Freebies, Stitch Alongs and Craft Alongs

There are some interesting things to be found on the internet for stitchers! I may have already mentioned this on our old blog but during lockdown some of us have been doing Cathy Reavy's stitch wheel, following the weekly videos on YouTube; I need to catch up, I'm a couple of weeks behind. Then there's the fabulous Anne Brooke with her various challenges, currently the 52 tags series. These are all free and I for one have enjoyed them very much and look forward to the coming weeks with Anne. 

There's lots more photos on our Instagram of the tags we have been doing and there will be some of the wheel when we finish the final few stitches. Links above.

There are also some great freebies to be had out there too, where makers have generously shared patterns. There's something for everyone. Personally, I'm not a great one for cross stitch but I have to say I'm rather taken with these two little projects which can be found here along with lots of other craft projects on the 'gathered.' website.

Last but not least in this mini roundup is Frill and Flounce; the link is to the FaceBook page but I'm sure you can Google it. They have some free Zoom workshops in their events information. I have done a couple of the bookbinding courses which have been great. Have a rummage round and see what you can find!

You wouldn't want to miss a brilliant idea because you weren't there.

I'm a bit late posting this for various reasons, not least the hoo-ha surrounding the Embroiderers' Guild and the closing of branches; we have been sorting ourselves out and hopefully you're here because this new Blog has finally appeared on a Google search - I've been fighting with it! If not, then hopefully you have been redirected from our old blog. I can't pretend to be any good at sorting out all this techie stuff so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. It would be great if you could follow us and that might help.

ANYWAY...

Last month we had a great Zoom afternoon with Angie Hughes on "Creative Icebreaking". Getting going can often be a problem and so we learnt about Angie's process. She quoted Phillip Pullman "Resist wandering off, checking social media or making yet another cup of tea. You wouldn't want to miss a brilliant idea because you weren't there to receive it." 

Books are an interesting way of getting started; Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way was something Angie used: write 3 pages of prose every day; write about anything - it gets your brain working.

Another technique she has used successfully is mark making on a large sheet of paper using any tools, Quink ink and bleach. Make a list of words, choose five and use them as inspiration. Bite the bullet and without looking tear the sheet into pieces creating different arrangements.

Other sources of inspiration are Domestika courses - I've done some and they're very good; Laura and Linda Kemshall on sketchbooks; fine artists such as Klimt, Matisse and Hunterwasser; Ruth Issett, Alice Kettle and Bobby Britnell also give her inspiration.

Using a viewfinder to isolate interesting bits of paintings or designs can also be a springboard for a piece.

For our mini workshop Angie showed us how she makes the stamps she uses, along side some Indian carved blocks, and gave us ideas on how to use them.

Photos of Angie's work are from her website and the link is at the top of this post.

She runs lots of Zoom workshops if you're interested in learning more.

Following our mini workshop we made some stamps ourselves; now we need to eat lots of Ferrero Rocher to get some gold foil (Angie uses it a lot) and dig out the velvet, paint, bleach overcome the procrastination and creative block and get going!

Here's some of our practice stamps.

Skipton Stitchers: a new beginning

This is the first post of our new blog as Skipton Stitchers. it seems we've all been up-skilling with regard to Zoom and the like as we are unable to meet as before. Today we had our monthly meeting via Zoom and Claire, our chair, volunteered a mini workshop on raised embroidery. She gamely created some lovely videos demonstrating the techniques she used only to find that the Zoom gremlins were uncooperative! However, after some tinkering the series of clips are now available on YouTube using this link and they are also in the Resources tab.

I was feeling techie and grabbed some screen shots while Claire was chatting; do have a look at the videos. Thanks to Claire for giving it a go - this new way of meeting has been a learning curve for many of us.