March saw the return of Viv Sliwka aka 'Hen's teeth' for her second visit to Shed 76 1/2. The workshop was booked up very early on and it was a lovely gathering of familiar faces and meeting new ones. It was like an instagram gathering as it was lovely to put faces to the pages I and others have followed for a while.
It was lovely to have Viv here again and the day did not disappoint. Vintage tins and embroidery were the focus of the workshop and after a group chat with Viv we got underway.
It was lovely to work on a small scale and also not to do too much planning. We worked with a range of fabrics,thread and lace. Everyone had their own interpretation for their tin and under Viv's guidance the work slowly began to emerge. A lot of chat interspersed with quite concentration saw everyone create the most beautiful pieces of work.
The following weekend was my yearly visit to Garstang and the lovely Linda at Creative Threads workshops. It was lovely to be back and especially to see the new shop and work in the workshop that is dangerously over the shop...temptation for retail therapy.
The first day was a new workshop that I have discussed with Linda focusing on printing and collage on a floral theme. We were busy in the morning creating a range of stamps based on the flowers everyone had brought as inspriation. It was very quickly like a spring morning.
The afternoon was spent composing the floral pictures. The combination of paper and fabric worked really well and everyone worked really well and produced some fabulous pictures.
After a lovely catch up with Linda I was off to the B&B and my PJ's were waiting. I have a lovely evening spent working on my Boro box. This is a kit I found out about form my friend Lynn. It was lovely to stitch just for stitching sake.
Fueled with a lovely cooked breakfast...day two saw a return to my first workshop, Stitched Collage but with a theme. Animals are something I have done as sample as on my workshops especially in Garstang where Harold and Henrietta were created. So we decided to have a themed day. The range of images people brought ranged from Flamingos to Hedgehogs and everything you could imagine. I love this workshop as the morning was spent collaging a range of papers and then after lunch the magic happens when the drawing with the sewing machines starts. The pictures created were fabulous and sparked lots of ideas in my own mind for collages I would like to do when I have time.
In addition this month I had heard about an exhibition on Sheffield by graffiti artist Phlegm. Held in a disused factory it was a 3D Mausoleum of Giants.
We were up and off to Sheffield early in the morning as it was the opening weekend and it had said first come first saved so we were not sure what to expect. Arriving we have a couple of hours to wait to get in as you were shown around the exhibition. On entering we entered the room 6 at a time so we could get a good view of the opening of the exhibition. We then had 20 mins to explore the rooms. Every where you turn there were other creatures to admire, little details stood out and the whole experience was breath taking.
TO top the month off I have another project featured in Stitch magazine.Fizzy Fridays are a regular on my instagram as it is my treat at the end of the week so to create a collage on cocktails was really fun to do.
Well that has been a Mad March and very busy and I am also getting ready for the British Craft and Trade Fair in Harrogate next month so it is onward and upwards.