Pictures from St Ives

A picture heavy post today from my trip to St Ives, where not only have I had the pleasure of teaching thirteen lovely ladies from Cornwall, but where I've also had some wonderful walks on windswept beaches, shared a drink or two with a blogging buddy (which made me late for dinner!) and I've also managed to catch up with family and friends en route.

We were based at the Treloyhan Manor hotel and much to my amusement the class took place in what was an extension to the lobby! I've taught in quite a variety of places in the past but a hotel lobby has to be a first for me. However, it wasn't a problem and we attracted a lot of attention and genuine interest from other guests.

And this was the view from the end where I was sitting... can't be bad, can it.

The ladies had been asked to bring in a landscape photograph as inspiration and their first task was to look at the colours and shapes and interprete this as a torn paper collage.

Then over the next couple of days they worked on various machine embroidery techniques to interprete their collages into machine stitched landscapes. The collage above and stitched picture below were the work of Joyce.

These are Ann's collage and stitched piece...

And the two pieces below were the work of Sheena, who was my delightful host for my first evening in Cornwall and who informed me she wasn't the least creative... I beg to differ!

The following are the rest of the stitched pieces that the ladies produced - most are still works in progress but they already look fabulous and will be wonderful when they are finished. The Grand Canyon from Barbara...

Bridget's...

Carol's...

Ellie's...

Jenny's...

Mary's... (who coped really well with a badly behaved machine.)

Pat's...

Ruth's...

Sheila's...

and last but not least, Wendy's.

And here they all are proudly showing their work! Didn't they all do well... especially as it was a very mixed group with very varied experience of machine embroidery.

It was a busy few days with some long tiring hours on the road but I've had a super time and can't wait until I go back to St Ives again. (If they'll have me of course!)

Warm Weather

A couple of weeks ago I thought I was going to have to deal with kilos of green tomatoes... and no matter what recipe I try I really do not like green tomato chutney. Then all of a sudden we have record temperatures for October and instead I've had a glut of super ripe tomatoes. These plum tomatoes were grown from seeds that we brought back from an Italian market last year.

As a result we had several tomato based meals last week (if you follow the link, I substitute the single cream for 1/2 pint double cream and it easily serves six). But tomorrow I'm going away and there were still lots of tomatoes left. Now I'm pretty certain my menfolk are not going to cook anything from scratch involving fresh produce while I'm away. In fact I'm pretty sure they are not going to cook anything that doesn't involve a trip to the freezer. So today I've been turning tomatoes into chilli jam which we'll eat with fishcakes when I get back. It's pretty good in cheese sandwiches too!

Other cooking this weekend has meant a birthday cake...

Because my youngest man is 19 today.

Happy birthday Jake!

This unseasonal weather has meant that this is the first time we've ever  celebrated his birthday by eating outside!

Now if you'll excuse me, I must dash and finish my packing because I'm off to St. Ives in the morning to teach at a residential school for the West Country Embroiderers. I'll tell you all about it when I get back next week.

T. G. I. Friday

This week has whizzed by but I'm not sorry it's Friday.

My first day at University was rather uneventful... queues to get passwords, queues to check I am who I say I am, queues to have my photo taken, queues to receive my college I.D card and queues to hand over vast sums of tuition fees. This was all followed by an afternoon playing getting to know you games more suited to 12 year olds and being told what a wonderful museum the V and A is and how we really should try and visit. I guess the only way is up...

Wednesday saw me in Norwich stewarding the ERTF Concepts and Meanings exhibition in Dragon Hall.

For the exhibition, I finished a third standing figure to accompany my original two standing figures from the telephone kiosk.

Ideally they look best in the context of the phone box and failing that I like them displayed overlapping against light but because of the nature of the building and certain restraints in hanging work this wasn't possible, but overall I was really pleased with the way they looked. There is some lovely work in the exhibition which is still open for another week.

