Hand sewing

This year is supposed to be all about living more creatively. Instead of spending my money on blogging conferences which all tell me the same things (which I already know) I decided to spend any spare cash on learning new sewing skills and techniques. So far I’ve been on two of these courses and they’ve both been great.

Last month I attended a hand quilting workshop with Charlotte Newland at The Village Haberdashery in West Hampstead. Hand quilting is the method of sewing together the three layers of a quilt (the backing, the wadding, and the top) together by hand rather than on a sewing machine.

The idea was to learn how to add design, dimension and texture to your quilt whilst hand stitching using perle cotton for a beautiful, modern look. I took a ticker tape doll quilt I had been making for Little Sis. I messed up the binding and it had been sitting not quite finished for a few weeks.

The class was really interesting, we used new needles (always a pleasure to open a pack of new needles) and leather thimbles. It took a while to get used to but it’s a lovely stitch to learn and it meant the stitching looked the same on the front and back. You can see I had already machine quilted the piece so I used the hand quilting to add interest, sewing around squares.

This weekend I went on a Machine Embroidery and Applique course with Sarah Cheyne at Ray Stitch in Islington. Machine Embroidery is the art of ‘drawing’ with your machine needle and it’s something I’ve always wanted to try. During the afternoon we were able to design and make a textile piece incorporating free motion embroidery and fabric applique.

You need a special foot for your machine which allows you to stitch wherever you like. I made a small piece of art featuring the words HOME with a cup of tea and piece of cake.

I used applique and bondaweb to attach my fabric to the backing piece and stitched them in place using a zigzag stitch. I tried free motion to embellish the piece of cake but as it was so small I didn’t get a lot of practice! I need to find a special foot for my Janome so I can try this at home, there are endless possibilities!