I had a wonderful time at the Level 1 Hand Stitch course that I took at the Gail Harker Creative Studies Center. The first day we dyed threads and fabrics with Procion MX dyes. I hadn’t used this type of dye before since I usually use acid dye, so I was glad to get this experience.

 Here are a few of my threads hanging on the line drying.

 Here is my work station on the second day. It looks fairly neat but you should have seen it by the 5th day. I had threads, projects and stuff strewn everywhere.

 Here is our first project in our sketchbooks. It is chain stitch. I have been doing chain stitch for years and  learned that I had been doing it incorrectly all this time. Who knew?

 Here is another chain stitch sample on felt.

 Here is a collection of the work that I did during the five day course. I had many unfinished samples at this point.

 This is Bobbi’s work. Wonderful colors!

 Here is Nancy’s work. I love that page in the middle with bright yellow and deep blue.

 This is Marie’s work. Here colors are wonderful as well. I really liked her feather stitch sample, the one on the bottom left.

 This is Sarah’s work. She used quite a few pale backgrounds because she wanted her stitches to show up more.

 This is the one sample that was fully complete at the end of the course. It is a couched thread sample.  The oranges are really not a color I am comfortable using so I was trying to stretch my color horizons a bit. When I started this piece, I thought it was going to be hideously ugly. But I am really pleased with the result. It was good to try a different color combination and work through the design process becoming more comfortable with the color choice as I went along. I need to take a closer photo of the stitches as you can’t see them all that well. But you can click on the photo to make it larger.

 Here’s Gail taking photos of all our work at the end of the class. The thing I like about Gail’s classes is that she really works to teach you design as you learn about stitching (or whatever you’re doing). I always learn so much from her and she really encourages everyone to go their own direction. If you are in the northwest, I would strongly recommend taking her classes. And she is also going to start having online classes, so if you aren’t close, you can take classes online soon. Click on the link in the first paragraph to take a look at the class offerings. They are well worth the investment.

I still have quite a bit of homework to complete to get my certificate for this course. I will show you all the samples once I’ve got everything completed.