class, tea and stitching

what a great 4 days i had this past weekend
arrived at my friends Beth's house snow all around, beautiful to look at not fun to drive in..
woke up early Friday for a class in Issaquah,WA. "Exploring Elizabethan Embroidery" we spent the day learning or practicing stitches taught by Lucy Barter.
Lucy lives in San Francisco, CA. and is the representative of the Royal Academy of Needlework.
Lucy graduated back i think in 2004 and is involved in designing children's clothes besides her wonderful stitched pieces and her classes. She has a studio called "Forever Embroidery:
She started the class with us drawing a design on a piece of linen, she did bring motifs that we could copy if we liked. our first stitch was Blackwork. i have to admit i have never done this before and enjoyed the process. next we tried long and short stitch, detached button hole which i love and have done before.
we talked about seeding, speckling, fly stitch, bullion knots, couching, raised stem, ceylon, corral oh my!
we then went on to plaited braid stitch with gold thread. great looking but i really wanted to throw my hoop across the room gold thread is not easy to work with.

of course Lucy makes it look easy.

Lucy Barter shared some of her beautiful works of art.

i spent all day Saturday stitching at Beth's with her stitch buddy from South Africa, Leslie and we celebrated Beth's real birthday with a delicious chocolate cake her hubby bought!
Sunday was the annual Northwest Sampler Guild Tea at Mercer Island. A full house and a great lunch with Lucy Barter talking about how she got to where she is and about  conservation work that she has done.
NSG tea always has a challenge and this year was "Trees"  which basically means you had to stitch something with a tree in it. 

trees are a wonderful thing to stitch.

i am back to stitching a little and hope that if i don't get to crazy my wrist won't act up again.

 i am trying to stitch with a frame, i think the stitching in hand has caused allot of the pain.

i am busy working on a new piece and it needs to be done by the end of April. 

 Sherri Jones of Patrick's Woods finishing class called "A Blue Ribbon Sewing Box" if you ever get a chance to take one of her class do not pass it up. she is so creative and unique.

till next time

Be Creative