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Thursday, March 3, 2016

Certificate Course workshop: English Paper Piecing

Last Saturday I attended the February workshop for the Embroiderers' Guild Certificate Course, this time on English Paper Piecing with Melissa Walker. 
Melissa provided a choice of projects  - both pincushions: one hexagons, the other mixed shapes. Because I had paper-pieced the bed quilt in hexagons three years ago, I chose to work on the mixed shapes. We began with a sheet of template shapes on heavy paper to be cut out, then cut our fabric and glued the fabric shapes around the paper. This is the first time I have used glue to secure the fabric to the papers.  It was a lot of fun.  
Left to my own devices I'd have tried to glue down the little tails on the diamonds but they fit neatly together under each other.                                                                                     
I was using a couple of small squares of hand-dyed fabric I bought at a market day.  It gave me plenty of scope for mixing colours within a palette. This was a well designed project. The diamonds form the top of the pincushion, rectangles the sides and a hexagon the bottom.
It was, as always, a great group of students, sharing their work and encouraging each other.   Melissa was an attentive and knowledgeable teacher.                                           This was pretty much where I got to when the class finished at 2pm.
At home I added the hexagon and joined up the sides





before removing the papers.
By the time I left home that evening for my first Adelaide Festival of Arts commitment, the pincushion was finished - my idea of a great teaching/learning project.

I had had a great day, learned the skills of glueing papers and managing diamond corners - and ended up with a finished product.

I have given this pincushion to my granddaughter Niamh. She is 8 years old and has joined JEMS - the Junior Embroiderers' group. She has made me two pincushions but does not have one herself.

Niamh's take on this? "If you don't want to be a Nana you have to stick your pins into one of these, otherwise you stick them in lounges and things".

Oh dear, I'm very much guilty as charged I'm afraid! 







4 comments:

margaret said...

love EPP but have done little other than hexies. Not tried the glue method it must be so much quicker, wonder what glue you use. Yes I know about sticking needles and pins into chair arms etc also into my bedhead! What do you stuff with? My original pincushion which is years old I used sawdust and the pins never rust bt not easy to find it now

Jillian said...

Thanks Margaret. We used a fabric glue stick - very easy. I stuffed with synthetic fibrefill because I had some to hand. It means it can be washed.

Monica said...

LOL, maybe that's why she's given you two! I can confidently say that although I used to park needles in the sofa, I've trained myself to use a pincushion now. It's one less thing to remember, when the needle is always in the same place! This turned out great, with the fun hand-dyes. I hope Niamh gets lots of use from it!

Jillian said...

Thanks Monica. You are my inspiration. My training in pincushion use begins now!