New Workshops for the Autumn!

We've just launched our Autumn Term prospectus at myBearpaw Craft Studio!

I've been very busy over the last few weeks making some new class samples, and feeling quite festive despite it being July (not that you'd know it as we have had the most atrocious weather this summer in Scotland - it's just starting raining again as I type!!).

The one I struggled most with was this Christmas Tree Skirt. First of all I tried out a patchwork Dresden wedge type idea. This proved way too hard for a class (and too hard for me!), and I have now accidentally made a  Christmas place mat with my failed samples (photo to follow in a future post).

Looking around for inspiration I encountered the pattern that Brioni Jenkins had made for Fat Quarterly a few years back. This had houses around the edge and small stars in the centre and was machine appliqued. I realised this was too much work for a day class, but then I remembered the ticker tape quilts that were all the rage a few years back and this cot quilt I had made to sell in the shop...

And so this Tree Skirt has been made using this quick, easy 'glue and FMQ' method. And it worked really well! But I must say a huge thanks to Brioni for the initial inspiration. I hope my design doesn't look too much like her original!

Next up is a new Crochet Garland, this time for Christmas. I started by crocheting poinsettias...

I had a few goes at this and got it right with my third attempt, that's the flowers on the right hand side, one flower was outright rejected. After the class I plan to post the pattern for this so look out for it sometime in late November!

Next up holly leaves. I found an excellent pattern on Attic 24 which really couldn't be bettered so these were all made with this.

The mistletoe pattern was pretty easy to make up. I added pretty pearly buttons for berries on all the leaves.

And lastly snowflakes. Again I turned to Attic 24 for my first try at these, and then made the rest up. I wanted them to each be different like actual snowflakes.

And here is the finished garland!

Lastly I have designed a new embroidery on felt for a hot water bottle cover.
I wanted to make this quite a simple design so it wasn't too daunting a project for a beginner, or for anyone really.

I like using felt for embroidery as you don't need a hoop and when finished you have a more versatile material than linen.
But it can stretch at openings, so my little tip is to sew ribbon to the raw edges as you can see on the back of the cover below, which reinforces it as well as looking pretty :)

All our workshops old and new are one our website here. 

We even have Karen Lewis coming back up in November to teach two full days of screen printing! Better be quick if you want a place on one of these though!

Giveaway results and lovely gifts for me!

First of all let's get those results out the way! The winner of the Stitch Gathering Goody Bag is number 86!

Congratulations Gill!! I will email you privately to get your address :)

Commiserations to everyone else, but to make up for your loss let's look at some pretty things.

I wanted to highlight the bag made for me in the Stitch Gathering ticket Tote Swap.
This bag was made for my by Nikki who was one of my first students when I started my classes 3 years ago. Nikki signed up for 3 classes straight away 'basic sewing machine skills', 'basic hand sewing', and 'learn to crochet'. In other words she was a complete novice about everything!

But Nikki was a natural and was very soon making beautiful quilts and so much more.
I love how personal she made this bag for me. She's transformed the SG logo above (by very cleverly shrinking and printing it!) into a version of our myBearpaw logo, but with extra elements from one of my embroideries in the centre.

The last class Nikki took with me was Dresden Plate and you can see how well she did by this beautiful mini Dresden which frames some lovely vintage linen. Nikki knows I love vintage embroidery, she was one of my best customers when I used to make Vintage Linen Notebook Covers and sell them in the shop a few years back.

And then there's the beautiful embroidery on the back with those lovely words which I like to think Nikki was aiming at me :)
I am so delighted with this bag as I know how much work and thought Nikki put in to it, and I am also a very proud teacher.

And then I received another wonderful handmade gift from one of my students!
Elaine took Sheila's Mega Pinnie class at the Stitch Gathering and obviously loved making them so much that she made one for me! And one for my colleague Barbara who was a helper on the day!!

