Christine Lethlean Workshop

Yesterday I had the fun of attending an all-day workshop hosted by Ballaarat Quilters. Christine Lethlean of "The Margie and Bert Studio" in Clunes taught Making Art with Textiles. I don't think I could say I made "art", but I did have a great time playing with fabric.

Some of the inspirational pieces Christine had for us: 

Happy people surrounded by piles of fabric:

We had been given a list of requirements, and I had everything except the first item on the list, an idea!

The first part of the day involved layering many small pieces of fabric, then stitching them together in some manner. This becomes the background of your piece. I had taken some denim to use as background, but I didn't use it. This is what I ended up with:

It was one of those activities that you can enjoy without having a clue what you are doing or where it is heading. This piece is up to four or five layers of fabric, from upholstery weight to chiffon. I stitched them together with three different threads, although that is not at all obvious in the photo.

There were people who had brought along ideas. One person's foreground was to be large colourful chook, another's a picture of an outside toilet. Having no ideas of my own, I went for the default: a vase of flowers.

Flowers roughly cut out and arranged:

Vase shape cut by Christine from one of the fabrics I had brought along:

Then you have to deconstruct everything you have done, to start sewing the parts to the background individually. The previous photo is a guide to where to to place the pieces as you progress, but things moved around a bit as I worked. And I was so caught up in the process that I didn't think to take any progress shots. This is what I had by the end of the day:

I was stitching down the blue and brown flower in the centre (which hadn't even been in my initial arrangement, but I ended up with a bigger gap to cover in the middle than I had expected) when my bobbin thread ran out. It was about pack-up time anyway, so I left it at that.

The second half of the workshop is next month.