Sunday 9 May 2010

Japanese Sewing Circle workshop

The day of the course arrived and I was really looking forward to going over the Humber Bridge as not been over regularly since living on that side, weather not great for pictures as you can see.
The Ropewalk in Barton had really developed since the last time I was there, and now there was a lovely cafe too. Saw some fantastic arty gifts in the shop and picked up a few new ideas, lovely brooches, bags, ceramics etc.


The course was run by Wendy Chan and there were just 7 of us so you did get personal attention which was good. Wendy started us off with a traditional cup of Japanese green tea in the most lovely tea cups. We then set about our first fabric, origami style project of a little bird or crane as it was supposed to be. With hindsight I picked the wrong fabric to make the bird from, I chose some silky, difficult to sew fabric and it was tricky to fold, stitch and form the bird shape so my result shown here is a bit odd looking. We all decided that making it from cotton would be easier to crease and shape.


We then moved on to the next project which was a little daffodil shaped bag cum pouch, which traditionally would have lavender, pot pourri or even sweeties in it to give as a gift. I had more luck with this and was quite pleased with the result. Wendy had fat quarters which you could buy if you hadn't taken your own fabric and I bought the selection you see here as they were so pretty and appropriate for the gifts we were making.


Time seemed to pass really quickly after lunch and I just had time to start one other project which was a little brooch but I haven't finished that yet.
I came away with the instructions to continue on that.


It was a really great course and the venue was excellent, thoroughly enjoyed it and can't wait to try more of this Japanese style sewing of gifts.




2 comments:

Blossom said...

lovely work! Best of luck for tomorrow - hope all goes to plan
x B

patty said...

Thank you dear thing. Will have to catch up with a proper email when I've got these exams out of the way.
All the best.