Wednesday 25 April 2012

Country Garden workshop

Country Garden
We had a great time on saturday at the studio in Dorset, with a full house for my new Albion Stitch Country Garden corsage workshop.
I love teaching and sharing my designs with my students, it's a total battery re-charge for me as there is really nothing more flattering that a whole group of people signing up to spend the day with me!
To start the day we had a good discussion about colour, one of my sidebar themes for all the new workshops this year. As a result the range of colour mixes for the show and tell at the end of the day was lovely to behold.  Yeay for blue and mustard coloured flowers how fab do they look! and I am loving the pink and green mix in one flower. It gets my fingers itching to bead some more...

a day of beading, show and share
Another enjoyable aspect of teaching is seeing finished pieces. In this class there were not one, but two 'Enchanter's Tassels' completed from a previous workshop. With the best will in the world there's only really enough time to make samples in  a few colourways and bead variations. Just enough to check that it really works and will be workable for everyone in class or at home.

Two variations of Enchanter's tassel
So when students take the colours or shapes for a walk, then bring in the end results for me to see, it is a brilliant treat. Enchanter's tassel is a fluid, jointed design worked in layers of Albion Stitch. I'm really liking the Herringbone stitch cord, worked in size 15 seeds. It takes an age to stitch, but is so worth the investment of time to get such dainty detail, go girls!