Design Day workshop in the Studio

Susan's piece from kitchen utensils

Last Friday I finally remembered to take photos of the class – hurrah!  It was ‘Design Day’.  It was a great day, painting and dancing at the same time; experimenting with different media and seeing which ones people preferred (not always the ones I expected); making completely random pictures and finding interesting patterns from unpromising material (kitchen utensils!).

Creating random pictures

Many of my friends think I’m a bit nuts, but for me it was a great way to spend a Friday helping to take away the fear of designing and I was really impressed by some of the pieces created.  Fantastic designs for new textile pieces. 

Scaling up and changing media

Tomorrow is ‘Stitch Day’, the last of this session as I need to then get the studio ready for Open Studios, which starts on Saturday 6 June.  I’m going to be demonstrating my working processes as well as having work displayed for sale, especially as I have a couple of pieces I want to get made.  As I write, I’ve got fabric sitting on the radiator drying so it can then be taken to the next stage.  Can’t quite believe that at the end of May it is cold enough to justify having the radiators on!  Still it does make drying my fabric quicker.  Photos of these pieces coming soon.

Louise's drawing from utensils

One of the random pictures

Switching exhibition venues

Unsung Muses at Farfield Mill

Yesterday saw the end of my exhibition at Farfield Mill and whilst it was lovely to see it again, it was also sad to take it down as it looked so fantastic in that space.  As I had to be there anyway, I ran a workshop for them called ‘Print, Paint, Play!’ and I had a marvellous day with a wonderful group of ladies who worked incredibly hard using gelli plates and then adding paint on top with Inktense and Markal.  

Gelli plate prints from workshop

It’s great when you learn something on a workshop you are teaching (it happens virtually every time).  The lesson for me yesterday was that metallic paint can be used really well, without over-powering a piece.  I tend to avoid glitz at all costs.  I shudder at gold lame!  However, watching the students yesterday using the copper and gold paint was fantastic and I will definitely have to start trying to use it subtly. 

Great use of gold metallic paint!

So the Unsung Muses are now mainly on the tables in my studio, waiting to be put away until  – apart from the four which are already hanging in their next show.  As part of Forth Valley Open Studios, they are in the Pop Up exhibition at the Tolbooth,Stirling.  

Unsung Muses at the Tolbooth

The exhibition opens on Saturday and if you are in the area on Friday night, please come to the Private View from 6-8pm.  I’m intending to be there – three little monsters permitting!

Unsung Muses at the Tolbooth

Last Friday’s class in the studio was also on gelli plate printing and, again, there were some amazing results, particularly from using leaves.  However, I was so busy, I forgot to take any photos of their work.  Mental note for this Friday’s class on Inktense!  [small plug – there are still some places available on the next three Fridays if you live nearby and fancy trying Inktense or improving your design or stitching skills...]

Printing in action

More gelli plate printed fabric

Dyeing Day: 1st Workshop at Gillian Cooper Studio

Adding dye to the group ice dyeing pieces

‘Let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start’ and what a better place to inaugurate my new home studio classes than with fabric dyeing – the start of most of my projects.

Shibori using elastic bands

We spent today experimenting with procion and cotton fabric.  We tried colour mixing, toning fabrics, dyeing in cups, over-dyeing fabric, shibori using elastic bands and set up ice dyeing.  I certainly enjoyed myself and I think the students did too!  It was lovely to have textile enthusiasts in my studio and to share my knowledge with them.  What’s so exciting about teaching any class in person is that it is a circular process - the students learn from me; they learn from each other and I learn from them.   I’m really pleased with how my demonstration samples turned out and I can’t wait to see how the students’ pieces work out after they have been washed out.  Most of them are doing next week’s class too (though there are still a few spaces available!) and so I will get to see the results then.

Twice dyed

Even better is I still have some dyes made up so I can do some more over the weekend.  Also the tidying up wasn’t as painful as I expected and I didn’t have to cook dinner for the family as we had the leftover soup and homemade bread from the lunch.  I think I am going to enjoy teaching from home!

Dyed in a cup

Working hard

Some of the ice dyeing melting away

Out & About: Katie Pasquini Masopust workshop

detail of the finished quilt

Last May (yes, I can’t believe it was so long ago!), I had the privilege of participating in a workshop led by the well known quilt artist, Katie Pasquini Masopust at the Studio, Loch Lomond.  It was five full days and I really enjoyed it.  The subject was from watercolour to finished quilt.  By the end of the five days, all I had to do was bind the quilt... which is why it has taken me so long to share it.  As June was rather busy with PomPoms and then other things took over, I only got round to finishing it a few weeks ago.  

