Papercutting Perfection

It was a very busy week last week  and I am still trying to catch up with everything that happened. So here are some pics from my second course at the WI's Denman College - creative papercutting, and it was a first for them too as no one has taught paper cutting there before. I had three lovely ladies and despite the low take up the course still ran which I was really pleased about, hopefully word will spread and next time there will be a few more - check out my courses section to see when and what and where my next courses will be.

The great thing about having such a bijou sized group is that I can give each student lots of attention and personal tuition. I love teaching papercutting as generally people don't really know what to expect so everything's new and exciting. I have lots of great inspiring stuff to show by way of introduction to cut outs and not just paper items but wood and metal, and I love showing Lottie Reiniger's beautiful animations too - here's a link to the exquisite 'Magic Horse' made in 1953 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myG5Xg0NaQ4

And here's a link to Denman's site http://www.denman.org.uk/

And here are some photos from the workshop

A table full of inspiring rsources

Designing their own alphabets, with a little help from 'Trajan'

Fabulous highly original A-Z 

Beautiful vertical design

Lovely interlinked panel

Valentine's card

Developing next design

Happy hens!

Finally a couple of moments to catch up my blog.
Had a really fun and hugely productive day on Saturday organizing my first hen party, fifteen hens, one bride and a senior dog. Miles of beautiful bunting cut out and stitched, and lots of whicker hearts decorated all on a lovely colour palette of purples, reds, and turquoises. And who knew that lace table cloths chopped, ripped, stitched and knotted could make really fabulous wedding decorations.
Can't wait to hang it all up in the village hall ready for the wedding reception, it's going to look gorgeous and what's so nice is that all the hens will have had a hand in creating this special day. Perfect and such fun!!!

So if you've got a special day coming up  and you fancy doing something creative and fun drop me a line!

The bunting!

Happy bride with her hens after a busy creative day

Beautifully co ordinated Granny with her heart

A hive of industry with three generations -
the bride plus her mum  and her Granny

 A hive of industry

A fabulous display of decorated herats

                       

My stitchy son!

Remember those great slippers my boy made in his DT textiles class? Well he did it gain with his Christmas present to me - this carefully crafted and stitched bag. It's fully lined and I love the patchworked panels from sweet wrappers. He has never sewn at home with me despite endless offers but he asked his teacher if he could make this at school for me - I am so chuffed with him!

Detail of patchworked sweet wrappers

My lovely bag!

2013 starts with the WI

So firstly, apologies for the lack of activity - I had a splurge of cover teaching in the run up to Christmas which was great fun as it was textiles with sixth formers, but it was exhausting, not just the actual lessons but the thinking time in the run up to each lesson and then the post lesson analysis afterwards.
Then off to Canada to visit family and friends for the festive season, came back with my right leg in a brace thanks to a truly silly chair lift moment, and then in to my first course for the WI at their beautiful educational facility Denman College, just outside Abingdon.
Even with my wealth of teaching and running courses, I walked into the beautiful Georgian house feeling a little nervous. I knew I had seven students but that was all and I was wrong footed when I discovered at the start of our first session  that they had not been sent the list of materials I expected them to bring. However several of them had been to Denman  before and thought to pack fabrics and scissors and I took mountains of resources and mterials ad equipment, because you just never know...
My ladies were really lovely and mostly total beginners and in between laughing and chatting and me teaching and them learning, beautiful things were made that they were thrilled with, which is a great feeling for me!
My only downside was sleeping in a single bed minus husband and two cats and not saying good night to the children - upside didn't have to get them up in the morning or make packed lunches!
So I am looking forward to next week's paper cutting course.

Busy cutting fabrics for stitching on to templates

Panel for a cushion

Detail fro my resources and materials table - the book is one of
the best quilt books I know, author is Michele Walker and it's good for
history, design and techniques

Making a pieced geodesic sphere, specifically a rhombicuboctahedron.
complete with panels of robins - gorgeous!

