About Susan
Susan has been teaching embroidery for many years and loves to share her enthusiasm for a wide range of techniques.
She completed her City and Guilds Part II in Embroidery with the inspirational Anthea Godfrey at the London College of Fashion (as it then was). Over the past twenty years, she has taught a wide range of classes including City and Guilds and leisure classes, with the WI, and most recently independently in the Wivenhoe and the Colchester area of Essex.
Susan took early retirement in 2013, giving her more time for embroidery and textile related activities. She enjoys being an active participant in the local branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild, visiting more exhibitions, attending workshops and reading more about her favourite textile art topics both in print and on-line.
She has also become a student again, signing up for the City and Guilds in Patchwork and Quilting with Creative Stitch Suffolk. According to Susan, “It’s been great to take on new challenges and learn new skills.”
Susan blogs regularly on her website, Threadlines, where she gathers together various elements of her long-standing fascination with embroidery and textile arts more generally. Her hope is that Threadlines will widen her circle of embroidery and textile art friends, and encourage non-embroiderers to try it – just once (that’s all it takes!
Signature Technique
Embroidery
Susan’s Top Tips
- The simpler the stitch, often, the more you can do with it.
- One of the (many) aspects of textiles that I love is that you don’t need to be doing just one project. Try new things…several at a time!
- Doing something completely new with a group of friends makes it extra special.
- If you want to know the ‘right’ way to embroider then turn to a technique manual.
Books and Patterns
Posts
Exciting day spent at The Bramble Patch
Great day spent filming at The Bramble Patch a quilt shop near Northampton that was founded back in 1987, and they made us so very welcome; we got to interrupt a couple of the classes that were in session with Edwina McKinnon and Hilary Beattie as well as enjoy a demonstration on binding with Jane; AND we met Beryl and Bertha - want to know more?
Update 16th May 2014
Events This weekend many of our contributors are at Quilts [...]
How to finish an old english patchwork
Answer: I guess your question is geared to the uneven edge of your quilt if you are using paper pieces; and there are two ways of looking at this; the first is to leave the edge uneven and add borders to which the uneven paper pieces are appliqued - this will give the look of the patchwork floating.
The other is to make half templates to fit in the gaps so that the paper pieced patchwork then has straight edges - you can also do this and then add borders by machine.
You would then layer, quilt and bind as usual(see our video on layering if that helps) Just a thought about the quilting - most of my students do this stitching a 1/4" away from the seams - and this can be done by hand or by machine