The Freedom to Stitch-with Sue Chisnall-Sumner

A good opportunity to blow away the January Blues!!!!

I am running a workshop at Avant Garden Centre on Wed 21st January 2015- 10.00am to 4.00pm. £35.00 for the day which includes a light lunch & refreshments during the day.

This workshop is designed to help those that are new to free motion machine embroidery & those that wish to learn more techniques.

We will be working on different types of fabric, using an embroidery frame and embroidery foot.

Your machine must be able to do free machine embroidery ie either you can drop the feed or attach a plate- your machine manual will make this clear.

However I do have a spare machine for those that do not have a suitable machine.

Enquiries can be made at Avant Garden Centre, Wigan road, Leyland, Lancashire PR25 5XW Tel. 01772 433777

It is essential that you book a place & pay a £15.00 non returnable deposit to secure. You will also need to obtain a requirement list from Avant.

Hope to see you.

What a Phaf!!

I have just spent two days quilting a large wall hanging for our exhibition next year- i come to the conclusion that I will never make a quilter & should stick to mixed media & embroidery. Luckily I know how to fudge over mistakes- i have had plenty of practice!!!

I suppose eventually it will look okay- but will tackle that another day!

When I have finished i will put photo on post.

first a clothes rail now a hanging screen!

I have just completed a hanging screen for the Three Stitches to use at craft fairs. Its been a horrid job, black fabric, black thread & black velcro- my eyes are completely done in!!!

However I think its a good job & will work well as a back drop screen to present either hangings or bags etc whenever we have a position against a wall at a fair.

It should also work well at the Skirmish Fair next year, as we will be using our gazebo.

The screen cover is removable, the screen adjusts & folds down, It is very lightweight & on wheels so easy to transport. Jobs a Good U'n!!!

Christmas Fayre Chipping

The Three Stitches will be at Chipping Christmas Fayre on Sunday 7th December 2014 -12.00 noon to 6.00pm. We will be situated in the Village Hall.

We will be selling our ususal items, scarves, jewellery & Christmas items etc etc.

Photos will follow shortly.

In aid of Northwest Airambulance and McMillian Nurses.

We did very well at this fayre, lovely atmosphere & quite a few sales.

Photos below

Christmas Fair at Samlesbury Hall

The day is nearly dawning when Tracey & I forge ahead with the craft fair at Samlesbury Hall.
I think we have everything at hand, boxes sorted, labels made & outfits at the ready.

We are taking suitable Christmas items along with our normal array of eclectic items ie tray dyed scarfs, bags, cards, etce etc.

We are known as the Three Stitches, but have been reduced down to Two, as Caroline is off to fair climes. She will however not escape from the fair at Chipping!!!!

Below are the details of the Samlesbury Christmas Fair.

Chrtismas Fair, Sunday 30th November at Samlesbury Hall, Preston New Road, Samlesbury, Preston, Lancs PR5 0UP T 01254 812010. www.samlesburyhall.co.uk

11.00am to 4.00pm -Craft stalls, Christmas food sampling, refreshments & ample free parking.

Father Christmas visiting 12 noon to 2.00pm.

Adults £3.00 & Children £1.00.

Hope to see you there??

Results not good despite loads of people & our stall looking spectacular - it didn't help being on the end in the middle of the Great Hall & next to a cheap Chinese imported items stall, which really drew in the children & most mothers by passed ours.

Anyway better luck at Chipping Christmas Fair on Sunday 7th December 12.00 to 6.00????

Photos of craft stall at Samlesbury Hall are below;

Tray Dyeing Session at home

On 12th Nov I ran a  tray dyeing & decolourant workshop in my home. I can accommodate 2 students (just about!)

It was very successful & both Diane & Nicky enjoyed the day- as did Sky the Dog!

I had decided to run this workshop as a test to see if it would work & to iron out any problems, as tray dyeing is a difficult one to run as a day workshop.(the fabric is best left overnight in the trays)

I mixed the dyes up before the workshop started as this takes a fair bit of time & you need to be precise with the measurements.

So when we started at 11.00 all was in order & ready to go!

I had decided that we would manipulate the fabrics & dye them before lunch, and after we would play with decolourant on some ready dyed silk scarves & plain dark fabrics.

This order worked well & I can now make this into a day workshop. Funily enough I have now been asked to do a workshop at Alston Hall, & have agreed to run this workshop on 6th May 2015.

Here are some photos from the day

Diane trying out the decolourant on a silk scarf

Busy Bees!

Nicky & Diane at work

Trays stacked on cooker ready for the long soak.

novel idea for a bin!

Nicky's washing!

The Mystery of the Embellisher-Solved!

