Textile Classes in Lower Hutt , New Zealand.

 

Hi everyone

I'm teaching multiple classes at the Hutt Art Society rooms in Lower Hutt. There are very few places which offer evening and weekend classes in the Wellington area since a previous government removed subsidies for adult education. So Sue Swann (Embroidery) and I (surface design, quilting, bookmaking)  started offering classes at the Hutt Art Society Rooms. Each year we have expanded and this year have brought in a number of new tutors. Here is a copy of our newsletter.

Welcome to 2023

We have a variety of classes and new tutors for you this year.  Whether you're a beginner or whether you want to take the next step in your stitching journey there are classes we hope will interest you.

Classes for the first half of the year are on the Hutt Art website already.  More classes will be added over the next few months for classes to be held later in the year.  I'll send out an email as new classes are added.

 As well as ourselves we have classes planned with the following tutors;

• Mary Self - Mary is teaching a beginners stitch class as well as a couple of classes that will develop your creativity and teach you new techniques, 
• Cherie Gurney - Cherie is teaching a piece that gives you the opportunity to use those precious scraps in your collection and create something memorable,
• Katherine Pepperall - Katherine has created a wonderful doorstop incorporating native New Zealand clematis flowers in reticella,

Coming Up later in the year

• Anna Hicks - Anna is preparing some classes from her "Mending and Design" series and
• Marilyn Moran - For those of you who requested a class in needle felting, Marilyn is designing a small creature to tempt you to 'have a go'. 

Heads up - there are a couple of groups starting at the end of February and a shibori dyeing class in early March, so don't delay in getting enrolled for these classes: 

• A monthly stitching group on the 4th Sunday of each month  - this group is for those who need a bit of help getting an old project restarted, want help with a new project or just want to stitch with a group of like minded people - it's a great way to keep a project moving.
  
• Design your own "Kutch" Dowry bag.  This group will also meet monthly and by the end of the year you will have learnt a bit about the design process, some new stitching techniques and have a handy little bag.
  
• Clare is holding an indigo / shibori dyeing  day in early March, so be quick to enrol for this popular class and create some interesting fabrics for other projects.

Class Samples

If you'd like an opportunity to see the class samples for the classes already scheduled, the class samples will be on display in the Huia Gallery (Hutt Art) from Tuesday 31st January - Sunday 12th February.

Exhibition - Indonesian Textiles

There is an exhibition of Indonesian textiles at Hutt Art from Tuesday 31st January - Sunday 12th February.  The textiles are ikats and batiks and they all use natural dyes for most of the colours.  On Saturday 4th Feb at 2pm there will be a talk about the dyeing processes as well as looking at the rituals associated with their production and the meanings of some of the patterns. If you're interested in textiles this is not to be missed.

Attached is a poster for the upcoming classes, and a poster for the upcoming Indonesian textile exhibition.  Please feel free to forward this email to anyone who you think may be interested in the classes or the exhibition.

Enrolments are via the Hutt Art website

https://www.huttart.co.nz/copy-of-classes-3

Regards

Sue and Clare

www.huttart.co.nz

textile.hutt.art@gmail.com

Making an ironing table

I've started to notice that quite a few quilters are making themselves a larger ironing surface either by adapting their ironing boards or putting a larger top on a bookcase. I had a small cupboard that can be rolled around on castors, it's 45x60cm. It used to be my mother's microwave cupboard. I had a board cut to size at the hardware shop, I wanted it to fit into a space 110cm long when I'm not using it.

I attached the board to the cupboard with screws, countersinking them so they wouldn't affect the ironing surface.

I covered it wth two layers of tin foil. I'm not sure if that was necessary but it should help the board to resist steam from the iron and might help stop it getting too hot.

Then I added a layer of cotton batting but it was a bit bumpy so I added a layer of wool coat fabric on top. I turned it upside down to staple down the padding.

Then I covered it with some blue cotton drill that I had in the cupboard. I might order some of the ironing board cloth from Amazon but this should do in the meantime. I only safety pinned it on, so I can remove it easily.

Then I noticed all the wasted space under each end and used some racks which we had in the garage left over from a previous project. They hold all the ironing paraphernalia. The baking paper, Teflon sheet, spray bottle, fluff remover roller.

So now I have a mobile ironing station in my new studio and I love it.

Out -takes

The turquoise fabric needed to be ironed before I covered the padding, but my ironing board was covered with tools and nails, then it occurred to me - DING- I could use my new ironing board.