Did you see how amazing the wrapping was? And she used Essex Yarn-dyed and then stitched over it to get that checkered effect - genius!!
I absolutely love the fabric she used and the super cute flower pincushion on the top.

This totally made my day when Elaine gave it to me at a crochet workshop yesterday.
Thank you Elaine! I LOVE being a teacher!!!

Botch Handle Cushion

This week a friend had a special birthday (a number I am heading for in just a few years too!) so I made her this cushion out of gorgeous Dashwood fabric. I just love those foxes.

This is the Botch Handle block for my Modern Sampler Quilt which I finally finished a few weeks back. I am teaching this class again at the moment and as this is quite a challenging block I really had to make one along with the class, but I made it with this cushion (and the recipient) in mind.

I even used a zip and made piping! Shame I couldn't get that toadstool fabric up the right way though!
And some pretty hand quilting finished it off. I just can't make a cushion without some perle cotton hand quilting.

This is the second time I have taught this class. The first time I made a block along with each class, which means I have enough blocks for a whole new quilt!

Here is Botch Handle number too, featuring some Essex yarn-dyed in black.

Here is the needle-turn applique block, but this time with added yo-yos. 

Here are the 'pluses' or 'chunky crosses'. What does everyone else call this block?

A couple of fans and a couple of baskets. I had just finished my 'Polka Around the World' quilt when I made these so I used up some scraps for the baskets.

More polka dots (I was on a roll!) for this Pineapple Log Cabin. The quilt also contains some Japanese + and x blocks, but these are going in to my Together Circle quilt (very soon!). And a 'Dresden Village' but I showed you that block already here.

So as you can see, I already have another quilt to finish here. Therefore I am trying to avoid building up a whole new set of blocks with this current class by turning them into cushions and such like.
Or maybe I should wait, teach this class another 6 times, and then have enough blocks for 8 different types of quilt!

Modern Sampler Quilt finished!

I actually finished this quilt before Christmas, but with everything that's been going on and with the terrible weather we've been having (everything is soaking wet outside!) making photography difficult, I am only just able to share it with you now.

This is my Modern Sampler Quilt, that I started making for a class last summer, and posted about here. This is an 8 week course where you make a different kind of block each week. I gave this class in the Autumn and it was great fun, and I have a new course starting on Wednesday.

But I only had the finished top at the last class, which I pinned it up on the wall every week, fully intending to get it quilted before the course ended (fail!). So I really wanted to get it quilted before the new session started. And I wanted to make the quilting a Sampler too.

So I have FMQed every block with a different quilting pattern, and sometimes two, like the Dresden above which has trailing leaves on each petal and a small stipple in the background.

A big thanks to Trudi who gave me lots of pattern ideas at the tabletop class I took with her at FQR last summer. She also suggested breaking your quilt up in to sections and using a different pattern in each bit. So I totally owe this idea to her!
The pattern above is one of my favourites here and one of the most successful I think.

This is the block I tackled first. I love these spirals. Trudi showed me how to do these too - you are amazing Trudi!

There's a feathery pattern going on over the mini hexies and a sort of interlocking leaves over the
+ and x blocks.

The quarter circle of the fans is the only bit I didn't FMQ, getting my walking foot out at the end just for these lines. The fans each have different patterns with bubbles in the background.

It's not easy to see all the patterns, this is another one Trudi taught me, I think she called it mussels but framed with sort of flower petals.

And I stole this flower pattern from one of my students, who just started out FMQing and was doing this straight away - you're a total star Jo!

I tackled each of the borders with a different trailing pattern. I love trailing patterns, I think they are my FMQ forte. So we have a simple leaf for the smallest border, a holly type leaf for the next one and a meandering flower pattern for the outer border.

I am more than delighted by how it turned out and it will be a great study aid for my students when I teach my FMQ class next month. Of course it isn't perfect by a long stretch. I am still learning and improving. I think quilting is a lifetime of study. But I really enjoy it and that's the important bit!

