26 June 2015

Little Nuthatch

On Wednesday I was once again at the glorious setting of Hampton Court Palace
The gardens were looking stunning, especially the roses, but I was not there to admire the view (although I did wonder about a bit)
I was at the Royal School of Needlework for a silk shading/needle painting masterclass with Trish Burr

I had a fabulous day, Trish is incredibly talented and generous, she was very relaxed and a wonderful teacher. The kit was very good, beautiful printed linen and full skeins of DMC along with a full colour 25 page instruction booklet

We managed to get lots done in class

The detail in Trish's designs are amazing, the eye is about 1/8" but we used 6 colours for the detail


Once I had stitched the eye and beak, he had real personality

I found it difficult to make the feathers, as I am usually trying to make all the stitches even and the same size, you need to do the complete opposite for this technique! we were joking that my bird had obviously spent hours preening!
Next up was the flowers

Again incredible attention to detail, these tiny buds are 1/4" but again I have 6 colours in them!


One thing I love about this technique is that you can go back and add stitches, I felt my orange was too harsh and in a block so I added a few more of the paler yellow to break it up.

The centre is filled with colonial knots

I had a wonderful day and am really pleased with my little Nuthatch, it is difficult to see how small it is, the detail is incredible, but he's only 3"


20 June 2015

The Magna Carta Quilts

I talked before about a group quilting project I was in involved with, to produce a series of eight quilts in celebration of the 800th anniversary of the sealing of the Magna Carta. You can read about it HERE

I am pleased to say that the quilts are finished and were unveiled at Royal Holloway this past weekend; they are now 'on tour' currently in Guildford Cathedral. They will be travelling to Houston for the International Quilt Market and the Festival.

The series of four medieval quilts tell the story of the reign of King John of England and the events that lead to the Magna Carta being drawn up; the four legacy quilts depict famous people known for their human rights work. The encaustic tiles around the four medieval quilts spell out the 'Golden Clause' of the Magna Carta, the one that talks about human rights.

The work was completed by a group of very talented ladies, I did a lot of the cutting out and boring hand sewing that no one notices, and lots of the admin tasks. I also made the bees and did most of the Goldwork embroidery.

More information is on our website www.magnacartaquilt.co.uk and Facebook Page
















16 June 2015

Loseley Park

Today myself and a couple of friends visited the stunning Loseley Park a Tudor house that has been lived in by the same family for over 500 years. It is open to the public a few months of the year and also available to hire for weddings and parties.
The guided tour of the house was fascinating, but the main reason we went was to visit the famous gardens, The roses are at their peak right now and it was a glorious day.










I loved the cottage garden and the serene white garden.












06 June 2015

Meet Patch

Finding myself unexpectedly with a free afternoon and in need of a quick sewing fix, I decided to tackle one of the many small projects I had kept for just such an occasion. I picked up a copy (issue 8) of Love Patchwork and Quilting Magazine at our local newsagent a few months ago on a whim, as I really liked the sausage dog on the front cover.
It was a new magazine to me and is quite fun, full of modern quilts and quick small projects, I haven't seen it again in the shops but it is still around. They have a blog with free patterns too.
http://www.lovepatchworkandquilting.com

I decided to use my special Dutch Chintz scraps gifted to me when we left The Netherlands, I have very little left now :(
I wanted to make my dog smaller than the original so I reduced the pattern to 75%, which may have been a mistake as it was very fiddly to put together
However the instructions were very clear and the pattern was very good, so I had no real problems. He finishes about 10" long by 3 1/2" tall

What are you going to do with him I hear you ask?!
He makes a perfect pincushion, although I am not sure what has happened to all my pins?! I need to invest in some more.


Linking up to Sew Many Ways   Kathy's Slow Stitch Sunday  Scraptastic Tuesday