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On teaching workshops
When I was doing my talk to the Quilters’ Guild Area Day on Saturday, I was asked again if I do workshops. I get asked this fairly often after a talk. I don’t. One reason is that I spend a...
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Work in progress – Little Lauras 1
My new project involves making a series of small panels of little Saint Lauras. I started by making a biggish piece of machine-made crazy patchwork, using my faithful Bernina and the Singer my mother...
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What I did at the weekend
This is a piece for a specific project which I will blog about at the end, but I wanted to show you a small piece that I have made that I really like for once. I wanted to work with the citrus green...
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In which it is revealed just how shallow I am
Last week I had a fantastic time in Oxford and London. I was in Oxford to give a talk to the lovely Oxford Embroiderers, and London for a meeting of a research team. While I was in Oxford I...
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New Year Doll 2014
Every year I make a New Year Doll. I do this on New Year’s Day, and the only rule is that it has to be made on one single day. Last year I cheated a bit and assembled a doll from the arms and legs...
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Linda Miller at Bristol Quilters
At Bristol Quilters last night we had a really great talk by Linda Miller who is a professional embroiderer. It was particularly interesting because she talked as much about her business as about her...
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No 1 in a series of quick posts of Little Laura panels
I haven‘t done much posting recently as I have been spending so much time on my day job, and I haven‘t had that much time for my Laura Ashley projects. Plus in the dead of winter I don‘t feel that...
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Little Laura no 2
This Little Laura uses one of my favourite stitches: fly stitch. Here there are some examples used as a stand-alone stitch, but also to sew down some substantial sequins. There are also beads sewn...
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Little Laura 3
I do love an encrusted surface and this Laura has a lot of very shiny black beads appliqué-d down the right-hand-side. There is an old turquoise bead earring on the left, which I got in a lucky bag I...
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Little Laura 4
This one is the first of this series that I did. It has a very geometric stacked-up pattern feel, but the bronze on bronze pattern made with metallic machine sewing thread, here used for hand...
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Little Laura 5
I rather let rip on this one and added about as much embellishment as I could squeeze in. Sometimes more is more. I think it works because there is a lot of patterning and repetition in it,...
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Little Laura 6
This seemed like a nice Little Laura for Valentine’s Day (which happens to be my birthday), because of the little red enamel heart; I like this one because the stitchery at the bottom of her skirt is...
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What I did at the weekend
I have no idea where to start today so this might be a real ramble, for which I apologise in advance, but lots of things have come together in that last few days which has been fun but hard to...
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What I did on Sunday
Well, I should have been working at the day job, but for some reason I have the big Urge to Create yesterday and so I gave in. I finished the last of the little Laura panels just after lunch and I went...
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Learning Medieval Embroidery at the Ashmolean
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that there were several things I wanted to blog about: drawing armour at the Wallace Collection, and drawing zentangles, then there was the Kevin Coates exhibition...
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Louise Gardiner at Bristol Quilters
Last night were were exceptionally lucky to have Louise Gardiner, a professional embroiderer of twenty years standing, to talk to us. First of all she is a very engaging speaker, bursting with...
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What I learned from the ladies of Coombe Down
Last week I went to give a talk on Laura Ashley to the Coombe Down Ladies’ Group in Bath. It only dawned on me very slowly that this was not a sewing group, but a general interest group. They had...
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Abigail Mill at Bristol Quilters
We were very lucky last night to have had Abigail Mill to talk to us about her work. She brought with her an enormous amount of work and talked a lot about how she built up her business. In some...
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Revisiting a classic
I have been working on a new project, which I will blog about shortly, and I thought that I would get out my copy of The Shining Cloth by Victoria Z. Rivers. It is a great book, a bit of a classic...
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War Collars project
I have spent quite a lot of the summer at conferences presenting my research to my colleagues. One of the new projects for this year was on the connection between suits of armour and contemporary...
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