Workshop completed.

We had our second day today of the Michelle Mischkulnig workshop. My friend and I travelled together and we were a slightly worried that we might be a bit early but we wanted to catch up with the people who had started sewing yesterday. I think we may have been the last to arrive! Obviously, everyone was keen to get going, having enjoyed the previous day so much. Fortunately, Lee had everything organised and ready to go.

Today we sewed the background. Mine was a bit too textural and did cause trouble with the foot of the machine. Michelle helped me to flatten it some more and it behaved much better. I was able to do the sewing without having to put yet another layer of Vliesofix on top, to anchor it down more smoothly. Some of the other participants did this and it worked well, and looked good too. But I wanted to have as much texture as I could and still sew.

We sewed around our butterflies from yesterday. The black thread really lifted the colours. We cut them out, ready to attach to the piece, once we had worked out how to place everything.

Luckily, I had photographed my progress because I had thought I had done 5 butterflies and couldn't find the last one. The photo proved that I had only done 4 and should get a good night's sleep tonight.

We also sewed some flat leaves onto the background, as appliqué.

Then we put some of our leaf fabric onto felt and sewed leaf shapes.  I did it the wrong way around, not having read the notes properly. It didn't work well at all. I tried to sew around the edges but the points of the leaves kept disappearing into the works of the machine. Fortunately, Michelle had given us plenty of fabric, so I had enough to sew some more leaves - and then cut them out. That worked much better.

We attached the 3D leaves to felt and sewed around the shape. Once it was sewn, we then pulled it about a bit to make it twist and bend, giving it a much more sculptural texture.

Once we had the leaves, butterflies, a twisted 'vine' (which is a branch on my piece) and a flower, we fiddled around trying for the best arrangement. As I had not done a great job with my flower, I decided not to include it.

Here is the finished piece. All I have to do now is think about how I want to mount and frame it. I will put is aside for a few days while I think about it.

I treated this workshop as a learning experience rather than one to produce an outcome. Therefore, I have used colours that I would not normally use (not a bad thing, really). I probably would do a bit more research about actual butterfly patterns and colours if I do it again. But I am not unhappy with the result.

I must try to use some of the techniques again soon, to make sure that I embed them in my repertoire and don't have to think "How did I do that again?" So I might experiment a bit this week, maybe on a smaller scale.

Here are the pieces done by others.  We put them on the floor for better photos. You will see better images here, on Facebook.