January 2017 - Workshop - 3D Flower Fun with Ann Reading

It seemed a long time since we last met at our Christmas party. Christmas and New Year are over, so we can all get down to some serious finishing of projects for our exhibition in February. Today though we had an exciting workshop run by Ann, one of our own members.
Outside the weather was very damp and misty but the atmosphere in the hall was buzzing.
The meeting began with notices and reminders from Dee our chair, then on to the workshop we were all looking forward to.

Ann who was leading a workshop on organza flowers had brought a selection of work for us to look at.
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Ann began by telling us she had been inspired to begin making these flowers after attending a stumpwork workshop held by Sandie who is also one of our members.
The first piece she made was Snowdrops. The inspiration for this piece was the snowdrop display at Lytham Hall, which her late mother always enjoyed visiting.

Ann also draws inspiration from pictures, the garden and photographs, sometimes doing sketches and paper collages to perfect the shapes and pattern pieces.

Ann explained there are two techniques she uses. One where the wire went round the outside of the petal shape secured with zig-zag or buttonhole stitch, the other where the leaf was edged without the wire and fine wire was attached up the centre of the leaf to produce leaf markings. 

Although we could work from pictures we had brought with us, Ann had prepared printed pattern sheets of several types of flowers for us to use and take home.
After securing the double layer of organza in a  hoop, we traced our flower petal shapes onto the fabric. 

The fine florist wire was then shaped around the edge of each petal and anchored down with an open zig-zag, before being  machined round with a closer satin zig-zag stitch or buttonhole setting. It is important to leave a long tail of wire on each petal to twist them together at the bottom when they have been cut out. After free machine embroidering the veins and patterns onto the  petals, we cut them out close to the stitching with small sharp scissors.

When this stage was complete Ann showed us how to wind florist tape round the stems or make a narrow rouleau to cover the wire stem. Other small details include stamens stitched onto water soluble backing or wool stitched with wire and beads. The centre of an anemone could be made from a small Suffolk Puff decorated with beads and thread.

Meanwhile in the smaller room ladies were working hard on their own projects. Too numerous to mention them all but here are a few. Carol was making felted poppies decorated with embroidery and beads to place on a prepared background, Stephanie was embroidering fabric to be made into a bag and Christine was embroidering a sampler in shades of blue.

The shop, the library and raffle were well attended throughout the day. Stephanie has recently taken over the library from Irene and Sylvia and Barbara do a wonderful job in making the shop available every month.

As the workshop came to an end everyone was working very hard to complete their flowers, which were only small but what a lot of work towards the end, 'the devil is in the detail' as they say. This was certainly true in bringing these flowers to life.
Some of us managed to complete a flower, some didn't, including me but hopefully they will all appear finished in the future.

K.H.