Textile Art Journal course: week one

 

On Saturday it was off to Leeds Art Gallery again, this time for the first class of a four-week course making textile art journals.  It's something I booked months ago, hesitating for ages before committing to it as there're other things I could've done with the money.  But I'd been to a class by the teacher before - embroiderer Hayley Mills-Styles - and knew I'd enjoy it.  

It's being held in the Drawing Room, a multi-purpose arty space, where we're surrounded by lots of lovely scrap fabrics, sorted by colour in all those brown bags.  Plus yarn in tempting colours.  All available to make the most of.  

Through the glass doors is the Sewing Room where the machines are kept and we can use as needed.  

I'm hoping that later on in the course I'll have a chance to do freehand embroidery on one of them.  

Note all the stitchy examples of textile work pinned up on the wall.  I love looking at what others have done.  It's always inspiring.  Anyway, back to the course, and here's the kit we were given.  

A comprehensive handout.  An embroidery hoop that's ours to keep, a couple of needles.  Two pre-cut cardboard covers for our journal and some calico to practise our stitches on.  Hayley had bought with her loads of fabric for use to sift through, as well as buttons, embroidery thread in every colour imaginable, various trimmings and plenty of wadding.  For our first class, we decided on our colour scheme and worked on our fabric covers.  Plus we cut out two pieces of wadding, also fabric for the book's spine.  

It took me ages and a fair amount of dithering before I finally decided on this selection.  I thought the colours were winter-ish, while Hayley reckoned they're jewel-like.  So I'm calling the theme of my journal 'Winter Jewels'.  I began appliqueing shapes on to the front and back covers, then decided to turn those shapes into pockets.  Which led me to think I'd fill the journal with lots of pockets and make tags to pop into them.  Next week we glue wadding to our cardboard book outer covers, then stretch our chosen fabrics over that.  I'll have a root around for a couple of my gel prints to add to the inside cover, to disguise the raw edges.  

Two hours went by really quickly, and once home I carried on with making things.  I used my Sissix machine and a label-shaped die cut to make tags from material and paper.  I embroidered a larger purple tag - my clumsy first attempts at spiderweb stitch - and made a smaller simple tag book from stenciled paper.  My favourite 'make' is this tiny tag.  It's backed with a scrap of blue sari silk, has a teeny row of seed beads at the base and a dragonfly charm.  Hopefully they'll all find a place within my completed art journal.  

Hope you liked that peek at what I was up to.  I'm back there next Saturday, and I'll let you know how I get on.