Saturday, May 14, 2011

Celtic Cutwork Class

Our speaker for our annual Show & Tell event this year was Yvonne Brown - a talented Textile Artist from the UK. She does absolutely beautiful work and I was very lucky to be able to attend a class with her on Monday. These are a couple of her samples of her cutwork technique She was a great tutor, willing to share many samples and her other techniques and how we could apply what we learned to different projects.
We were given a kit which had a background piece of her handmade tissue fabric, traceable vilene, kunin felt and a selection of sheers that will melt when heated. First task was to choose our design, which we then traced onto the vilene. We also had to rub our black tissue background with treasure gold to enhance the lovely textures. We stitched our design through our layers of background, felt and sheers with metallic thread showing on the surface here. We then used a fine-tipped soldering iron to melt away the sheers around our design. It seemed a scarey thing to do, but was actually quite fun and looks great. We also used the side of the soldering iron to melt some areas on top of the design to add interest to the surface.I am ordering my own soldering tool for a birthday present :-) These are some of the pieces made in the workshop And this is mine almost finished in the day - it just needs a bit of hand-stitching and maybe some small beads and then I can decide how to mount or frame it. A fantastic day with a generous teacher, and a new technique that I can see being applied to many future and varied projects.

7 comments:

  1. FANTASTIC!!!!!! Wish I could have gone to that class!!!!! Yvonnes work is AMAZING!!!!! I did buy her book. I will be looking forward to see all the lovely work at the next RCQ meeting.
    Liz

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  2. Lovely work - I would have loved to do that class too! Perhaps us three (meaning Liz) should do it together! Where are you ordering your soldering iron from? Because I need to get one with that fine point (my current one is too bulky).

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  3. Wonderful class. In the US I bought a soldering iron from a company that caters to the electronics industry. They are stronger than the ones made for the craft industry and the point is very fine. NZ must have electronics workshops that use the very fine tips so there must me a place to buy them.

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  4. There's a great range of soldering irons with all different kinds of tips available from Jaycar. But I am going to be treated to a Creative Versa-Tool with lots of extra attachments - will share when I get it :-)

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  5. I'm so jealous!! what an awesome day you had!! Fab opportunity to learn this wonderful technique, just love the results! Mx

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  6. Hello Lynette,
    Your class with Yvonne looked fantastic and your work looks wonderful too. We are lucky here in Norfolk that Yvonne is a member of our group and a dear friend. She will be sharing her New Zealand memories with us in September at Alveva Quilters as our speaker.
    Thank you for posting and have joined site.
    Best wishes,
    Jane C

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