The much anticipated Julie Arkell workshop day arrived and I woke up uncharacteristically early (especially considering the little people were away for the night!) at 6am to blue skies and a lovely spring morning. I pottered around and finished my crazy patchwork folder cover that I made to use up some of the mountain of little scraps I've saved.
When I got there it was such a wonderful surprise to find the lovely Debs there from Two Bones And a Bagle, and she gave me a totally unexpected present beautifully wrapped in this lovely fabric!
Inside she had put together lots of lovely pieces of fabric for using in my hexie quilt, so pretty, including vintage feed sacks which I was really interested to learn all about!
Thank you Debs, that was so kind and generous of you and I will be hexing with it this evening! Debs also brought her hexie quilt to show, which was much bigger than mine (!) and looked stunning.
Not long after all this Julie arrived looking so pretty and elegant (with the most beautiful english rose skin I have ever seen!) with all of her things which she displayed so beautifully. Would you like to see?
Flower brooches
Suffolk puff brooches (how about that knitted swimming costume!)
I loved this one
And this one
And the creature brooch was my favourite!
We soon got started making the suffolk puff brooches (aka yoyos) which were really enjoyable to make, although production on our table wasn't particularly fast but that could have been all the nattering and tea drinking...
This is what I made (using some of Louises lovely Liberty fabrics):
I also made a tic toc watch, but I need to finish it, so you'll have to wait for the pic of that one!
It was a brilliant day, JA is such a lovely lady, and wonderful teacher (and she even signed my book!) and Louise gathers such beautiful fabrics and treasures for everyone to use for all her workshops. The next exhibition at the Harley Gallery is the The Smile Exhibition which will be showing some of JA's work so I am definitely looking forward to seeing that soon.
I couldn't finish this post without showing some pics of the Nora Fok Exhibition that was on in the Harley Gallery which I popped into next door. Nora Fok makes jewellery from acrylic, (knitted or crocheted - you have to have a look at some photos of the process of how she makes it here - it is sooo detailed. The process)
She makes stunning pieces like this
My photo doesn't do this justice at all, but it is a huge wrap made out of dandelion heads! (Better pics are on her website).And this is a neckpiece made of tied honesty heads.
The exhibition is called Cloud Nylon, and whilst its leaving the Harley Gallery it is visiting other places.
Wow you certainly had a great day out!
ReplyDeleteI was sent some vintage feed sack fabric from a friend in the USA exactly the same as the pink floral one you have shown in your lovely surprise package!
Blog friends are so kind.
Looking forward to seeing your other make when it's done.
Lisa x
It was a super day wasn't it I had such fun. Thank you for your kind comments on here and on my blog it was very good of you - I thought I had gone a bit over the top and had a bit of a wobble about the post. The lovely comments were very reassuring. Glad you liked your bundle of fabric - show and tell your hexies when you have done some more please. Hope to see you again soon.
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