Updating an old quilt

6pm. A long long time ago, in a small town in a faraway country…well it was Goulburn in Australia…I screen printed some fabric while at the art school at Goulburn TAFE and turned it into a quilt. The fabric design was from a drawing which I made whilst listening to a piece of music, in this case it was Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. As art students it was deemed that we should do music classes and the music students should do art. Both groups hated it at the time but I can see it had merit now.

I didn't know how to make a quilt and didn't know how to machine quilt, but I had done a one day class in machine embroidery.

- The batting is the fat stuff, the stuff you get sold at Spotlight if you don't know to ask for 'lo-loft'.
- I broke about 13 needles, largely because my machine didn't have a darning foot or drop its feed dogs and I used a spring loaded needle.
- I didn't know the quilting was supposed to show on the back so I covered it up because there were lots of tucks.
-I must have decided to make the quilt bigger after quilting it, so I had added black borders then tacked extra batting around to make it puffy.
-there was no hanging sleeve, I covered the stick with black fabric and attached the stick to the top of the quilt with tacking stitches.

Then when I came back to New Zealand, my brother liked it so I gave it to him and recently (well at least 2 years ago) he gave it back because it needed the stick to be re-attached.

Today I decided it needed to be updated, the border fabric has faded but the screen printed fabric looks as bright as when it was first printed.

I've unpicked the border which goes right round to the back (told you I didn't know how to quilt).  Here are some photos of my machine quilting circa 1999.

Note the thick batting , the stuff around the outside was tacked on later, to fill the border.

Tucks

coggles

folds

I now teach machine quilting which shows that anyone can improve with practice. I definitely learnt a lot from that quilt and a few years later, through the internet and talking to other quilters , I learned about lo loft batting, dropped feed dogs, darning feet, and how to avoid coggles and folds.

Everyone has to start somewhere…

I'll update this post as I update the quilt, a nice green border to diminish the black I think…

7.30pm

Borders taken off, it definitely looks better

Now , what to bind it with?

No, wrong green

Nope!

No

This is more promising...

But it's too small!

This is followed by turning the entire room upside down to find a bigger bit of fabric. Now I have decided to do 3 sides in this over dyed fabric (it was black and white once) and the top binding will be black. Hopefully that will work, or if all else fails I will 'face' it which will be hard because the batting is so fat that the fabric won't want to be turned to the back.

To be continued...

NB. If anyone is interested in learning more about my Thyroid journey I've made a separate blog.
www.nzthyca.blogspot.co.nz

Fabric shopping in Wellington, New Zealand

A few shops have opened and others have closed so I thought it was time to update my list of Wellington fabric shops. Here are suggestions from Coastal Quilters group for shops in the Wellington area.

Arthur Toye - closing, last day 31st january 2014.    General sewing fabrics and cheaper quilting fabrics
The Grand Arcade
16 Willis st
Wellington

Sheherazad - Closing, silks are on sale 50-70% off.   Beautiful silks!
Shop 38-40, Level B1, 
1 Willis Street, Wellington Central, 
Wellington 6011

Wellington Shops

Arthur Toye - closing, last day 31st january 2014.    General sewing fabrics and cheaper quilting fabrics
The Grand Arcade
16 Willis st
Wellington

Sheherazad - Closing, silks are on sale 50-70% off.   Beautiful silks!
Shop 38-40, Level B1, 
1 Willis Street, Wellington Central, 
Wellington 6011

Busy Bee     - quilting fabrics and machine quilting  
14 Kingsford Smith St
Rongotai
04 387 7115

Stitchbird Fabrics - fabric and novelties

Stitchbird
Shop 19 Kilbirnie Plaza
22 Bay Road
Kilbirnie
Wellington

Wellington Sewing Services - sewing machines, fabrics, knitting wool
Shop 3, Kilbirnie Plaza 22 Bay Rd, Kilbirnie
04-387 4505

Piece by Piece Ltd - fabrics

Shop 3, 

149 Karori Rd Wellington

Nancys Embroidery

Spotlight

Fabric Warehouse

 

Kapiti Coast shops

Fabric by Three 

Waikanae at 17 Fleetwood Grove, specialising in hand dyed fabric and open by appointment – 04 293 3794

Fibre Flair in Waikanae.

Bernina in Kapiti,

Hutt Valley

Quiltworks in High Street Lower Hutt

Sawmillers Quiltery


More to be added soon, have to take the cat to the vet right now!


