Hi everyone, This is such fun to be in at the beginning of the UKQU website, it’s such an exciting venture for everyone involved. Having agreed to do a monthly blog, I sat back and wondered what I have let myself in for. I’ve never done anything like this before, I can stand up in front of a room full of people and happily speak until the cows come home, but this…. this is a whole new can of worms. I have a few ideas for future blogs, but I thought I’d ease myself in slowly and tell you a bit about myself and my creative journey.

I had the most wonderful grandmother, she was all things to all people, everyone in the family adored her and she was instrumental in forging my love of all things creative. She taught me to knit when I was six or seven, and soon I had knitted my first sweater and she very quickly had me knitting fair isles and arran sweaters. Everything had to look as good on the back as it did on the front. She was always constructive in her criticism, nothing was ever wrong, but instead, there might be another way to make it look better. I have her to thank for being a perfectionist in my work.

This stood me in good stead over the years as I discovered more and more outlets for my creativity, dressmaking, tapestry and cross stitch was followed by lace making, pottery and ceramics. Eventually I discovered it patchwork and quilting and everything else fell by the wayside, this was, and still is my passion and I still feel the same excitement now as I did many years ago when I start a new project.

 

I have yet to find an area of patchwork and quilting I don’t enjoy, I love it all. I can spend hours procrastinating over my next project, which technique do I want to use, piecing, appliqué, foundation piecing or should I do a combination, do I add paint, texture, hand stitching, machine quilting. Then, of course, I have to choose the fabrics, threads… you get my drift, can you see a pattern emerging here. I take so long to think about a project, consequently by the time I am ready to start sewing I know exactly where it’s going to end up, I have every detail worked out in my head.

When I started patchwork I bought so many books and read about so many different techniques I wanted to try, there weren’t enough hours in a day to do it all, so I decided to do my City and Guilds certificate, my thoughts were that I could sample lots of different techniques and not necessarily have to do a big project, I really enjoyed the course, it gave me the opportunity to try lots of different methods. Upon completion I moved on and did a creative sketchbook course, this was a really worthwhile project, it made me lose my fear of drawing and offered me the opportunity to take my drawings and artwork and translate them into fabric. Following on from this I decided to do the city and Guilds diploma in patchwork and quilting, but just to make it more interesting I was persuaded to do the diploma in Embroidery at the same time. This was a definite challenge, to compete both side by side in two years. I spent virtually every day doing something towards the two courses, it felt like it took over my life but I loved every minute of it.

The dragon was one of the final pieces for my diploma

Well, that’s it for this month, I hope I haven’t put you to sleep….

Next month might just have a tutorial as well as a teaser for a BOM which is coming soon.

Related posts:

cut&alter – An Introduction Positivity of QuiltersThe Positivity of Quilters Just another love story? Triple love! N.S.F.W (No Sewing for Weeks) Tales of a Part time Quilter. Baking A Cake A.K.A.The time I bit off more than I could Chew
Carol Munro
Published in Quilting Fun on

Responses

  2. Carole Wood

    When I first saw your dragon I thought it was amazing but I can see the detail clearly of this photo so have now decided it’s fabulous! Congratulations on doing 2 C & G diplomas at the same time, you must have worked so very hard.

  4. Faith

    Finally I have found you and my goodness this is absolutely gorgeous absolutely wowsa. I would love to do something like this with my art, putting it into fabric and embroidery and scarily using my Pfaff expression 4.00. I put it away because I was scared of it like a lot of things xx I’m so glad I found you xx

  11. Lainie Windust

    A very interesting journey you have had! We’re you working while doing both those C&G courses? I did a C&G Further Adult Education Teaching Certificate and lectured one day a week at the same time and found it hard work! Where did you do your Sketchbook course? I would love to do that!

    1. Carol Munro Post author

      Hi Laine, it has been a fun journey, hooefully a long way to go yet. I was working part time when I did my course, it was hard going sometimes, but I loved every minute of it and it was worth every penny. I did the sketchbook course with Linda and Laura Kemshall. There were videos to watch so it made it much more interesting, and it was nice to see the techniques used properly.