A Wonderful Class

I am back from my workshop. We had such a great time and they were a lovely class and very forgiving, considering I made them do designs! Here is Isabel, surrounded by all the colours in her design. I thought it showed what a colourful lot we were.

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It was an embellisher course and usually we just leap straight in. But this time I wanted to work in a more structured way. So we tore coloured paper and used soft pastels (developed from a Sue Dove idea) - the idea being to work with blending techniques. They stopped grumbling when the most exciting artwork started emerging, based on the designs. This is wonderfully colourful work from Joan. Design first and then embellished piece.

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I think the one below was by Kay, but I may be wrong.

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And Jenny came up with this design and finished piece.

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We had a lovely meal on Friday evening and my friend Sylvia came home with me for a cuppa between class and food. Smudge was delighted to see her and even showed her his secret pipe cleaner. He keeps stealing them and I keep taking them away in case they hurt his mouth. He was very polite at first and asked permission to hide it in her bag. Unfortunately he then attacked the bag and had to be removed from the room. What a let down.

Here he is below - making the point that there is nowhere in my workroom to sit except the smallest sink.

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Back to the course - Sylvia made this lovely glitzy flower piece. Lots of hand stitching, too.

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Dorothy made a great sampler.

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Andrea has a great gift for colour, as you can see.

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I didn't get a picture of Sandra's wonderful shell - can you email me one, Sandra?

There was so much lovely work that I shall put more up later in the week.

Arti - so glad the class went well. I had no doubt it would. I can remember the very first class I taught, just after finishing C&G. I loved it and knew straight away that this was what I wanted to do. And now I am to have a year without teaching - will I make it or will I have to set up an emergency workshop. My class from yesterday have volunteered to be available if I get withdrawal symptoms.

Doreen - yes, the real Jane is quite special and I count myself very lucky to have her as a friend. Especially when she makes me lovely papery bits.

Wabbit - I didn't realise the shells on the Yahoo site were yours - you were going under an assumed name. Hence the formality in my reply. I shall know in future.

Glad you've joined WoW, Adele - the next issue is looking good and I have had such a good play with Grungeboard that it turned into two articles.

Julie, you are so right about how a funeral can be sad, moving and uplifting.

Julia's was wonderful. Alex asked that we wear something colourful and the crowds around the church formed a sea of colour. I kept thinking how she would have loved it. There was lots of her work there, too and so many photos. It was a communion service and the vicar asked everyone to partake (very unusual for an Anglican church) which made it really spiritual and special. Alex gave a marvellous tribute, I don't know how he did it without breaking down. They were married for over fifty years.

We all had a bite to eat and then, on Julia's strict instructions, we toasted her on her journey with champagne. We took Yvonne Morton up and it was good to have her company on the way home when we were all feeling rather sad.