Hello and a very happy New Year to you all!
My apologies for the late start this year, it has taken some time to get back into the swing of things and to bid farewell to my last visitors. We had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends from Overseas, it was great to spend time with them and catch up after not having seen some of them for many years. I hope that you all had a good Christmas and that 2012 brings many wonderful opportunities and of course happy stitching hours.
Australian Classes. This year is all about teaching. It kicks off with the Australian Beating Around The Bush Convention and All Threads Embroidery, Brisbane, in April. There are numerous preparations in hand at present, visas, travel arrangements, accomodation, class notes, kits etc etc etc, I have little folders on my desktop for everything – as this is my first overseas teaching trip the amount of preparation is a bit overwhelming but hopefully will be easier second time around!
Have you ever wondered why the organisers of a convention start making arrangements two years in advance? Many of you will have attended a workshop at some stage but how many of you appreciate what actually goes on “behind the scenes”? When you walk into the classroom and see a calm, collected looking teacher waiting to greet you with a smile 🙂 – the kits neatly placed at your table, slide show, projector equipment and laptop all in place – could you even begin to imagine what took place prior to this? It occured to me that you might like to hear the nitty gritty details in future posts? Let me know.
Ighali Convention. Following that we have our bi-annual Ighali Convention here in the Western Cape which attracts visitors from all over South Africa, so as you can see it is a busy year. I am looking forward to meeting many of my students for the first time and hopefully instilling the joys of needle painting embroidery.
Online Classes. Many of you have requested to be notified when the next online class starts. Due to teaching commitments it will be difficult to dedicate a 6 month period to running an online class this year, however I am giving thought to how I can include a shorter class in the second half of this year, perhaps a 3 month course? There will be no online classes before June 2012 but I will post information at least 6 weeks prior to the start of the class to give you plenty of time to register.
Products. The new book Colour Confidence In Embroidery has been launched in the UK, Africa and Australia and is due for release in the rest of the world next month. It is my most comprehensive work to date outlining the use of Colour for embroidery but also includes numerous new projects which should keep you busy busy! Thank you to those of you who took the time to express their appreciation for this book it is always gratefully received.
There are several kits available plus the DVD for sale on my website. I have had to discontinue some of the products of necessity – we have had a few problems with consignments of fabric getting lost which left me short on my class kits for Australia. I am in the process of ordering more fabric and getting booklets printed so you should see these back on the website in the next few weeks.
There are several new kits in production – these will be launched in Australia at my workshops and thereafter will be available for sale online. You will understand that online sales will not be available for the periods that I am away this year – I apologise but am a “one man band” here and don’t have anyone to take over sales while I am away.
Wherever you are have a wonderful week.
Trish
I just finished watching the film of the gorgeous embroidery used in movies and other shows. It is fascinating. I had, of course, seen this in movies, but never thought about how it was made or who made it. I wrote to them asking if it was done by machine. It seems it would have to be.
Question: When not using a pattern and instructions, how would I know to use a plain satin stitch and when to use a filled satin stitch?
Sandra – your devoted fan
Hi Sandra – most of my designs use long and short stitch filling but you can use satin stitch for small areas that don’t need too much filling. Trish
Hello Trish,
First of all Happy New Year! I would love to know what goes on behind the scenes.
I myself was a Hardanger embroidery teacher for 2 years. Then in 2005 I was invited
by friends to go to France to organize a quilt show. This was on a small scale, but
it demanded a lot of work.
So I would love to read how things are done on a large scale.
Good luck and I hope you have many students that attend your classes in Australia.
In Canada, Amazon.ca will release your new book soon. For now I am working
on my first flower. Not so bad, but I have a bit of trouble deciding on the colors.
Have a safe trip and we will be waiting to read your next email.
Louise
Hello Louise thanks for your mail I will certainly post a behind the scenes look – you will empathise being an embroidery teacher yourself! Hopefully the Colour book will help you decide on colours for your flower project. Best wishes Trish.
Trish, I hate to bother you so much, but I now have the DVD in my cart, but I can’t find the information about the size of needles. Can you direct it to me, or better still, just tell me the sizes used in an email? sandart3@msn.com Sandra
Hi Sandra I don’t sell needles any more but if you send me a message with your DVD order (there will be an option when you check out with paypal) I will put a few needles into your package. The needles you need are size 10 crewel/embroidery needles. Kind regards Trish
I desperately hope you will have an American class this year, or at least a three month online class. I probably could not go to the American class anyway as I cannot afford air fare. But I sure will take the online class. I am just now fixing to order the DVD for the long and short stitching. What other book would you recommend to a beginner? Although I embroidered for most of my life, the little stitches just don’t come back to me. I guess I it is because I am now 69 years old and my memory is not what it used to be. I am a former (retired) English teacher. I have two books on Amazon under the name Sandra Thompson Davis. I am working on another one – formatting it. Then I have a memoir to write. I hope you will have a look at my cheap little books. They are not much, but the Holy Spirit helped me write the first one. Sandra
Amazon has finally released the Colour Confidence book in the US. I pre-ordered so should be in my hot little hands tomorrow – Jan 24 here.
Great, thanks for letting me know! Trish
Hi Trish
Just to say , I really hope all goes well with the preparations.
I would like to know what is happening.
As I am still in Qatar, I could not see my books, but my daughter said it is wonderful and so professional with your signature inside. Thank you for that!!
Have a wonderful day!
Alet