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
More sewing and filming for Justhands-on.tv
Just checked the weather report and its going to be a great sewing weekend! Am off this evening for a 24hour sewing marathon organised by Creative Quilting (down at Hampton Court) and really looking forward to it – 5pm Fri-5pm Sat with supper and lunch organised too; sew for as long as you like – I suspect I shall give up around 10pm but we will see – 16 of us so should be fun.
Printing with Freezer Paper
Val: This is such a clever idea - shared by a friend of mine - that I thought I would pass it on: Freezer paper can be printed on as a sheet of normal printer paper.
Import the picture/template into a word document, reverse it and print onto the paper side of freezer paper.
Magic paper
The one rule to successful printing on magic paper is to attach it to a well used piece of freezer paper.
Iron onto A4 freezer paper, foundation (Vilene) and print any picture/text in the usual way.
Run it through the printer 5/6 times to reduce the shine.
Iron an A4 sheet of magic paper onto this freezer paper, just enough to hold it, then print template.
My weekend at the National Patchwork Championships
Exhausting but fun seems to be the way that shows go for me these days; this one started early with my first turn at judging – I really enjoyed it and it is amazing how different quilts are when you are asked to study them as opposed to just walking by and waiting for one to jump out at you.