Fibre Arts New Zealand Wanganui April 2012

I am back from my week long creative textiles course which was held in Wanganui, north of Wellington and hosted by Fibre Arts New Zealand.  It was a busy and tiring time but I learned a lot and enjoyed myself very much.  I shot a little bit of video footage to give an idea of the venue and some of the work that can be seen.

We began with a host of loosening up drawings. Most of us do not realise, or think, that we can draw bigger.  The girls on the course gradually worked bigger and bigger before searching closely for small interesting elements to take further in their work.

Our studio room was spacious and well it, what a great place!  Janome supplied the sewing machines and embellishers which were of superb quality and just what we needed.  Each machine was loaded with a different thread weight, and some had couching thread in the bobbins.  

Our tutor, the marvelous Dionne Swift advised that we did not need to change the tension in the bobbins when adding a couching thread and she was right - it worked if you left the tension alone!

We each made a sampler that showed the different textures we could achieve and which was a useful reference when we started interpreting some of our painted and drawn marks into stitch.  This is not always as easy as it appears but it was such fun and a valuable exercise - we had to look carefully to see what we had to interpret!

One of my samples used polyester - which you need to use disperse (transfer) dyes.  The polyester georgette also picks up the disperse dye, so I layered the fabrics and embellished cord over the two layers, creating a ghostly effect.  Full set of photographs here.

The Ad Astra Hostel buildings were a great place to stay.  The rooms are cute little cabin type rooms with curtain, not doors but everyone was great not being tool loud too late.  the weather was pretty great too - warm each day and plenty of sun to enjoy!