Tag: Urchfont Manor

Preparation, preparation, preparation!

If you follow my other blog you will have read that I didn’t get much sleep last night.  I’ve had a busy day today, carrying on with my night time activities!  It’s all in preparation for the course I’ll be teaching at Urchfont Manor.  The requirements list has gone out, and I’m pretty certain they are all wondering what on earth they have let themselves in for!  Well it will be fun, and one of the things I will be emphasising is how much better dyed fabrics are if colour is applied in layers.  Here’s one I prepared earlier

A few more layers will be added over the next while and the surface will become more and more complicated.

The course, which is full by the way, is set to run over a few days, but parts can be completed in a single day, so I will also be offering it to Guilds and Groups if anyone is interested.  The demise of Urchfont is very sad.  We still live in hope, however, in spite of many rumours.  The Graduation of the final students was celebrated last weekend, it was a lovely, but sad occasion.  There are many photographs, and those, and others, will eventually be added to a tribute site.  If you have any memories or pictures that you would like to add please see the details here.

Something fishy

So, what I have been doing?  Quite a lot of this and that, with some time for creativity thrown in!  I’ve been boiling up some cauldrons too, and more about that later.

Firstly, here’s part of a piece started on the embellisher.  It’s a combination of fabrics, some stitching, and some printing.

It’s due some machine embroidery shortly, but that won’t be this week.

On Saturday we are travelling to Missenden Abbey for their Open Day.  Anyone coming? Don’t forget to come and say ‘hi’.  If you want us to bring something specific you can give us a ring, contact details are here.   There is never enough room, so we have to be selective in our choice of supplies.

As for the cauldron, well, I’ve been preparing some interesting and exciting samples for a new course that is running next month.  It’s called ‘Let’s Play With Dyes’, and promises to be fun.  It will be the last time I am teaching at Urchfont Manor before it closes, and this course is not the same as any I’ve taught before.  You’ll have to wait for a while to see any samples, I want them to remain a secret until the course.  They are fun techniques – using some unlikely ingredients to obtains interesting results.  There are still a couple of places on the course, so if you haven’t been to Urchfont before this could be your last chance.  If you have been before you can enjoy the facilities and food for maybe the last time.

Sadly it has apparently been decided not to have the Open Day at Urchfont this year.  If you are disappointed you can still get your textile ‘fix’ this weekend at Missenden Abbey, and also at Eastleigh College at the beginning of next month.  I’ll let you have more details of that in a day or so, but in the meantime, I hope to see you on Saturday at Great Missenden.  

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