Today I've been teaching up near Huntingdon at Bee Crafty... my first time at this shop that is only seven weeks old yet absolutely buzzing with activity. It is a real treasure trove of beads, buttons, yarns, trims and of course fabric... well worth a visit. I had been told to expect cake but I wasn't prepared for the wonderful plate of homemade biscuits that appeared with elevenses. By the time I grabbed my camera this was all that was left! It doesn't get much better than homemade jammy dodgers!

As well as eating cake and biscuits, we also did some sewing and these are some of the wonderful books finished by ladies on the course...

And as for me...  you know I said I had an urge to make an even smaller book... you know I said there wasn't time this week... well, I guess you also know me well enough by now to know I'd do it...

So here it is, just 4cm square.

With a bonded and stitched cover with real ivy leaves

and sixty four little folded pages! I'm not going any smaller because cute though it is, it is also pretty useless!

As for tonight... I think wine, knitting and Strictly Come Dancing are on the agenda... before all the madness starts again next week.

More Books

I've been a little obsessed over the weekend with making more samples of these little folding books with bonded covers.

Some have real leaves painted, bonded and trapped under chiffon on a paper background.

Others have skeleton leaves instead.

All are machine stitched with free machining and tied with braids made to match.

But as I've been making them I've had an increasing desire to make them smaller.

Precious little books that fit into your hand.

And I've experimented with the folded pages so that this one has thirty two little folded sections made from a single sheet of A3 paper.

It has a lovely solid compact feeling...

So now I want to go even smaller and see just how small I can make these books and how many folded pages I can include.

But I can't... I mustn't...

Tomorrow is the first day at University for my MA, followed by a day up in Norwich and then two days teaching. After the weekend I'm driving down to Cornwall for the week (more teaching) and then back for another three days teaching and a day filming. Somehow I have to fit in studying and family stuff as two sons have birthdays during the next couple of weeks so there will be special dinners and cakes... so no time to be fiddling about making little books.

I shouldn't even be on here blogging...  unless of course I finish another little book!

Embroidered Books

I've spent the last couple of days making more samples.

This time some little origami fold books with embroidered covers for a class I'm teaching on Friday 30th September.

I'll be at Bee Crafty in Huntingdon which is a new venue for me.

That's because Bee Crafty is a new store, only open since August 6th so it's all very exciting. 

I believe there are a couple of places left on the class so I would love it if you could join us for the day.

Apparently there's free cake too!

Sketchbooks and Cupcakes

As summer draws to an end so have my sketchbook tutorials, although I hope everyone who has been joining in over the summer will continue to work in their sketchbooks.

At the weekend I had a chance to join in a day class with Jan Beaney at our Embroiderer's Guild and it seemed a good opportunity to develop some of the images from my summer sketchbooks.

These photographs and quick sketches of daisies from last years work, had led to the monoprint collage below in this year's red themed book, which I though might translate well to an embroidered panel.

Jan was teaching a technique of creating a personal cloth by working onto a surface of water soluble fabric. (I should say before I forget, she was a excellent and entertaining teacher.) So I combined the layout of the monoprint with the colors of the photographs and came up with this panel below.

Layers and layers of both machine and hand stitch built up to create a dense fabric...

With a few beads thrown in for good measure.

It is still very much a sample at this stage but I think it could have potential to develop into a larger panel.

One of the questions I often get asked is how can sketchbook work be developed into finished pieces and there is no one simple answer. The point which I hope to illustrate here is that the more you work in sketchbooks and the more you work samples, the better informed your work becomes.

Other news here... I finished my final panel for the ERTF exhibition in Norwich... but I'm keeping it under wraps until the exhibition opens so you'll have to wait until next week. I've also received rather a lot of parcels in the post too... just look at all these cakes that have arrived already for my Pink Friday Party... and it's still over a month away! Of course my excitment was dampened somewhat when certain male members of my family pointed out the irony of raising money for Breast Cancer Care with knitted cakes that look remarkably like breasts!

There have been real cupcakes too (not that they deserved them) ... coffee and walnut though... I couldn't face pink cakes with cherries!