Samines

I help your hands create something beautiful

Tag: Embroidery

  • CPD Teacher Training

    CPD Teacher Training

    It has been a very long while since I have written a blog and I am feeling quite nervous about it. May 2023 saw me have Covid for a week and I tested positive on my birthday, so where I was to see my sister instead I was on my own in bed feeling quite unwell, I was sleeping loads, had a high temperature with a fever running up and down my arms and the sensation of what I now I understand is fatigue. I had no idea I would develop long Covid and I had also no idea that I really needed to have given myself three months of sleeping between 10-12 hours each night to have gotten over the virus. Six weeks after the Covid infection and trying to push pass the fatigue I had written a blog and in slow motion I saw myself hover over the delete button and deleted my website. I pushed passed through the fatigue again and phone Ionas up and they recovered it, but the passwords they gave me didn’t work the next day, after two straight days being on the phone to talk to somebody about the issue I was too stressed to push through the emotions and so I let time slip by until I could cope with sorting out the website.

    Then James came onto the scene to help me and he has been truly a gift as he knows what he is doing and got me back in.

    So now we come to teacher training, I was on Teams attending the CPD training at ACL at Islington and I took the picture so I could later find this principle on Youtube, this session was about mirroring and how we get the learner to mirror the technique back to you or you mirror what the learner is saying. I now have secured a position as one of the sewing tutors at ACL, I teach embroidery. I love teaching embroidery and I have been told by my learners as well as my managers that I am a very good teacher, which is so encouraging to hear! And it is showing through the ideas I come up with as I teach my own designs and break it down into stages, I create power points with images and I video my demonstrations of teaching how to sew each embroidery stitch, they also have test, there are power points for embroidery equipment, I have learnt how to navigate Moodle so I can upload the power points for each week. Some weeks are blank which seems to be in the second half of the term as most of the techniques are covered, there is a final technique for this course for Embroidery Appliqués Flowerpots, but that will be released in week 10 or 11 as they will learn how to mount their embroidery onto mount card and then they can frame the piece.

  • Wendy Dolan Workshop with Blackheath Embroidery

    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 20201, the stitching is taking on a life of it’s own and the original picture that I am working from is now only a guide to the colours and not actual shapes, I am loving how the piece is developing every time I stitch it.

    My first initial thoughts were to leave the green satin on the painted background, but when Wendy Dolan had a look at my piece, she suggested to put strips of organza over the satin as then it would soften the piece and she was right in her assessment.

    I am currently working on this piece in building layers of stitching up to create a meadow, but my piece was not of a meadow, but of a green sub and flowers over the wall that was in front of my balcony I was sharing at the time.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • Embroidery Diploma Grade

  • Mindful Stitching

    Design and Stitch go hand in hand

    A couple of Mondays ago I went to Kew Gardens for my birthday, it was the first time on my own as I normally meet up with various peeps during the day, although I did have birthday celebrations in the pub later on.

    I was a bit emotional during the morning and so I never registered that it was going to be a heavily rainy day, to the point I had to draw and later stitch in the orangey, it was very noisy with lots of families taking shelter. As I was so engrossed in copying from a colouring book in developing designs I never saw the sea of faces asking me for chairs, I did have to say no to one woman who wanted the other table as I was busily working and needed the space, thankfully she moved on.

    I was in the process of stitching this piece, but have had to lay it down while other tasks have emerged. I had started stitching this piece after finishing some design development on my birthday in the Orangery, (do you remember the rainy day?).

    As the day drew late into the early afternoon, I realised I had to be at my next place where I was gonna meet up with friends. I arranged for people to start coming at 6pm, but I got there at 4.15pm and realised I had loads of time, so I sat with a fruit cider and carried on stitching while waiting. 

    Although the day didn’t start as well as it could have, the evening did finish well and with a positive ending, as I was surrounded by friends who came to celebrate with me.