Liz Cooksey Stories in the round

We had a great day with Liz, who was most instructive and generous with her ideas and tuition.

We were shown many techniques using wire, fabric, paper to create the many different elements in order to design our own piece.

Liz had also prepared a small kit of wire shapes, all wrapped up in tissue, in order for us to get straight into the making, it was like Christmas again. 

And so we got to work and many different items were created with Liz helping us all along the way.

In the afternoon Liz showed how we might compose our pieces and many ways of holding them together in order to display them.

Again Liz was on hand to show us any further ideas as needed by individuals.

The results speak for themselves.

Everyone had a great day and it is hoped Liz can return in the future. Many thanks to Liz Cooksey all round.

(words and images thanks to Roberta) 

Suzette Smart - Textile books workshop

In January Suzette Smart did a return visit to help us make the gorgeous fabric books we saw in her lecture. She started with showing us how to paint bondaweb to give us some interesting shapes to work with.

Someone got a bit carried away during the drying process! 

The next step was to paint "dabs" to make a tree shape and to tear our first shapes up to make them more interesting. 

Smartie pants prize to Saskia who got this piece finished in time for the Feb lecture!

Cutting up calico to make the book base 

Lots of design work going on 

 

Keeping your cool when your machine has a hissy fit for no reason!

 Lots of concentration - people were so quiet!

 There was the option to machine or hand stitch over the bondaweb shapes.

 Suzette showed us how to make a tree or some thistles with an easy technique

Then adding stitch

 Suzettes work showing how you can add a pocket or text

 Scraps of fabric work well too - most didnt have time to do this on the day

Saskia's with stitch added

 I have worked with Suzette before so she helped me with a more complicated technique using gesso bondaweb and ink. (no that is not a "dead spider" but some lace edging dipped in ink)

 Just bondaweb and stitch can be amazingly effective

Margarets front page

Adding photo

love this piece with just the bondaweb - doesn't it make you itch to stitch it?

 Collaboration is always good. Lorraine making artful use of my left over "dog chewed edging" (it was washed!)

 Janet did her own unique thing

 With her usual colour palette (i spy a cheeky green in there)

building up the detail

Thistles with bondaweb and stitch

 Adding some pieces of fabric

It was a fabulose day and Suzette was a great teacher. She is leading our residential next year (2021) using a refresher of these techniques, adding some more and making a bird house or a box. Lots for everyone to get stuck into and looks to be a whole load of fun!

Elise