Free motion embroidery and applique

I've done three one-off evening classes at Guthrie and Ghani in Birmingham, and Tuesday night was the final one, free motion embroidery. I "drew" a rather poor Christmas bauble, and then appliqued some bits for another bauble and some holly. The base is some calico, some wadding and some thin muslin. We set a small stitch size and off we went. Claire (the tutor) is lovely and very helpful.



Some more practice required I think...

Then we had a go embroidering on two thicknesses of water soluble interfacing. This was really fun!



Then you cut them out and run them under the tap.

The finished flower. The key ring has nothing to do with it, but it curls a bit so I used that to weight it for the photo.



Then I made a start on a wrap top in a blue satiny polyester (it was a freebie with a sewing magazine), and soon realised I'd confused the first two hems. Luckily Claire very patiently helped me unpick them. It wasn't clear which side I was supposed to start on, as the front piece is almost symmetrical about the centre axis. Luckily there wasn't much damage and it will be hidden in the facing hopefully. There's no deadline for this top luckily. The magazine said you could make this in a shiny polyester, but as the front has a twist there's going to be a very clear wrong and right side showing. Will have to see how it turns out.

Excited to wear the Vogue dress and get some proper photos of it on Saturday. Watch this space!

Current mood: enthralled