Hi everyone,
I am a lifelong learner & love creating things. I use a local sewing shop for fabric, threads, felt etc and saw that they are having a workshop by the textile artist Jane Fairweather. She has been featured in magazines, books & her work is exhibited at several venues.
Even though time is tight at the moment, I decided to sign up.
My sewing machine is not the best for machine embroidery because the feed dogs do not drop and they have to be covered by a plate. However, it is what it is & I cannot justify the cost of a new machine.
The course details require only that you need a working knowledge of free motion embroidery, felting & sewing.
In this workshop, Jane will teach you how to create a three-dimensional embroidered structure of an oak tree, using your sewing machine to 'draw in threads' on a dissolvable film, building up the stitches until they are inter-woven to form shapes. Your tree will stand in the teacup, in a needle felted base and embellished with hand embroidered plants and flowers.
I love hand felting as many of you know. I did a course some years back & love doing it. I did several ones this past year with sunflowers.
The teacup we bring will dictate the detail on the felting & the hand embroidery. I don't have many loose teacups but remembered this lovely one & the planning fell in to place.
The tree, green & purple colours remind me of the scenery on the Lond Mynd in Shropshire with the purple heather on the green landscape so that will be my direction. I need to take machine & embroidery threads so being able to decide on a colour palette is important.
I did some sketches of heather on the Long Mynd from photos I had taken (my drawing is rubbish) but it helped to focus the mind.
When time is tight, it is always best to find additional things you don't need to do. Whilst sorting out the needles I need from my many needle books last night, I suddenly thought I might need another needle book for just the needles I need for the course. I have seen a long design I have wanted to try, so I cut tartan fabric I had & lined it with purple fleece that I had in my fabric stash. This was one I made for a gift in lockdown ...
I had a vague idea of what it should look like, machine stitched it together then hand sewed blanket stitch around the edge & added a few more lines of matching pink zigzags to hold it together. A large button & some pretty fabric for ribbon was all it needed to hold the needles I am taking with.
I decided to do a trial run of the colours & the rough idea I had so on a rather wet, dull Shropshire morning, I got out the felting bits & settled in to the relaxing mode of jabbing away at the felt while watching a demanding squirrel at the conservatory door, begging for nuts in shells so he can bury them all over the garden.
The Long Mynd has flocks of hill sheep, hardy creatures that live up high in the bracken & heather so I decided to add some. We had felted tiny sheep with their black embroidered faces on my felting course so I refereshed my mind on the shape & added in some.
The heather colours are lovely, the trees on the horizon, then it looked rather flat. I saw a ball of wool (bought at a charity shop because I loved the colour & textures) was just right to snip thicker strands from to lightly felt on to give it texture & add to the colours.
Some felted flowers (I might still come back to it & embroider detail on them, but no time today) and the planning felt looks rather pleasing.
I feel more prepared for the creative day having refreshed the skills & planned some details. The machine might slow me down because it is not best at using the bulky embroidery foot & the wooden hoops do not fit in well but we will cross that bridge tomorrow.
Do you also decide on random courses to broaden your skills?
Look in again soon & I will update you on how it all went ...
Take care & thank you for stopping by, your comments are always appreciated & a share is welcome
Dee ~💕~
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