• Wendy Dolan Workshop with Blackheath Embroidery

    I did the all-day workshop with Blackheath Embroiderers; it was a thank you from our group and in celebration of our second-year anniversary since we have become an independent stitch group. The Embroiderer’s Guild closed all its branches as it did not have the finances to support the branches, we were unsure if we would survive, but thankfully everyone involved took to the challenge of meeting online during the pandemic and we have not looked back since. You can see from the photos of stages of layering of fabric onto the linen that will eventually become a picture of a painting I did while I was in Silicily in September…

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  • Flower Crown Red – That Became Peach

    “I really have enjoyed it and impressed that I have pulled this off from scratch so quickly”. Claire – 2021 – Live online workshop I have been a bit slack in updating the website for a number of reasons and Orville has been siting in a folder all on his own waiting for me to figure out how to put another page for the website for Testimonials and now that I have it up and running, I just see that I can only put two testimonials up, as I have pictures of the customers. Going forward, I may just need to play around with it and tweak it here and…

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  • Beginners Crewelwork Embroidery.

    Sample of piece in progress, actual design and instructions sent to the pupil. I had the opportunity to teach this online class on Saturday 20th June. Nancy was unsure she could do any of the stitches as it was her first-time embroidering, she normally works with tapestry yarn for her creative outlook, she learnt how to do the Pekinese stitch as well as the woven wheel and was able to tell me the steps of completing each stitch. We were both pleased with the result as it was a win win situation and lesson for both, the teacher guiding the pupil and the pupil responding to the lesson and mirroring…

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  • 115cm matters

    Last night I attended a sewing lesson which has been my first in over twenty years. John was teaching the class how to draft a pattern from Winifred’s pattern book and so I had my measurements taken, these were the full works and I don’t ever remember having these measurements taken before. When I did my BTEC Fashion in my pattern cutting class at the time we did use the same book to make a standard size 12 block, then we were given standard size 12 blocks for all the blocks we needed, bodice, skirt, trousers, sleeve and a coat. I felt my brain had become a bit muddled with…

  • Memories of my day on set

    These are images of my day, I had to get my outfit signed off on Friday before the Monday, lunch was provided, image of a lipliner and Lauren’s and my feet and my embroidery that I took. I am learning a new technique called silk shading that I may want to use in customising the jeans jackets with embroidery designs.

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  • A Fun Day on Set

    Lauren the makeup artist for the day, asked me to sit in her chair so she could touch up any makeup, she was an absolute dream and easy to talk with to understand a little about the industry. Working on set can be tiring as the days are long from early mornings to late nights. Today I had the opportunity to be interviewed and be an extra on the set at St Luke’s Panty in Chandler Way. Big Zuu has been invited by the Coop to spearhead their Christmas campaign for social media. Normally would spend millions on an advert for Christmas, but with the cost of living crisis that…

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  • Samines shop in Etsy

    It’s been a while since I have the Samines shop activated on Etsy. I decided to move over to Folksy as this is the UK equivalent to Etsy that is based in America. I have been slack and have let many things go and I know I will have to sort the Samines shop out on Folksy, I just have not kept up with my online presence and as a result I have not grown. So this is my renewed listing of one of the table runners, maybe I need to name those, especially when I post on social media to link everything.

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  • August Bank Holiday

    Continual strength and stamina in my body and improvement of my wrist as well as my ankle and feet. This morning I went swimming and walked from home which took about 25 minutes. I am quite thrilled with myself as I managed to push up onto the ledge with my body weight onto my hands and get myself out of the pool, this is the first time I have managed to do this since swimming in this pool, as there is no ladder going in and I have to crouch down to get onto my bottom and then swing my legs into the pool, it is quite a sight.  Around…

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  • Flower making workshop

    I had the opportunity to attend Lora Avedian’s workshop with Blackheath Embroiderers in June, she showed us her techniques of how she makes her flowers. It was a great exposure to a different technique that does require a smocking machine and if you didn’t have a machine, (they can cost about £200) then you can hand smock and would take a lot longer. I remember trying a smocking machine when studying for my City & Guilds Embroidery, I didn’t take to it.

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