Creative Textile Course - First Session

Before we look at the first session I thought I would give you some information about what my 10 week Creative Textile course covers. Firstly, this is not a course to teach you how to make things, it is a course where you will learn a range of textile techniques and the course programme is as follows:

Collage
Yarn Wrapping and Weaving
Feltmaking
Rag Rug
Knitting with more than wool
Fabric Dyeing
Silk Painting
Batik
Hand Stitching
Machine Stitching

At the end of course you will have samples and handouts for all these techniques.

So the first session of the course will be looking at a technique that I learned from Sue Dove, which is designed to help people find some inspiration to begin a piece of work.  I give students some magazines to look at for them to find a picture which they like the look of and then show them how to make a small viewfinder from two L shaped pieces of card.  The students move the viewfinder over the picture until they find an area which is pleasing to them, when they fasten the viewfinder down with masking tape and create a collage of this area so they have an image to work from during the course.

So this is the end result of the first session and can be the basis for future pieces of work.  The next blog post will be about the second session on Yarn Wrapping and Weaving.

I will be running this course at Penwith College, St. Clare Street, Penzance for 10 weeks on a Wednesday evening from 7 - 9 p.m. starting on Wednesday 19th April and it will be repeated in the autumn from Wednesday 13th September.
For more information and to book a place - go to:
Penwith College - Creative Textiles Course

It may also be running in St. Ives Library for 10 weeks on a Wednesday afternoon, from 1 - 3 p.m., after Easter, through the  Workers Education Association (WEA) - dates to be confirmed.
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Adventures with Printing

Once a month some friends and I get together to try out techniques and materials (as well as drink tea/coffee and eat biscuits!) and this month we explored screenprinting with embroidery hoops and organza fabric rather than the traditional screens which can be quite expensive to buy if you are not going to do a lot of screenprinting. As I also have a Thermofax screen I decided to have a play with this as well.  Thermofax screens come in a range of sizes and you can either buy them with the images already on the screen (as mine is, yellow flower) or you can send your image and they will create a screen for you.  Simple to use with screenprinting paints.  Also looked at the difference between a screenprinted image using a stencil (pink mermaid) and a stencilled image (mermaid on blue fabric) as well as printing with stamps made from craft foam (fishes and bird).  I have also included the photo of my embroidery hoop with organza fabric.

Creative Textiles Course

Creative Textiles Course 

Have been thinking about what I want my blog to focus on and have decided to share with you the subjects I teach on my Creative Textile Course and show you some of the work done by students on my course.

This is a 10 week course which enables students to try a different textile technique each week, I supply materials so they don’t have to spend money on things they may never use again, I ask them to bring a book with unlined pages to keep their samples in and their handouts.

As there is no exam at the end of the course this is an opportunity for adults to come and try techniques and materials and have fun at the same time – I tell my students that the subtitle for the course is “Playgroup for Adults”!

I am currently running this course at Penwith College, Penzance and will be running future courses there and in St. Ives.

To find out how to book on this course and others I am running go to:

Creative Textiles Courses - St. Ives and Penzance

Future blog posts will show the techniques and materials covered on the course