Half term purchases

It's nearly end of the first week back after half term and I really don't know where the time is going. Spent the break ferrying children around, trying to get homework done, theirs not mine and trying to get on track with winter time. It is amazing and a little depressing how much difference one hour less of daylight can make. I really don't feel overly creative snuggled up under a quilt by the fire - hibernation seems like an appealing option.

I haven't finished my latest quilt as you have probably noticed from the lack of updates, butI have been drawing up some designs for Christmas themed cut outs so as soon as I have actually taken knife to paper I will post them.
Meanwhile I took delivery of a couple of Ebay finds. First a fabulous catalogue from an exhibition I can not believe I missed, "Matisse his art and his textiles". It's a beautiful volume full of specially selected paintings and image sof the actual garments he dressed his models in, gorgeous.
And then I found these slightly mad black leather Italian shoes complete with ridiculous but lovely large silver discs, unworn and all for £3! My sort of shopping....

Lovely catalogue

French knots par excellence!

On a grey and dreary day I really need something to make me smile, so I thought that I would share this gem with you.
It was made by my Grandma many years ago. She was a smart lady, always beautifully co ordinated with beads or a scarf, favouring plain navy or black over colourful prints for her smart clothes, and yet at some moment in her life she created this mad hymn to colour and pattern.
It is stitched on to a red spotted handkerchief which you can just about discern in amongst the dense texture of stitches. The dots are satin stitch and the zig zag border is chain stitch, The rest is a glorious profusion of French knots the like of which I have only ever seen on this cushion cover. They are crammed together in the most exuberant  mix of colour and pattern. When I was little and we used to visit her and Big Man George (Grandad by another name) I would gaze at this creation and wonder about it. Strangely I never asked her what had prompted her to make it, a great regret to me now.
I took it in to school the other day to show some students that I had been teaching French knots to, and was delighted by their oooooh's and aaaaah's. I like to think that Grandma would be too.

French knot mayhem

Detail of corner

Photos the whys and whats

My little digital camera has transformed how and what I take photographs of.
I was given my first SLR by my dad back in 1981. It was a Minolta XGM and I loved it. Easy to use, great lens and not too bulky. I shot mostly on magical Kodachrome and looking back, that particular stock taught me a lot. I fell in love with the vibrancy of everyday, found colours and textures, and it wasn't a cheap option so I tried to make every shot count. I composed in camera, there was no 'Photoshop' option back then to rescue misframed pictures, and I had many internal debates about whether a shot was worth taking. Was the light right? Was the shot strong enough?
And then there was the process of the processing. Finishing the film and winding it back into its light tight container, praying it wouldn't jam. It never did but there was always that slight possibility. Flipping open the back of the camera and then popping the yellow, metal canister, full of my carefully chosen images into the preprinted yellow envelope and posting it to somewhere in Hemel Hempstead.
And then the wait.....
And the return, a satisfying clunk on to the mat by the door, and the excitement of looking at the finished slides, in the first instance just by holding them upto a window one by on. then I acquired a little viewer and finally a light box. The laying out of the thirty six, sometimes thirty seven or even eight, if you were really lucky, small framed pictures was always a special moment. I would pour over them recalling the exact moment I released the shutter - even today I can look at thirty year old images and remember with some clarity the time and place.
So these days I take more pictures, digital photos don't have the same price tag attached to them as transparencies, but I don't shoot randomly, and I rarely take more than one of a given subject. I still compose in camera, or rather on screen and I edit as I go. What I find frustrating though is the storage and cataloguing of digital pics. I love my boxes of slides and negatives, there's something tangible about them, but digital is just pixels and codes that fill up my memory, or rather my computer's memory. So that is an issue I am going to have to tackle head on.
And what do I do with all this picture gathering?
Here are some collaged pages from one of my sketch books, themed in colours, subjects or textures.
Hope you feel inspired to have a go and get creative yourself.

A page of assorted windows with thoughts on opposite page

I am not really a pink girl but I love this random selection

Glorious orange compositions collaged together