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Todays best blog find

Today's favourite blog is Needleprint which is a blog about needlepoint samplers. I really covet the perpetual diary but am trying to limit the number of credit card purchases after we went over our credit card limit yesterday - eek!

Today I have two teenagers in the lounge playing StarWars on the Playstation. One in the kitchen getting a cooking lesson as part of his Queen's Scout Award and another playing drums in the bedroom. They aren't all mine however.

Whats on this weekend?
Craft 2.0 at the Dowse gallery

Frank Kitts park markets 10-4pm - lots of stuff for xmas

Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Lots of very nice costumes in beautiful fabrics.

Enriching Fashion: An Eye For Detail

Come and take a closer look at some of the distinctive, exquisite details in fashion with Enriching Fashion: An Eye For Detail, on at the Eyelights Gallery in Te Papa from 17 September 2010 - 26 August 2011.

Finding Textiles in Tokyo

Here are some of the places I found in Japan as well as links to other people's blogs, websites and information. Please feel free to let me know of other places to find fabric or craft materials in Tokyo.

Amuse Gallery
Closed Mondays
2-34-3 Asakusa, Taito Ku, Tokyo, Japan 111-0032
- East side of the Sensoji Temple compound,
adjacent to the national important cultural property "Nitenmon Gate"

The gallery has a permanent exhibition of Boro.
Special exhibition on working women's clothes till April 2011.
Amuse Gallery is very close to Sensoji temple in Asakusa. Go right down the shopping street, Nakamise Dori then at the main shrine turn right into a side road. Amuse Gallery is on your left opposite a Duty free camera shop.


Blue and White Shop.
Azabu Juban.

Bunka Womens University Textile Museum
Closed Sundays and public holidays
Instructions and map on the website.
Shinjuku Station South Exit. Turn right, walk about 5 minutes, museum is on the other side of the road.

Bunka Fashion School
Click for info.

Nuno Corporation

Nippori Textile Town
A road of textile shops.
Check out Floating World blog for instructions on how to get there.

Yuzawaya 
This is a craft/hobby/textile shop.
Shops in Kamata, Kichijoji, Yokohama and more, click on link to see a list.

Kichijoji store
Go to Kichijoji Station, exit via Park Exit, walk out the station exit and straight ahead. Yuzawaya is on the 7th and 8th floor of Marui Kichijoji store (head for the store with the big OIOI on it).  It is no longer in the station building (which I found out by wandering around for ages). Click on this link to see a picture of the logo.

Tokyu Hands
Mega DIY/craft shop with shops in Shinjuku, Shibuya, Ikebukuro etc. Branches in cities across Japan.

Kinokuniya Bookstore
Has a good range of English books, craft books in Japanese and English as well as calenders and magazines. The best one I found was in Shinjuku but there are other stores in cities across Japan.

Commission no.2

I have also just finished a commission for a company. They wanted a quilt made of squares of different types of fabrics, lots of textures i.e corduroy, silk, leather, furnishing fabrics, cheesecloth.
I put out a call to friends to ask for shades of mid to dark blue in different weights of fabric and managed with their help to collect enough of a range that I didn't have to buy 20cm lengths in order to get 3inch squares. Thanks Coastal Quilters and Jude Hutton!

It is quite a traditional quilt in dark to mid tones but has white machine embroidery over the top. It wouldn't win any prizes in a quilt show but is going to be changed using computer imagery and have images projected over the top. Part of the brief was that it had to look 'handmade'.

Hopefully I will eventually get to see what they use it for. Like most commissions, the time frame was quite short and I did have to extend my working day to 2am on a couple of nights. Housekeeping and cooking has been non-existent the last week.

Pink Hair

I don't know who this man is but he is the ultimate patient husband. he was waiting for his wife to finish shopping in the merchants mall at the Wellington Quilt Symposium. Above him is the sign pointing to shopping.


I always wanted to have pink hair and as I was dared to dye my hair pink at the last symposium, I went ahead this time. I rather like it. It took my husband about half an hour to notice :-)
I am holding up someone's 'spiky tree' top they have made in class at the Wellington Quilt Symposium. I have finished teaching now and tomorrow I will take a class with Ann Fleeton.
Tonight there was a marvellous talk by Libby Lehman about organising your sewing room. Her room was so organised that after a while I felt like banging my head against the seat in front. It was very humorous but mission impossible for me.

reverse stitching

Yesterday I quilted half a quilt using straight lines about 3 mm apart. Today I am unpicking them because the batting was too puffy and the backing got more and more tangled. I was trying to save money so used what I had, instead of buying what I needed. Poo