A little bit of something I fancy

It's a long weekend here (always a favourite) and while I'm sitting here waiting for my daughter to arrive home from babysitting, I thought I'd pop up a couple of shots of some inspiration from Symposium - soon to feature in my neglected sketchbook I suspect.

Of course they did cause some concern with the aforementioned daughter - she thought they looked just like the heat diffusers they use in science (which of ocurse they are). I on the other hand saw great texture and shape that I want to get into textiles.

As I always try to tell the kids, its just all in the way you look at things.

Sensational Symposium - Onto the Classes

Welcome to neglected blog - life had been a whirlwind of bad weather, sick children, distractions and very little stitching..... But enough.... as promised more on Symposium

So after two days of being an angel it was time for me to get my sleeves rolled up and get going myself.

The first class I did was a one day class with Merrilyn George. I really had a hard time deciding what classes to enrol for at Symposium but I knew I really wanted to do a class with Merrilyn - it was just that I didn't think I could fit in her two day class on Patterns of Polynesia, which one of my friends did and loved. So the class I did with Merrilyn was 'Sacred Art in a Secular Country' which focused on the painting of icons. I wanted to learn Merrilyn's technique for transferring images from the computer to fabric. Then we painted the icons directly onto the fabric. The icon I choose is revered in Russia and Merrilyn told us that she is worshipped as part of the preparation on Friday for the sabbath. She is also regarded as a saint for all things womanly. I was instantly entranced with her, given Friday is the day I try to keep aside for coffee with close friends and then as many dedicated hours in my sewing room as I can squeeze in before the kids get home from school.

I decided that my icon needed to be enhanced with the womanly skill of embroidery to properly play homage to her status - and that's why mine (the icon on the right in the photo above) is still a work in progress..... She will be the patron saint of my sewing room - who could want more?

Next up was two days with Sandra Meech who was over from the UK to teach. I felt very lucky to be in her class - 'Inspired Sketch and Stitch Books'. We were flat out right from the moment we started painting papers and into our sketch books to create surfaces to work on.

We went through most of the exercises that Sandra has in her book, Creative Quilts. The exercises were based on materials that we had to bring to class that we were interested to develop up into textile pieces. It was great fun and gave me tons of ideas - you can see that the curves attracted me, as ever

It was great - and utterly exhausting, and now I just need to get back into that sewing room and get onto it before it all disappears from my grasp