Meant to be a workshop

During Reading Arts Week at the end of June, I was meant to do a fabric painting workshop at Battle Library. But I think the weather and several other factors like teacher strikes meant no one came. Oh well. I got some interesting photos in the area near the library.

Battle Library - a listed building which was recently renovated and reopened in June 2009. There are two interesting quotes carved into the pavement in front of the building. these are both carved and set in a curve. Not so easy to photograph, but I have cropped the phrases and placed them one on top of the other.

"If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." - Sir Isaac Newton

"My pen is my harp and my lyre; my library is my garden and my orchard.” - Judah Ha-Levi (Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher)

The site of the old Battle Hospital

making way for new houses. Love the image on the hoardings! It makes you do a double-take.

Great Gift Tags

Lovely little gift tags made today at the Crafts @the Library workshop at the Birch Hill Library.

Great Gift Tags

Samples for May Crafts @the Library

Somewhat easy, but we'll probably do a bit of stitching on it as well.

Just enough time to make the samples for the blurbs whilst doing marking.

beaded bracelet

Today it was my turn to make something in a workshop at the library. Lisa ran a workshop on beaded bracelets today, so I went along.

and here is my bracelet! I can do beading, but haven't done much with the findings at the ends. So, that experience was helpful.

oops I see I missed one of the silver dividing beads.

I also met a 90 year old lady who stopped by the table, interested in the beads. She told us she used to work in an atelier near Bond Street in London, doing tambour work.  I was very excited as this is something I would like to learn. So, I am to get a support frame and contact her and she will show me how to do it! I think I could work it out from a book, but if you want to learn the best way, you may as well learn from someone who was trained in the industry!

okay, loads of exclamation points there... I guess I am excited about it. :)

Button Blooms - Tues

Here are some of the bright and colourful Button Blooms made by the ladies who came to the Tuesday session of Crafts @the Library At the Birch Hill Library.

Lisa, who works at the Birch Hill Library came up with a really cute variation for making the "stem" look good. Her bunch is at the right.

 They all look even cuter when you hold them up or pop them in with a potted plant.

Button Blooms

Thanks for all the encouraging comments about the dragon! I am usually champing at the bit to do my other projects so I can get back to do another one. I am "nearly" at the place where I might even do a big one! (sucks in breath nervously).

Today I worked on developing the craft for the next Crafts @the Library workshop. Button Blooms
At present they are taped onto some bits of copper wire I have, but I hope to get some florist wire tomorrow in town. i need to pick up some buttons from the haberdashery stall in the market as well.

Some use for a gifted glass left from the Millenium!

Spring Joy

A bit more Spring Joy today...amidst a day of bitter wind and rain!
We had the Crafts @the Library at Birch Hill. Because of having to let the pieces dry, I didn't get photos of Norma's, but she did a lovely daffodil with a light blue background.

The one I did has had a chance to dry, so here is a photo for you.

I might get "in Progress" photos tomorrow at Great Hollands. I am hoping we do get people out. I think this long winter has meant people are staying home in the warm.

A find

Last week when I was at the Great Hollands library for the Crafts @the Library workshop, I found a craft book on the discards shelf.

Having a varied collection of string from the various pieces I have made with corded channels, (including donation from someone who used to do macrame) I thought it was just what I needed. Now I have some more ideas of what to do with the string!

In what life? I don't know, but you may see something here sometime!

Today I had the privilege of redoing the journals. Well, something like that. Thanks to Margaret, I got the heads up that if I was choosing vertical journal pieces they had to be this way.

Thanks Margaret! At least I found out before sending!
I like this layout for getting the right ones to live next to each other.

Little Purse Booklets

A few more of the little purse books from the session at the Great Hollands Library today.

and a bit more on the Wendy House.

Little Purse Booklets

Here are the lovely little purse booklets made by the ladies from the Crafts @the Library today at Birch Hill Library.

We had a great time with a bit of a laugh and a joke in today's session!

