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Calling all Magpies!  Are you a collector of lace and buttons, if so this is the one for you.

This is a workshop to use up all those beautiful bits that you keep hoarding and adding to! The lace is dyed several shades of purple, stitched to a background and then embellished with treasures. You can bring your own pieces ready dyed or choose from the range of ready dyed packs available. This could be a hand workshop for those who don’t like machine work but it is obviously quicker by machine.

 

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Close up shows the lace scraps, buttons, bits of chain and fastenings collected over a period of time and now finally given a “home”

Fabric Bundles

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These are the bundles in one of the stages of their process of becoming a “Rich Pickings” bag. Anyone who loves fabric will love these and the picture depicts just how diverse the shades of one colour can be.

 

Rich Pickings

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“Rich Pickings” bags are available to purchase at workshops and the shows I am attending. For more information on venues, please see the Workshop Diaries in the category listing.

PLEASE NOTE, these bags are not available by mail order.

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New Workshop for the Autumn

Are you a Magpie like I am? Most quilters are and have a collection of Grannie’s precious buttons and lace just waiting to be used. We have some new “Rich Pickings” bags called “The Heirloom Collection” which will supplement the collections you may already have. This is an opportunity to use some of it up in a Heirloom project which will display your treasures to their best advantage.

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Close up of a section of the piece, showing sections of lace collars and silk flowers to make an antique looking picture.

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This quilt was made for The National Quilt Championships at Sandown Park 2007 and entered into the Art Quilt section where it won a first and a judge’s choice. The title of the piece relates to the hundreds of beads and sequins sewn on by hand with invisible thread, and reminded me of the ball gowns worn by the ladies on the television programme “Strictly Come Dancing.”

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The quilt was made using the “Revelation Burning” technique and a batik panel as the starting point. It has a background comprising of thousands of shreds of organza, trapped under a larger piece of rainbow shaded organza which gives it the jewel like shaded look and it is free motion quilted to secure the scraps.

“Strictly Come Dancing Dragon” was made in 2007

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First prize in The Art Quilt section at The National Quilt Championships, Sandown Park 2007

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First in the Art Quilt Section at “The Great Northern Quilt Show” Harrogate 2007.

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Crazy Horses is made from a printed panel designed by Laurel Burch and uses the “Revelation Burning” method to reveal the parts of the panel that I want to feature in my piece of work. The background uses shaded scraps of organza, which are densely machine quilted and heavily embellished with free machine embroidery. The free hanging panel of three dimensional horses down the right hand side is made from the same companion fabric and the embellishments hanging around the horses are very influenced by things I saw in India. The colours are “pure India.”

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This close up of one of the panels shows the free motion stitching. Each horse and figure are individually stitched in the correct colour to give texture, relief, and form. This quilt won me a second judge’s choice at Sandown Park 2007, and a third at The Great Northern Quilt show, Harrogate 2007.

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Having a bad hair day!

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This photograph shows a couple of the padded horses with their clothes peg manes. There are 6 horses running down the free standing panel and each one is different but just as “wacky!”

“Crazy Horses” was made in 2007.