Secret Stash

 This month's meeting was a Secret Stash challenge. Everyone was given an envelope containing the same fabric scraps, some lace and buttons; the challenge, in the spirit of the Sewing Bee was to create something using the pieces in an hour and a half, any techniques or ideas allowed. We did cheat a bit and have an extra half an hour, but it was great fun and the results were all different. We might have another go with different scraps at a later date. Here are some of our efforts in various states of completeness. Hopefully they will be on display at our next exhibition. 

The starting pack:

                                        

Diamond Awl Workshop

What a great day we had today with Jason and Louise from Diamond Awl Leather Workshop. We made coin purses and throughly enjoyed ourselves. We made a bevelled edge on our leather blanks (took a bit of practice!), stained and polished the edges and then got to grips with the stitching. Again some more practice wielding two needles at once on the same piece of waxed thread and lots of muttering under our breath to get the stitch sequence correct. 

                           

We all managed to produce a lovely little purse and had a great sense of achievement at the end of the session. Jason and Louise were great; we were inspired!

                                
   

Kimono at Blackwell

 I had a trip to Blackwell House overlooking Lake Windermere the other day. They had a Japanese exhibition on and were displaying a beautiful mid 19th century kimono. We did go on a Branch trip there a few years ago, but it was lovely to go back.

I couldn't resist snapping some more textile stuff whilst I was there!

Yarndale 2021

 Great to be back at Yarndale again! Here's our stand with its of lovely goodies to buy with inspiration links on our tutorials tab on this blog. Any left overs will be available at our exhibition in October.

We managed to collect some more of the 4" squares at the meeting last week and they look great on their colour strips.

We also had some travelling books on display as well as some crazy patchwork covered books containing lovely lace collections. We also displayed some mini embroideries members had done that were attached to tags; the hedgehof=g and owl were really popular.