Decorator Candles - Student work

Yesterday and today I taught the Crafts @the Library sessions. Here are photos of the student's work.

Birch Hill - Dorothy, Annette, Norma and Lisa Great Hollands - Jean, Chantel, Owen and Simon

Don't they all look good?

Spicy Hot Mats

Here are some of the Spicy Hot Mats the students made who come to Crafts @the Library. It was a lovely scented time! not much individuality, but they all enjoyed making them. We had some new people this time.

These are made so you can place a hot dish on them at the table. The heat from the dish releases the scent of the cloves and cinnamon sticks. The rice absorbs the heat. There is a separate sachet inside with the rice and spices mixture. That way the cover can be removed if it needs washing.

I finished off the rest of the loosely woven linen and made 2 when I got home. I will put them in the Christmas gift pile.

Bookmarks Student work

Here are some photos of student work from the Crafts @the Library. We did Stitched Bookmarks this time.

Because the groups were small, I made one at the same time. The library seems to have got busier and busier, so the librarians haven't had a chance to join in.

Bookmarks from the Tuesday session with Norma. Bookmarks from today's session with Sheila and Dorothy.

Very good work!

Suncatcher Kids

This month at the Library there have been several extra events as a way of celebrating the Library's 30th birthday.
Here are a few photos from a Suncatcher workshop I did with the children today. It was a nice sunny day, which Simon says usually means people are out enjoying it rather than coming to the library on a Saturday. So, we mostly had small children today.Some of the kiddies worked with their parents.

I also had a young lad helping, who is working towards his Duke of Edinburgh award. The photos at the upper right are of his Suncatcher. He has drawn Sports symbols.

The pictures on the lower left show Logan's work - with Razza's help. Logan even tried to do a plan, but was not finding it easy to draw on the CD's. So, Razza worked with him to do some of the characters from the Cars film. The other side has a road for them to drive round.

Costume Patterns

Even though the first Fancy Dress Costume course has been cancelled, I still want to be prepared if the others run later in the year.

I found a great costume book at the Library called Quick Costumes for Kids, by Deborah House. There is a section at the back with a fold out page of costumes to trace off. It was a great find, because the costumes we are going to make will be developed from a very simple base. Some we will do from the basic squares and rectangles idea. But I had planned to draft things like trousers out myself. The trouble is, I haven't got a ready-made kid at hand anymore to try things on to. So, when I saw that this had already done basic costume pieces, I decided not to reinvent the wheel...this time!The book presumes you know how to trace off patterns. (I never did that before, as I have never used Burda or similar pattern companies. Before I learned pattern drafting, I generally swapped bits and pieces of existing patterns around to get what I wanted. Or I used the chop-chop-sew-sew method!*) However, I did see someone tracing a Burda pattern, so I had the general idea. It took a while to work out what to look for, but I have managed to trace off nearly all the patterns today. No wonder they layer them. I am already onto my 4th sheet of pattern paper which I would say was about a metre square!

Anyway, what I wanted to say was, if you see this book, do get it. Besides the patterns, which are drawn in 3 generic sizes, they have instructions for sewing the majority of kid's costumes you might come across. Then of course, you use your imagination for the special character costumes or the slightly off-the-wall costumes, but you have enough resources to be able to pick and choose the pattern pieces that will best make up the look you want.

* the chop-chop-sew-sew method goes like this. Hold the fabric up to the kid. Decide it wants folding about here and chopping about there. go and stitch. come back and try it. either chop more or resew more. repeat until it is right!
PS I didn't invent this method. It is as old as the hills.
PPS. sometimes you don't think about the kid needing to raise their arm and you have to unpick the under arm area and put in a gusset. kids don't mind. and the Gingerbread man costume will last longer.

Have fun. Have you made any fun costumes lately?

Charming Fabric Coasters - Student work

Here are some of the coasters made in the Charming Fabric Coasters workshop for Crafts @the Library this week. Being August, the groups were very small, so we only had 1 at each group. However, there were actually quite a few people actually using the library. Lynne was able to start a coaster, but no time to finish. So, I left her the thread and the directions for finishing. The diagonal version above is one I tried.

