time trials there were races and demonstrations

 

 

This is Park Live, you could sit here before and after your event & experience all the joy collectively, I was too exhausted to walk to it!

Superb sky, wonderful venue

I love these ones taken at night, I was not there at night and now bitterly regret it

 

Orbit

Look at the happy happy crowds, the stadium looks magnificent, I am eagerly awaiting the Paralympics in 9 days time

Another wonderful view of the Orbit

On a different tack, I am having a break from stitching a cushion, will show when its finished

Hope you have enjoyed these new pictures as much as I have x

PURCHASES

Hi, wow what a hot day, awful, I hate it, managed to cut out one block this morning, then flopped out
These are what was purchased at FOQ

This Accuquilt die will be used to construct a Santa sack for a workshop at Bee Inspired, if you are local then book quickly

This one has been cut out and is waiting for tomorrow to be stitched, I am using the new fabrics that I bought from Kaleidescope

These two dies have been part purchased by donations from two of my really lovely students, they are very kind and lots of people will benefit from them

I shall try out cutting different kinds of fabrics as well

On the Sizzix stand they were using their dies to cut out fabric, drunkards path, so if you have a Big Shot and dies and two plates, slide one plate under the die and one on top of it and cut away, the machine is not as stable as my GO & I doubt if the paper dies will hold up as well with fabric, but the new ones for patchwork should do very well, interesting, I am going to have a looksee at my Sizzix machine to see if I can use it for something else......watch this space x