My week with Sue Spargo went by so quickly! If at all possible, I will definitely take another class from Sue. She was just delightful! Our class ended at 4 pm each afternoon yet most days she stayed for a few more hours and just hung out with us or provided more individual help and instruction.
Her teaching style meshes well with my learning style in that she showed how she does things but then added that each person should do what works best for them. There are no rules! She was so patient and routinely did demonstrations and lessons several times until we were all comfortable with whatever it was she was going over.
There were 13 of us in the class and everyone was nice. Several of the ladies had taken classes with Sue before and brought their projects in progress with them to continue working on them.
I didn't make much progress on my class project. I got a little more done on it yesterday. This is how it looks this morning.
Everything in the photo above is tacked down. I even did some textural stitching in the light rectangle using some little running stitches in a light blue cotton thread. I think I need to start on the leaves next.
One of the reasons I didn't make much progress on my project is that I asked Sue to show me how she does needle turn applique. I then spent the rest of that day practicing and getting frequent assistance with the peaks and valleys. I'm pretty comfortable with the peaks by now, but still struggle with the valleys. Check out that root in the photo above. I did it all using needle turn applique!
But the main reason I didn't make much progress on my project is that we asked Sue to do an entire day of just embroidery stitching instruction, which she did. We all made small samplers with circles and leaves to practice on.
Sue put bags of her personal thread stash on the table and told us to just use her thread and try the various stitches. She uses cotton, silk, linen, wool, rayon, metallic, and chenille threads as well as silk ribbon, beads, and other fibers. She talked about the various characteristics of each thread and showed samples before we started stitching.
I personally tried silken pearl, chenille, pearl cotton and a metallic ribbon floss. She started out by showing us a few of the basic stitches that she uses often and then took requests. I was most interested in learning some of the woven stitches she uses since I need to do them on my 2014 BOM. I'm not a master at them yet, but I feel confident that I can do well enough now.
The last morning we went around and looked at everyone's pieces. Sue gave advice on where to go next to each of us. And we got to hear the stories that go with everyone's pieces. One lady was using her deceased husband's silk ties. Each one had special significance to her. Another lady was journaling all the places she had traveled to or lived in. I took pictures of everyone's pieces but will not show them here because I do not have their permission to do so.
Our classroom was in a banquet hall at the end of a hallway. About halfway down the hallway was this door.
It was always closed so I don't know what is in the room, but check out the sign on the door.
Is this where Hagrid goes on vacation?
