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!