Bookmark Break

Today I popped into town this afternoon for thread, zips and loads of other things. Somehow, I left the thread! and the couple of bits I thought I would try for the centre of the cushion! I will have to go back tomorrow. I decided to wander into a charity shop to see if there were any decent curtains I could chop up to use for cushion cover samples. I was so surprised to discover a pair of curtains in the same fabric as our settees and chair! I found a remnant some time back and stretched it enough to recover the seat cushions well at least the worst side of each one! So, some of them need help again, and the arm cushions are going. (We still like the frame, but I haven't got around to wanting to learn how to cover the whole thing. I never have been totally fond of the print, but having green scatter cushions will be better than the dingy peach ones.) Now, with these curtains, I can chop them up and should be able to get a bit more life from what is there.

Today for some reason we both woke up very early. My brain was running a mile a minute with plans for the costume course. My husband got up and went off to collect some ebay treasure before work, and instead of trying to go to sleep, I finished reading a kid's adventure book. However, I still was in my studio before I normally get there! So, I made notes about the ideas I had for the costumes. I also actually tidied up some and moved a few drawer sets around to make a place for my growing pile of plastic boxes full of workshop and course supplies.

And then, instead of working on cushion 4, I developed my bookmark samples for the September Crafts @the Library.Lynne at the library thought it might be helpful to have a little piece of paper with the info about the next Crafts @the Library to give the people who come. Then it can be easier for them to remember the date. Trouble is, I am often just getting my head round what I am going to do next time... or if I do know, only just have time to make a preview sample to take to show them!

So, as the workshops are next week and I was still trying to work out the best way to do a bookmark under the circumstances we have, I was feeling a bit pressured. I had originally planned something else, but as time went by, I realised it was a bit too ambitious for the sessions. But what to do instead? So, it has only been a couple weeks that I settled on bookmarks. I wanted to incorporate fabric and stitch.

I am please with these. I think these will work with the skill levels we have. The learners can either learn blanket stitch or refresh their memory. Also, the materials will not take too long to prepare . I decided to put pelmet vilene inside to make them sturdier. However, the kind they had in the market was a bit too stiff for novice stitchers to stitch through, so I got heavyweight sew-in interfacing instead.

Charming Fabric Coasters

The next Crafts @the Library workshops will be on the 18th and 19th August. We are going to make fabric coasters. Here are a few I have been making for samples and some I made for the teachers of the teaching course. I also made one set I am going to use as a gift. I made a box using the pattern from the Christmas Boxes workshop.

Fabric Painting - again

Tuesday and Wednesday we had some lovely Crafts @the Library sessions. After quite a few months of wondering if the Great Hollands group would take off, we are doing quite well! Here is a glimpse of some of the student work.

Birch Hill Library - Norma, Dorothy, Sandy

Great Hollands Library - Shirley, Sui, Jean

I love the ideas for individualising the designs!

Book Cover - Student work

We had some good sessions yesterday and today with Crafts @the Library. The students really enjoyed doing the book covers. We had 3 new people, so that was exciting. Looks like the idea is starting to get around. We are doing the painted fabric next month on the 14th and 15th July and everyone seems to be looking forward to it. There were at least 3 people who looked in today and may come along the next time.

Here are some of the book covers the students made. I provided some templates if they wanted, for the applique, but most of them made their own designs! That was encouraging. I like independent ideas.

Mavis

Mrs. Simpson - Lynne - Dorothy

Sui with the help of her daughter Emily for the applique

Sui had never done stitching before!
However, she soon was doing it better and faster than most of the rest of us!

Simon

Simon is great for having a go.
I think he does very well, even though he thinks he's not so crafty!

Norma had to rush away yesterday, but she had a good head start. She plans on finishing hers at home.

You are welcome to join us next month.
14th July at Birch Hill Library, Bracknell 2-4 pm
15th July at Great Hollands Library, Bracknell 2-4 pm