It's backed with a haberdashery themed fabric that didn't sell very well and went in the sale (I use all the unsuccessful fabrics for my backs!), and it's bound with the same newspaper print fabric I used to bind my scrappy trip. It's a great binding for a busy quilt, and let's face it that's the sort of quilt I produce!



I managed to pin the quilt to a branch on one of our big spruce trees to get these photographs. A full, low sun is great to show off textures, but below is the quilt out of the sun, so you can see the colours a bit better.

I actually still have a space left on the Modern Sampler Quilt evening course which starts this week. And also a few places left on FMQ Sewing Machine Cover on Sunday 2nd Feb, for all you local folks. Check out the website for more details.
Also would anyone be interested in a pattern for this quilt if I could get my act together?

New Applique and Colour Theory workshops

We're going to focus on the rest of our new 2014 classes at myBearpaw Craft Studio in this post.

First of all I have a new Applique class. For the first few years I offered a class where you decorated a tote bag with needle-turn applique. I have now updated this class so that we decorate a tea towel instead.
There will be a choice of the 2 designs above: birds and leaves, and flower garden. I've included some yo-yos and a little embroidery to the flower garden design. The applique is along a band at one edge of the tea towel. This is such a lovely hand sewing day and one I always look forward to.

Next up is a colour theory class. This has been requested by a few of my students who have been struggling with choosing colours for their quilts. I think everybody does. I often find one of the most time consuming bits of quiltmaking is the fabric planning.
I have to say that I approach colour very instinctively so it was difficult for me to think about the theory behind it. But I have been taught to use the colour wheel in a painting class I took years ago and I do find myself mentally referring to it sometimes. So in this class we will be looking at how the colour wheel works.
Instead of printing out or painting a colour wheel. I decided to make a 12 petal Dresden plate mini quilt as a teaching aid. I found a relevant quote by John Ruskin and embroidered this to the centre.

We will also be looking at colour values, and then will be putting our theories to the test by making lots of 8 inch wonky cross blocks, each a little colour study in itself. These are so quick and easy to make, I made 18 in a few hours and hope to make more soon and turn these into a rainbow quilt for the class.

So those are my 'all new' classes. But I am also turning the Fabric Origami class that I did for the Stitch Gathering into a full day class, where we will have more time to play and I will introduce some new Japanese embellishments. This is a corsage I made as a second class sample, it's got a bit squashed in the peony area! That sounded a bit rude...
We are expanding our craft classes in the New Year by building a new, bigger classroom in a different part of the store. This is enabling us to put on an even wider range of classes and bring in new teachers.

Our Bag tutor, Naomi Crowley, will be taking a 5 week evening course in making a Weekend bag. This is already proving really popular and I would love to attend too, if only I wasn't teaching patchwork at the same time in the other classroom!

Our cushion and Roman blind tutor Clare McDonald has developed this fantastic new workshop for making alphabet cushions. This will be a real masterclass in soft furnishings, by the time you have finished you will be a piping ninja!

And Fiona Calvert from PoppyMakes blog is revising another of the Stitch Gathering classes by teaching a full day workshop in Jelly Roll Quilts, using this gorgeous quilt she made for Creative Quilting magazine.

And I am very pleased to bring a new tutor in to the fold. This time for knitting.
Katherine Lymer is a very experienced knitting teacher who works for Rowan Yarns amongst others. She will be taking 3 knitting workshops: learn to knit, professional finishing techniques for knitting, and introduction to knitting with colour.
Knitting classes have been a bit neglected at myBearpaw Studio but these should give them a good kickstart. The finishing techniques class is already one of our most popular for the new term after only a few days!
And in my next post you may find out why I have become a bit more keen on knitting...

Meanwhile you can check out the full list of classes here. And as the workshops are a full day and in such a lovely city even those of you who don't live so close could make the odd one (just saying...).