I should really share more about the day-to-day goings on of the studio. Not only do we have regular workshops but also stitch clubs and lovely people quite often pop in for a chat and a cup of tea.
Last week was a bumper week as far as inspiring women are concerned - I thought I’d write a bit about them here, starting with our Wednesday Stitch Club.
Stitch Clubs have been held at the studio since the very beginning when we had a tiny place at Castle Ashby (on one particularly memorable day we squeezed so many people in that we were sitting on laps and window sills!).
The Saturday club has become quite busy and so I set up a Wednesday club to help free up some Saturday seats. We started with a small number, all of just fitting around the table by the window on our first date, and the group is gradually starting to expand. Whilst on Saturdays anything goes (stitching, knitting, crochet, garment making etc) our Wednesday group seems to attract pure stitchers.
Club is held on the second Wednesday of month (usually around the 14th day) and I’m often too busy chatting to notice what is actually being worked on around me (story of my life, ask my teachers!). This week I just happened to glance around the table and was struck by the colour, texture and beauty of work that was being produced.
As you know, I’m a hand-embroiderer ‘by trade’ but I really just love all things fabric and thread. One of my new year resolutions was to explore slow stitch and start a slow stitch cloth - it didn’t occur to me at the time of writing that I had a wealth of talent and experience to draw on from my Stitch Club friends!
Jo is stitching into a piece of printed fabric, creating colour and texture with textural stitches and gentle colours:
Helen has pieced together a beautiful length of fabric and is stitching into it using a stunning colour palette:
Clare calls herself a feltmaker (which she is) but actually her skills go way beyond that. Textile Artist is a more apt description. Clare is working into a piece of cloth which she has hand-dyed, with threads that she has also hand-dyed, patching and exquisitely stitching as she goes:
Clare teaches from her studio in Bedfordshire - you can find her website here.
Janys is also an indie dyer and creates wonderful tactile pieces of slow stitched cloth which she then makes into sewing pouches and textile art. (Janys loves bullion knots too.)
Janys gets a special mention in this blog post because of her thread organisation! I always plait my hanks of sashiko thread and I regularly buy those plaits of mending cotton thread but it has never occurred to me to plait lengths of my favourite embroidery threads to use on the go.
You know the special threads that come in delicious textural hanks (like knitting yarn) and you’re not entirely sure how to store it nicely? Janys has the answer.
Look at this! Beautiful! Janys cleverly cuts all of her thread to a workable size (wrist to elbow length) and plaits them all together - colours and weights, silks and cottons… all together and kept for travel stitching. It’s a gorgeous space-saving way to keep all of your thread together and tangle free. You just hold the plait and gently pull the thread you’ve selected. Perfect. (Janys occasionally sells at local textile fairs so do look out for her hand-dyed fabrics and thread plaits).
Almost immediately I could be found rummaging amongst my threads, finding my favourite colourways. I’ve put a couple of photos here because I think you love thread as much as I do…
These are my slow stitch threads to play with and so they are different weights, including cotton and silk. Properly heavily variegated, in that beautiful way that hand-dyers manage so effortlessly! I have asked Janys to bring along some of her thread and fabric packs next time we have a stitch club.
Because of the muted tones of my embroidery work I think it is a common misconception that I am not a fan of colour. In fact I adore colourful work, I just happen to think that my small embroidered scenes are more restful to look at when soft colours are used. Handworked cloth with jewel coloured thread, rust-dyed linen with dark neutral thread and all of the shades of indigo make my heart beat faster!
Clare popped into the studio today to drop off an order I’d placed and I ended up having an impromptu wet-felting lesson. SO exciting. I’m already hooked and we have booked in a date for us to teach a collaborative piece together - watch this space, I’ll be announcing in the newsletter soon.
I’d better get back to work now but next time I write I’ll let you know about Sue Stichbury’s visit to the studio this weekend and her glorious Fairy Tale appliqué classes. I’m going to finish my own little needlecase and I’ll take photos to show you.
Nicki