Month: February 2007

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Poll for Future Classes

In order to provide classes in the future that will appeal to the most people, it would be appreciated if you could complete two polls for us. 

Each poll gives a list of finishing techniques that we feel could be enjoyed, but the list is in no way exhaustive – if you have any other finishing methods/items that you would like to see included, please leave a comment with details and we’ll do our best to oblige.  Unfortunately WordPress won’t allow the poll codes in their posts, so I’ve had to create a separate blog in Blogger to host them.

After a while we’ll look at finding people to run each class or do them ourselves, and work out a schedule.  The classes mentioned previously (eg pinkeep, cube-it etc) are not included in this poll as they’ve already been discussed.

Thank you in advance for completing the polls – this will be a huge help in deciding which classes to run in the future.

Take me to the polls now!

 

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Finish-along weekends

Apart from the classes for a specific technique, we also thought having a weekend set aside for finishing items would be a good idea.  So start going through that ‘to-be-finished’ pile, and start thinking about getting those items finished.  (I’m a great procrastinator for finishing items, so this is something I desperately need to do.)

We thought it could be a good chance for people to post photos of their completed projects, to give us all some inspiration, as well as provide support for each other.  The type of finishing would be personal choice, with no limits set.  So, let’s start digging out those FUFO’s (Finished Un-Finished Objects) and clear them out! 😀

We’ll make the finish-along weekends the 1st weekend of every month, so it’s easy to remember, and it doesn’t clash with our classes.  Due to people’s work schedules it will run from Friday through Sunday to give plenty of time for everyone to participate – we look forward to seeing you there with your wonderful finishes!

The dates for the rest of 2007 will be as follows:

2-4 March
6-8 April
4-6 May
1-3 June
6-8 July
3-5 August
7-9 September
5-7 October
2-4 November
7-9 December

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Tie-on pillow class – dates and materials list

Thanks to those that expressed interest in the tie-on pillow class. The class will run on 24th and 25th March. I know this is Christmas ornament SAL weekend, but the weekend before is Mother’s Day over here and I thought it would be easier to avoid that weekend in case any UK stitchers that want to join in are busy with family commitments. Hopefully those of you that want to do the class and the ornament SAL will be able to fit both in – the pillow finishing is a relatively quick technique. Don’t worry if you can’t participate that weekend – the class instructions will be available for you to use independently at a later date.

The way the classes will work is that the instructors will post step-by-step instructions, with photographs, at the start of the weekend and then will be available all weekend to answer questions and give verbal help if necessary.

Materials list: Edited to add more details of amounts of supplies needed.

  • Stitched piece
  • Lining fabric for your stitched piece – something plain and neutral, preferably close to the colour of your linen.  You need a piece as big as your stitched piece, allowing extra for a margin around your stitching and seam allowances.
  • Co-ordinating fabric for your pillow – a fat 1/4 should be plenty but as long as you have 2 pieces at least 3 inches bigger all round than your stitched piece.
  • 1 metre of matching ribbon, about 1″ wide (you can go a bit wider if you wish, depending on the size of your stitched piece but I wouldn’t go much narrower)
  • Sewing cotton to match your linen and your pillow fabric.
  • Fiberfill
  • You will need a sewing machine (or access to one) for this class

Any questions, please post below. I’ll be posting reminders as the class date gets nearer. If you do want to join in, it would be nice if you were prepared to share pictures of your finish at the end of the class, so that we can have a record of everyone’s participation to add to the class pages. You’ll need a WordPress account to do this – check out the About this blog page for more information.


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Classes update – First class announcement

We’re just waiting on a couple of people to give us their availability before finalising the class schedule, which will hopefully be available by the beginning of March.  As our prospective teachers have so far asked for a little time to put together their instructions and class information, the first class will be run by me at the end of March and will be for my version of a tie-on pillow, like this one that I made last year:

Love pillow

I will finalise the date very soon, but it will either be the 3rd or last weekend in March.  If you’re interested in taking this class, I will be posting a materials list shortly, so that you can get supplies together in plenty of time.  In the meantime, start looking through your finished pieces or through your charts for a small design to use for the finishing – the stitched area of the design in the picture is 1.5″ x 5″ to give you an idea of size.

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New links

The following links have all been added to the Tutorials page in the last week:

22/2/07 – Basket band (using linen banding) tutorial (under Cording, Tassels and Misc)

22/2/07 – No-sew padded ornament tutorial

19/2/07 – Biscornu instructions from Own Two Hands (includes links to free biscornu patterns)

15/2/07 – Ornament and needlebook tutorials from Ink Circles

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Potential classes to be offered

So far we’ve had offers from 6 ladies to run classes on the following techniques:

  • Mailart (Barbara)
  • Pinkeeps (Nicki; who is also putting together a written tutorial for ribbon ruching, which will be available through the Tutorial links page)
  • Flanged pillows (Katrina ) See examples on Katrina’s blog here and in her photo album here and here
  • Embellished bag (Su) See example on Su’s blog here
  • Cube (Joanie)
  • “No-sew” Wallhanging (Helen) See example on Helen’s blog here

If you’re interested in learning any (or all! ;)) of these techniques, please can you leave a comment below, indicating the technique(s) you’re interested in, so we can get an idea of interest. We’re in the process of drafting up a schedule and hope to run the first class sometime in March.

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Biscornu freebies

I was just doing a search in response to a request for biscornu freebies on a BB I visit and I found these two great sites, with loads of free biscornu patterns:

Aurelle – 14 designs
MissT – scroll down a bit – there are 3 pages of designs, including several biscornus

I thought these might be useful for anyone wishing to have a go at making their first biscornu, as the designs are quite small.  If you need instructions on how to make one, there are links on the Tutorial Links page

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Suggestions for finishing classes

We obviously want to make this blog as useful and relevant as possible, so firstly we need to know:

What finishing techniques would people be interested in learning?
Would anyone be interested in teaching a particular technique and if so, what?

If there’s enough interest in a particular technique, we’ll include it in the class schedule; if not, then perhaps we’ll try and partner up someone who wants to learn a technique with someone who already knows how to do it for some one-to-one tuition.