Jae Maries - Weekend Course

This weekend I was on a course, amongst old friends and new, with tutor Jae Maries.
Not been on a course in a while and this came along and was much needed.
As always with a workshop it isn't always the main topic which provides the elements of wow, that is just such a good idea.  One thing which fascinated me, was sitting opposite Deirdre and watching her sharpen a pencil.  As a former draughtswoman, she is used to precision tools and accuracy, but I'd never seen anyone do this before.  First she sharpened with a knife, then used sandpaper to refine to a very sharp long point.
Deirdre was also the provider of sighs of awwww at the end of the first day.  We had the doors open and were visited by a cat who lives next door to the venue.  It patrolled round and round inspecting, and was quite happy.  When we came to leave for the evening Deirdre found him in her bag, curled up asleep.  Good job she needed that bag otherwise no-one would have known, we thought he'd left.  He did come in again on Sunday, but this time was escorted out!

Jae was very good with her time, devoting lots of inspiration and ideas to each person.  Though many people came in on Sunday declaring, "I've changed my mind, starting over".  Me included - I think many of us had a sleepless night, in terms of ideas buzzing or just realising doing the design process in the wrong order, or too precise.  We were supposed to be loose with our interpretations, scale, colour choice - well considered but not slave like reconstruction.
I started off with some of these

Sunday we had an excellent lunch together.  We also had more information from Jae, this time excellent hints and tips on mounting/presenting work, which I want to try.
I came home with a piece of work prepped ready to sew - I didn't start sewing because I was tired and didn't want to spoil it.

This is final designing stage

its going to look a lot different from the starting point!

 

Thank you everyone for your excellent company, lunch and extending the opportunity my way.

 

Going Forward and Standing Still

Do you think things happen in batches, or just more ready to receive certain information at certain times?
The 'thing' I sorted out on Monday is two teaching sessions at The Sewing Box in Leigh on Sea.  Rachael bought the shop a few months ago and is developing workshops on the premises.  I'd been told by my friend Helen several times, go in and see.  So eventually I did and went back on Monday to finalise.

 

28th May : Bead Edgings

18th June : Hand and Machine Cords

Contact the shop to book

 

I have done this before, and lots of demonstrating things, and even have a mini qualification in teaching  Mostly its been for the Embroiderers' Guild - this will be the first time I've ever done it for a business concern.  I'm also waiting on teaching or giving a demo as part of an Art Trail, and will be teaching again at the Embroiderers' Guild in August.  There's been a gap because of life issues, (hopefully people will stop with the crises now) but even so its weird all these things have hit the front line this year.

I do know that I couldn't do what others do and travel around the country to teach, or to give lectures. I'm more than happy to demo something and share information, but talking about 'me' well that's another issue entirely.

 

And the other batch of things - is a batch of stuff for the bin.  Everything I seem to have touched the past week, has resulted in little progress and satisfaction. I really should pay attention to myself, I am useless when I'm too tired or not feeling right.  I know this, but still I persist, but every time the item ends up in the bin.

I messed up the stitching on this, stitched in the ditch when I shouldn't have, lines not straight etc, don't think I can, or want to rescue this.  Then I prepped another little piece, spent ages cutting paper.  So all ready the next day.  Started off with one piece which I couldn't stitch very well again, sigh.  Then turned to this lovely creation, only to find it on the floor and worse - wheel indentations through it.  I'd run over it on my office chair.  Its paper, no rescuing to be done.
I think I might have to warn poor Jae Maries.  I'm on a weekend course with her this weekend - my plan at the moment is to sit quietly and try not to ruin anything, and just soak up whatever she has to say.
Mhmmmm, another one for the useless effort - four times now I've hit the wrong button and 'lost' this post.  Sigh - perhaps I need chocolate?  Or cake?  Or tea?  Or a dark room?



Pretties.....

I'm going to have a blitz on some things today - well that's the plan - who knows, days seem to evaporate somehow.
People for some reason, often say to me, you don't do handstitching do you?  I beg to differ... I see myself as a bit of a butterfly, because I like all sorts of techniques.  Quite often I end up with layers of both hand and machine stitches - and certainly to the couple of stitch groups I go to, I always of course by necessity take hand work with me.  So what am I stitching by hand at the moment (of course they might also get put under the machine at some point, who knows).

The fabric has history.... belonged to my gran.  It had a huge dirty splodge on it and without thinking I threw into the washer - stain came out and the fabric lost all its dressing and came out beautifully soft.  This is coloured with acrylic paint.  I've stitched it in white because its about to go into the dye.  Hopefully the bits of white base fabric will colour along with the white stitching - we will see... might be turquoise, might be hot pink.  Anyway I want to move it on to the next element to take it with me on Tuesday.

This is the very fine weight lutradur painted again with acrylic, in hot pink, red and a bit of white.  This is for an EG project which has to be pink!!!  This will likely follow another hand technique, lots of beads, bits of metal chain....over the top.
I don't have a dedicated space all of my own to work in - so I tend to like to paint fabrics rather than dye - I find it easier, more controllable to get the exact colour I want and where I want, plus I don't end up with yards and yards of fabric in a colour which I likely may never use again.  Been there, done that.  I use acrylic paints because I'm all for one product which does many tasks - and I don't find it an issue to stitch through it by hand as you can see from both above, or via the machine.
Btw, I call these pieces of work Pretties.  Because that's what they are to me, using the pretty colours and techniques and being a bit choke girly.  They are also free spirited, conscience reactions if you want to be posh - but if not, I just sit and play and stitch where and with what the mood suggests.  I have had and  recorded here, great trouble with working this way.  Because I do enjoy it a lot, but because there's no 'design' no paperwork to support it, it didn't seem like proper art.  Add in one or two people accused me of as much.... and I doubted severely the worth of doing this.  However, wonderful Jae Maries book, listing the types of artist and one of them : Materials Lead.  And this is it, letting the fabric and thread in your hands tell you what to do with it.  Such a freedom to me to know its legitimate to work like this.  I also think it has elements of something Jean Littlejohn said to me once on a class.  Asked about how long it took her to make a piece, she said "oh, about 30 hours plus 25 years".  And that's what's in these Pretties, all the knowledge about design and colour and contrast and texture that you absorb, making such decisions almost without thinking as you work.
I should be doing something else rather than the above, but despite hours of research its not happening... and I have a huge need for a paper fix - so I'm off now to make a paper flower....