The workshop went very well, with a small friendly group of ladies attending. The 'newbies' to the technique soon cottoned on & were well away. The results were some lovely & very interesting pieces of work,

I think everyone went home feeling more confident with their machines, despite broken needles & screw driver problems- why oh why do manufacturers tighten screws on their machines so much, and make it so fiddly to change needle?.

My thanks go to my friend Caroline who popped in after lunch to act as my technician, and make numerous cups of tea. Of course more importantly she helped my clear up & also load & unload my car at home.

Of course I still have to put all the stuff away, which I left in piles in the hall to sort out today.

Judith & Pam

Michelle, Val & Rosie

Here are some photos from the day. Despite none of the pieces being completely finished, they all look great & have potential as hangings.

We used pieces of light fabric, cotton, silk, scrim etc, with wool & silk tops included.

Great Day- what can be acheived by using a silly sewing machine with no thread!!!

amended date for workshop 'The Mystery of the Embellisher- Solved'

'The Mystery of the Embellisher-Solved' with Sue Chisnall-Sumner.  

The date of this workshop has been amended to Wednesday 19th November

£35.00 for the day, which includes full instruction on how to use your embellisher. If you do not own an embellisher you can  have a go on one of my two embellishing machines. You will learn how to make beautiful fabrics, using wool tops, silk tops, & all kinds of light weight fabrics. You will also be able to add textured threads & wools. At a later stage you will be able to develop the fabrics into wall hangings, bags etc.

You can also learn how to needle felt using hand tools, which can be made into small items eg. bracelets, boxes etc.

Also included is a light lunch & refreshments during the day.

Please contact Avant Garden Centre, Wigan Road, Leyland, Lancs PR25 5XW (a few minutes from J28 on M6) Tel 01772 433777 to book & obtain a requirement list.

needle felted bracelet

1. 

craft fairs

The Three Stitches-that is me, Tracey & Caroline are attending two craft fairs before Christmas, Samlesbury Hall, near Preston on Sunday 30th November & Chipping near Preston on Sunday 7th December. (please look on their websites for further info)

We have been busy marbling polystyrene bells & balls, to make Christmas hangings- please see post named marbling- I have embellished the baubles with 3D paint & beads, added plain sticky labels to the numerous small gift tags(over 30) & large tags which have then been bagged & priced. The wooden baubles, have also been enhanced with 3D paint & the backs coloured with metallic pens, with hanging ribbons added. All now ready to go!!!

Tracey came round & we embossed, die cut & prepared 28 cards- these have now been embellished, priced & bagged. Some are Christmas cards & some general ones.

Tracey & I are available to do the Samlesbury Hall fair- so good to go!

Caroline arrives back from her travels just before Chipping, so Chipping will have to put up with all three of us- they don't know what they are getting yet!

Lets hope we do well & both events are fully advertised.

Pictures to follow--------

Encaustically Rich workshop 4th October

The workshop was very successful & all the students appeared to enjoy themselves- they said it was very relaxing, which is good.

They produced some lovely items of jewellery, very different & unique. Most went home wearing all their finery.

The encaustic waxing on fabric was also greatly enjoyed & again the students excelled & created some very interesting effects.

The pictures below show some of their work.

encaustically stamped fabric on heat plate

busy bees!

more busy bees!

encaustic wax on calico which is being given spot enhancement with stylus.

poppy brooch

bookmarks

acrylic waxed pendants drying!

caged earrings

picture on cotton

starting a waxed fabric piece

printing onto cotton on hot plate

marbling session

Today I had a marbling session with Tracey & Caroline (The Three Stitches)- we had  a frustrating fight to insert wire into polystyrene balls, bells & eggs to make a device to hang the Christmas decorations up to dry-Nightmare!!! why is it that even if you make a hole through polystyrene anything inserted into the hole finds a different passage???? Must be an answer somewhere???

We did manage to marble all the baubles in a fashion- however we went slightly manic with the labels as you can see from the photograph!

The beautiful wooden trees & hearts that Tracey sourced from somewhere! look stunning & have worked very well, as do the pieces of card that we intend to cut up & use to decorate cards for sale.

Tracey & I will have to arrange a further session to decorate & assemble the decorations, and in some cases rescue them from disaster.

However even though stressful, mainly me!!! I must get a good nights sleep tonight! we really enjoyed the day & have been very productive.

We keep trying to sell our wares at Craft Fairs so hopefully we will do well tomorrow at Dalton- GO CAROLINE!!!

plenty of labels!

collection of cards 

collection of wooden items

wooden tree with gold beads added

original type marbling

strange flowers

further collection

as it comes

swirls

all at sea

pop art

Iris collection

stippling