almost but not quite...

Christmas so just time for a night away

destination Manchester...driving down the majestic M6 through rain and storm force winds, some of the best views in the country as we travel through the Howghylls...at speed!

 

we made it safely to Rochdale station to catch a train, and glide easily into Manchester Victoria, half remembered through the mists of time, an old haunt from when I was at Liverpool Uni...young, free and single! This time we have ventured here for daughter mine to run in an athletics meeting on Sunday so I suggested making it a weekend...and here we are, rather stunned country mice getting used to the rush of the city...


luckily daughter mine had a map from when she came with a weekend with Rangers so she leads the way...I could do it from memory...maybe!

it's late afternoon, dusk is coming on and the lights are bright...

I do so love the bright yellow trams...and the hustle and bustle, somehow it feels exiting, a buzz of movement and things happening all around us

and here we are at The Manchester Craft and Design Centre...a historic building now full of the best in art and craft and design, studios, artists...and cafe, modern but with a sense of the past

just not enough time to take in the wealth and variety of creativity, ceramics, furniture, textiles, art of all kinds, and you meet the makers...brilliant to meet Andrea from &made whose lovely work I've admired for a long time

you can see more aboutalmost but nowt the Craft Centre here

out into the night to find Christmas markets in full swing...

so much to see and buy...but we were flagging by now so walked back to the station to catch the train again...and headed for a meal and a bed at the Youth Hostel at Haworth (yes as in The Bronte Sisters)...we know how to have a good time!

I even managed to watch Strictly and on Sunday, daughter mine ran like the wind in her 60m sprint and hurdles and got 2 PBs (personal bests!) 

Home again feeling like I had a week away not just a night...bliss!

 

 

stitching texture...

as you will have gathered by now my dear patient readers I spend as much time as possible sewing, stitching, machine embroidering, creating, playing with fabrics and generally having a wonderful time...(housework what housework?!).. even better is teaching a machine embroidery Workshop and I thought I'd just share a little of what we covered at a recent one...looking at creating a textured surface...

I had 4 lovely and very creative souls with me, interestingly the Universe had kindly organised they were all students...one doing GCSE, two at A'level and one doing an Open COllege of Arts Textile course...amazing synchronicity!

as usual the immaculate studio prepared for my workshopees quickly bcomes a creative brouhaha...what a great word that is, no idea what it means but it seems to fit!

dear old bondaweb (ahem there are probably lots of other kinds of fusible fabric out there Ed)...that versatile "heat reactive, sheet of glue which permanently bonds one fabric to another when ironed"...aha but did you know it's really fun when you paint it? with watercolour, or acrylic or maybe fabric paint...

and then you can literally glue on texture by ironing on snippets of thread or fabric, then just add stitching...

mmm...pleased with these!

and then there's that weird stuff, Tyvek, described by Barnyarns as a "spun bonded polythene fabric that is non-toxic and accepts colour mediums, will shrink, bubble and distort when heated"...not half we say! Mind you it's not so good at the health and safety owing to fumes, so you must heat it outdoors. I don't personally use it a lot...but it is amazing...

here is some which has been painted

then heated...

stitched with snippets of fabric then zapped...

painted then stitched, you can see the fabric shrinking has distorted the stitching

On the whole though I prefer to use more fabric and stitch based ways and challenge my process and creativity to achieve the textures I want...

but it may still include some bondaweb...here used OVER lots of fabric snippets, ironed on then stitched...

and bondaweb underneath...

and there may still be some heating...I used to do this with a household paint stripper, all my degree work was done with me hanging around outside the door of my studio 'burning' my beautiful work with this device!

you'll be pleased to know I do now have a more specialised controllable heat 'appliance'...

eg for burning away a top fabric to reveal layers underneath...I have to experiment first to see which fabrics will melt away...

or for small pieces of fabric stitched on top and then burned away...so much delicious colour too...

you can see why I need a housekeeper, cleaner, gardener and cook...because doing this is just so much more fun!

Hope you've enjoyed the workshop...and maybe been inspired to have a go...

Emmax 

a frosty morning

pottering down the garden on Monday, well wrapped up for breakfast outside...a great way to start the day...and this is the beauty which met my eye...

we had a lovely halfterm holiday with friends and family, now it's piles of washing and mess everywhere...I just need to clone myself and catch up and get organised ready for workshops, getting artwork made and dare I say it, the C...word?? 

Even my Dad has made his Christmas cake, which is a wonderful thing, the first he has made since my Mum passed on so it's a real triumph...wish I could smell it warm from the oven! He cooked it the Mary Berry way in the bottom oven of his Aga so was up at midnight taking it out! Not bad for 85!

 

and on Sunday I had a stall at the Affordable Art Fair at Rheged..a lovely day meeting some really great people, a little selling and of course some buying as there were so many lovely artists and makers there...

 

think I'd better get out of my pj's now and get down to the studio...there's 'tidying' to be done ready for a textured textiles workshop on Saturday!

have a lovely day!

Emmaxx