More Sketchbook Making shenanigans...

Stacked Folded Sketchbooks

Earlier in the year I had a lovely evening running my 'Embellishing Printed Fabric' workshop for Brampton Arts and Crafts Club. It was such a relaxed and pleasant evening with a really lovely group of people. They obviously enjoyed it too as they invited me back so in September I ran my 'Simple Sketchbooks' workshop for the group.

Folding, cutting and sticking

Folding, cutting and sticking

Folding, cutting and sticking

I had a bigger group to work with this time as none of the gentlemen of the group came to the previous workshops but they clearly felt happier with sketchbooks rather than stitch so had come along this time. Once again it was a lovely evening, very relaxed and lots of chatting! I demonstrated my techniques for making envelope sketchbooks and my favourite folded sketchbooks. I then let the group loose on my stash of papers. One of my favourite parts of this workshop is choosing the papers and I love seeing people having a good ratch through and selecting the bits they want to use.

Folding, cutting and sticking

Folding, cutting and sticking

Folding, cutting and sticking

It was really interesting seeing how differently people approached the workshop and the amazing range of sketchbooks created, each a reflection of the individual. I'm always intrigued by how even in a large group and working with the same materials everyone will produce something different. I'm sometimes asked why I'm so willing to share my techniques and 'secrets' and this is why; no one will do it quite how I do as each person has their own unique quirks and characteristics and this will come through in any creative work.

Folding, cutting and sticking

Folding, cutting and sticking

Playing with folding sketchbooks

In a similar vein I don't worry about sharing my techniques and tips as I believe that to create 'good' art you need to believe in what you're doing, it has to be authentic. The word authentic is bandied around a lot at the moment but I really believe that a piece of work that is truly authentic has a bit of the makers head, heart and hand in it and will always stand out over a copy or something. One of my tutors once asked me "if you don't believe in your work how can you expect other people to?" This really struck a chord with me and since then I've tried to always make work I believe in, that I am proud to claim as my own. So, the moral of this post is go and be creative and do it your own way proudly!

Finished sketchbooks

Finished sketchbooks

Finished sketchbooks

Finished sketchbooks

Finished sketchbooks

Finished sketchbooks

Recent Textile Based Antics

Setting up for a workshop

I originally began this blog as a way of documenting all the different creative things I was doing. Over time it has grown and changed and it's become quite a reflective place for me and as social media has grown and grown I've been using other platforms to share and record my work. (If you have a little look on the right of this page you can find a link to some of those platforms.)

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Recently I've been blogging less and less about the workshops and participatory projects I'm working on and I think there's a couple of main reasons for this. Firstly, I've been using Flickr to share images of the projects I'm working on and as I've shared the images (a picture paints a thousand words and all that) I've been writing less. Secondly, I've been working on lots of 'ongoing' projects so there isn't always a definite start and finish so I've tended not to blog as I think "I'll write a post when..." but of course the 'when...' never happens!

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

I don't think that sharing my work on these other platforms is a bad thing in any way but I do find that sometimes I miss the writing up and regular writing practice that blogging provides. There is an obvious and easy way to solve this and that is to get back into the habit of regularly blogging! So, with that in mind here's a summary of a couple of recent workshops that I've run.

Making Suffolk Puffs with the WI

Suffolk Puffs with the Women's Institute (Warwick Bridge, Carlisle)

This was a really relaxed evening with a very lovely group of ladies. Making Suffolk Puffs is fairly easy so my main focus was showing the ladies what could be made with them; in particular textile jewellery. I'm always quite nervous working with groups such as the WI as often I'm working with people who have much more knowledge and experience of sewing than I do but I always find that what I can bring is a bit of inspiration and a different way of looking at things which encourages people to be a bit more creative.

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

This is one of my favourite workshops to run and this session was so relaxed and enjoyable. The ladies were so engaged in embellishing their fabrics that at times the room was almost silent but in between those times we had some really interesting conversations about needlework and how the way something is taught makes such a huge difference to not only your understanding but your enjoyment (or otherwise.) I'm really pleased to have been asked back so in September I'll be running another of my favourite workshops for the group: Sketchbook Making.

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Embellishing Printed Fabrics with Brampton Art Club

Plastic Fantastic: The marvels of melting

Beautiful butterfly collage

Yesterday I ran a melted plastic decorations workshop at The Hut, which is part of Brampton Community Centre. It was a bit of a wet and grey morning but this worked out well as the session was over subscribed so very busy, a few more than I anticipated but it kept me busy! Last year I ran a similar session at The Kirkgate Centre in Cockermouth as a drop in workshop. The session was for children and there was quite a wide age range. Because of this I'd planned two activities so that they could choose what was most suitable for them.

Arranging bits and pieces

Laying the pieces out

Another collage ready to melt

The first option was plastic bag collage. This involved collaging and then fusing pieces of plastic bags together to make pictures or abstract compositions. Some of the children made really complex collages and there were some really fun ideas.

Melting!

Cat collage

The right trousers!

The second option was to crochet chains and then arrange the chains into shapes before melting. Because it was quite a large group it was difficult to have enough time help everyone with this but all the parents, grandparents and carers were really helpful and some of the children picked it up really well and made some really long chains!

Learning to crochet

Finger crochet

Chains arranged into a flower and melted

My main aim for the session was to give the children and their carers a fun and creative activity that they could experiment more with at home. As all that is needed are plastic bags, an iron and some baking parchment it is a cheap and easy thing to experiment but with a bit of skill and practice complex patterns and pieces can be produced. I've been melting plastic bags for about ten years now and I like the element of transformation and slightly unpredictable nature of it.

Fish Collage

Fish Collage #2

Exploring Embroidery and Appliqué Workshop

Appliqué and Embroidery experiments

I had a lovely day at The Hut on Saturday running an Embroidery and Appliqué workshop. Although there were only a few participants there was still a good atmosphere and as the numbers were low I was able to give each participant more of my time and attention and even do a bit of stitching myself.

Some of my samples

All set up and ready to stitch!

As I wasn't sure how much experience the participants would have I kept my planning for the workshop quite open so that I could easily adapt to what people wanted. I took a wide selection of samples for people to look at and asked if there was anything people particularly wanted to try. Reverse appliqué was a popular choice so that ended up being the main focus of the workshop.

Choosing, sorting, selecting, arranging

Exploring different options

I like my workshops to be relaxed, enjoyable and above all give people the chance to be creative so I encouraged everyone to experiment and try things out. Luckily the group were very open to trying new things and were really positive about giving things a go. As always I enjoyed seeing how each person came up with something so different even though we all had the same materials and starting point.

The first cut

Suffolk puffs

Stitch experiments

By the end of the day each of the participants had a lovely piece of work that although not necessarily complete was well on the way and everyone had tried something different. As I often do after sessions like this I felt tired but happy and full of ideas and enthusiasm for my subject.

Flower experiemnts

Suffolk puff detail

Reverse appliqué detail

Reverse Appliqué and embroidery piece

Reverse appliqué, appliqué and embroidery

Detail

One of the things that I've taken from this session from a professional point of view is that it would possibly be good to offer more specific workshops; appliqué is such a huge subject area that it could be easily broken down further allowing people chance to develop more specialised skills. For example, one session could focus on reverse appliqué and another on shadow appliqué. And as for embroidery you could spend moths or even years on just one stitch!

My sample piece