Yesterday I spent a very enjoyable day in the company of a lovely group of ladies, the Spalding Embroiderers, who meet at Pode Hole Village Hall in the Lincolnshire Fens. The group had booked me to do a workshop for them, giving me free reign to decide what we would be doing.
I wanted to offer them something completely different and something I was pretty sure they wouldn’t have done before. I settled on putting together a workshop to make my Tyvek Leaves. Tyvek is a wonderful product to work with as it has so many possibilities when it comes to colouring, shaping and distressing.
Tyvek leaf with metallic thread and beading.
It felt a bit of a risk as it would involve so many different stages and I wasn’t sure how the group would take to shaping wire frames using pliers. I needn’t have worried, their enthusiasm and positivity was terrific and the hall was filled with conversation and laughter all through the day! In fact, putting together this workshop has reminded me of how much fun I had designing my first leaves and it’s been great to get back to making more of them.
The leaves worked out beautifully. As you can see, everyone got their leaf to the stage of it having been distressed with the heat gun but unfortunately we ran out of time to get the holes embroidered so they will continue with that at home. I hope to receive photos of some of the finished leaves as and when they get done.
A big thank you to all the Spalding Embroidery ladies for making me feel so welcome and for being such wonderful, enthusiastic students! I shall look forward to seeing you all at our next workshop.
Lincs In Stitches 
They look really nice! I bet they’d look great as a window display all beaded and embroidered 🙂
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That would be a nice way of displaying them! They seem to be popular right now with two more workshop bookings taken for April and May which is great.
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The leaves look lovely even without the embroidery. What a fun workshop you put on!
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That particular workshop is attracting a bit of interest Ruth, already got bookings for two more which is great!
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What a happy group you had! The leaves made during the session are delightful and so varied.
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These ladies were a joy to work with! I do hope some of them send photos of their finished leaves as they will look stunning with embroidery on them.
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It looks like it was a lot of fun. I will need to try this technique. Perhaps you would consider teaching something like this on the forum. 🙂
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Ive been so busy lately I’ve not been on the forum for a while. When I get the chance I will put something together for you Marilyn, maybe next week sometime.
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Thanks Karen! No rush.
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Hi Karen,
I wish I could have been there as those leaves are beautiful.
Unfortunately, I’m a Brit expat living in Michigan, USA so don’t belong to that group you taught.
Can you tell me what kind of dye or paint was used to color the Tyvek, and was a soldering iron used to distress them?
Your sincerely, Annette Castillo
Sent from my iPhone
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Hi Annette. The ladies used various different colouring mediums including felt pens, water colour crayons, Inktense and acrylics….anything goes! You can use a soldering iron on Tyvek but we distressed using a heat gun as this will tighten the fabric aroubd the wire frame at the same time as causing the holes.
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