On Saturday myself & Letitia travelled to Worksop for a Workshop! We went to Hope & Elvis to the Mandy Pattullo strippy quilts textiles workshop. Now Hope & Elvis is a place of beauty.....Its like a magical place where you go and learn new techniques, but you get to laugh, eat cake and chat as well! Its run by the very, very talented Louise who has the rare ability to make you feel very welcome and, honestly, no matter what your capabilities, you never feel like you're way in over your head! I love this place and if I had the chance I would do every workshop but that crazy thing called 'life' gets in the way! Here's a snap shot of the day......
I have seen these skirts on Pinterest, blogs and the internet a trillion times, so to see them in the 'flesh' so to speak was one of the highlights of my day. The actually work that has gone into them is truly amazing.
These little 'books' are made from very old leather wallets. They are full of gorgeous scraps of fabrics and embroidery. Layers and layers of fabric which make pages & then binded in the traditional way.
So after eating lots of the above and listening to Mandy explain her work, we got started....
We made a mad dash for the suitcases which were full of lovely textiles and we collected scraps from cut up quilts (thank you Louise for sharing your precious bits) and other scraps of fabric and lace, we started layering. Mandy was very adamant that diagonals were a 'No', so I tried hard to avoid them. This is not as easy as it looks! You spend your time adding, then taking away and then moving this way and that, but finally you think, 'yes - this looks good' You then stitch all your bits together and Voila! Job done! But no....you end up adding more and then the odd embroidery stitch gets added and then you tack a bit on and before you know it, its a foot long! Fortunately, I was sat next to Letitia who didn't care about my feelings and told me to stop! But also hack off this bit and that which resulted in this.....
Of course its not really finished, but I did manage to add a hangy thing.....
Which, in my mind, means its finished! (I do have a pic of the back, but I don't want to show that as then I will have to admit its not finished!!)So getting to this stage took til about 3.30....which left me an hour for a brew, a biccie and some pics of Louise's workshop/studio/stash of happiness....
See what I'm talking about.....I was debating about hiding out behind these suitcases......as for the fabric stash.....wow!
Oh look! A Mrs Bertimus! (I also spy a bit of Julie Arkell too)
Beautiful things where ever you look.
'Dolls hospital' - kind of creepy - kind of nice too!
Finally all done. I could add loads more photos but I don't want to crash the site! Let me know if you want me to show you the basics of the workshop - my needle is poised ready!
No comments:
Post a Comment