November 2014 Day School - Lizzie Wall - 'Applique Owl Mini Quilt'

Our meeting opened and we were introduced to a new project being offered to all members called 'Travelling Books.'  A small talk was given to present the idea, and most people seemed enthusiastic about working on a small project each month from January 2015 (for 6 months), to create books full of ideas and inspiration for all members.

Lizzie has visited us before to show us her wall hangings and has done a 'Tree' workshop with us.

Lizzie is a professional textile artist who offers workshops and commissions to the general public.  We were shown some examples of her work, and she told us that she had been asked to create a window display for a Harry Potter book which had inspired her to make owls.  Lizzie prepares for all her workshops and thinks very carefully about how to produce them, as her other job is as a dyslexia support worker at university.  The project today was designed so that we can all complete it to a certain stage by the end of the day. 
 

Packs had been prepared for us with templates and pieces of material to help us get started.  All the patterns were the same, it would be the selection of materials and the finishing touches that would make our designs individual.

The first thing we did was to draw our patterns onto a piece of bondaweb. We then selected a piece of fabric that would form the main body of our owl, and then ironed our owl body onto a piece of backing fabric and we were soon ready to dress our owl.

We added features such as wings and eyes, by selecting a fabric with an appropriate pattern that we could use to cut out shapes that would look right on the body.  We applied bondaweb to these additional pieces and ironed them on.

Then the fun really began, as we looked at what kind of owl we would make - would it be a girl or a boy?  We all found it was one of those projects where we couldn't stop, we just wanted to keep adding more and more.   Each time, ironing bondaweb onto the pieces then ironing the pieces onto our owl. It was quite tricky at times as some of the pieces were quite small.

When we were happy with our design, we sandwiched a piece of fusable wadding between our top piece and a backing piece of calico, and ironed them together.  We had all got to the stage, where Lizzie showed us how to machine embroider around all the pieces of our design to give a quilted look.

We could take our piece home and free motion embroider it to complete our work.  Everyone had a great time and it was really good fun - and here's the results.........................

Meanwhile those who were not taking part in the workshop, had brought their own projects to work on, in the other room.  Here are some photographs of their work this month.

Notices

Our December meeting (on the 6th) will be a fun packed day for everyone who has pre-booked their Christmas meal.  With fun activities in the morning - there will be prizes too, followed by a lovely Christmas Lunch and our afternoon speaker is Anne Brooke giving a talk on 'My Journey from A-Z and back again.'  The meeting will start as usual, at 10am.

The December Chairmans' challenge
 This year is to sew/embroider a small bag that will hang on a Christmas tree,  a bag that you might make to hold something small and precious - don't forget to bring it if you have made one.

January Meeting
For anyone new wishing to join us for our January 3rd meeting, we will have one of our members Sandie Maher giving a day workshop on 'Stumpwork Flowers and Butterflies.'  A list of requirements will be posted on our December blog.