The finished quilt

 I learnt a lot from Katie and her process is really interesting.  This is a quick and rather abbreviated summary of what we did.

My original watercolour

We painted lots of watercolours (most of mine were disastrous but the aim wasn’t to create a great watercolour painting, just source material), then we selected the best bits of each one before deciding which one to make into a quilt. 

The selected detail to make into a quilt

These were then traced and blown up in full sized patterns, which were meant to be copied exactly.  She also does ‘proper’ appliqué – none of this raw edged stuff – and showed us her technique. 

The back of my applique

 

Laying out the pieces to applique

Applique in progress

 

Finally, Katie heavily quilts her pieces to add interest and tends to use a similar coloured thread to the fabric, using a different pattern for each area.

Quilt ready to be trimmed

Being awkward, I was the only person in the class who created a horizontal piece, but now that it is complete and trimmed down to rectangle, I think I may prefer it to be hung vertically. 

 

It was a great learning experience, not just for what I learnt, but for what I also discovered about my own working practices.  For instance, I don’t like working to exact patterns, I want things to evolve and life is just too short not to use raw edge appliqué (besides I like the effect)!  Also, I like the quilting to add to the design as well as the texture of the piece. Overall, it was a great experience and even though I am highly unlikely to make another quilt like this (it is Katie’s technique after all, not mine), well worth going to.

How to: Coffee Cup Patchwork

Coffee cup patchwork

This is the finished coffee cup patchwork.  I was trying it out as a potential workshop idea, but I’m not sure I will develop it as such, much as I enjoyed making it.  Although the idea is simple, it is rather complicated and time consuming, which doesn’t lend itself to a one-day class, especially as there is lots of hand stitching.  Despite that, I’m really pleased with the results.  So I thought I’d share the process with you.

Initial drawing made on phone whilst the kids had a swimming lesson

I took a disposable paper coffee cup and ran string in a spiral down it and marked the line. 

Cutting along the line gives you a long strip, which I then marked out into triangles.  Each triangle was then numbered and I reconstructed the cup to see mark where they touched each other.

 

 

 

The triangles were cut out and I felt-tipped the edges black so they would be easier to see when I copied them.  I stuck them onto sheets of paper using little blobs of masking tape on the back.

I enlarged them on my photocopier to 400% and then used these pieces as templates.  I cut matching pieces in thick paper and medium weight sew-in Vilene.  I made sure I numbered all of these!  Then one at a time, I cut fabric about 1/4in bigger all around for the seam allowance.  I decided not to worry about being too precise in this.

Joining the first two pieces.  I actually started with numbers 9 & 10, because they were less fiddly than 1 & 2

Each fabric piece was then tacked onto the thick paper, with the nice side showing and the Vilene sandwiched out of sight in-between.  I then overstitched it to its neighbour, creating a long snake of patchwork – there were 38 pieces in all. 

In progress

Stitching together

 

Once the snake was complete, I made the bottom piece the same way and started over-stitching the snake to the bottom, keeping an eye that my numbering was still in order. 

Stitching the snake to the base

The finished ‘cup’ is surprisingly sturdy and I like the homey look of seeing all the stitching, including the tacking.  Do you like seeing the stitching or would you prefer it to be hidden?

Workshop: Paper Pieced Vessels

Last week I spent Guy Fawkes Night in Peebles, giving a talk to Tweedale Quilters.  Peebles is obviously very well behaved as I only heard a couple of fireworks.  The following day, 10 of the ladies from Tweedale Quilters joined me for my paper-pieced vessels workshop. 

 

I love paper piecing, even if often brings back horrific memories to women of a certain age of their first efforts of patchwork in the 1970s using hexagons and Laura Ashley fabrics.  It was one of the first patchwork techniques I was introduced to and I love sharing my enthusiasm for using it in unusual ways in creating 3-D vessels.  It was a lovely calm day – no sewing machines, all by hand and I hope the ladies enjoyed it as much as I did.

It was also quite useful as paper piecing was one of the topics we covered at the weekend at the C&G class, so I had my samples all ready for the students to look at.  Ironically, Marjory, who was teaching with me, brought along her traditional paper piecing to show – Laura Ashley hexagons which had been in an attic for years, waiting to be finished!

I also did a class thing at the weekend.  I had taken the demonstration sample in progress for Somerset folded patchwork to the hospital on Thursday, when I took my son back to have his broken arm examined.  I quickly grabbed it out of my handbag on Saturday morning, open it out to discover I had brought along his temporary calico sling instead!  Not very useful for teaching, but I did end up using the fabric as the basis of the new sample as I demonstrated the technique from scratch!  I’ll show you the finished Somerset piece when I have edged it.