The Make and Do Studio

I love the colour in these photos....

I have been taking many photos recently and downloading them into my Picasa files (in an attempt to keep them in some semblance of order!).  It occured to me that the negative to digital images is that you don't tend to keep them anywhere where you can look at them on a daily basis - I tend to look at them. go "wow, that is lovely" and then that is it. So I decided to take a very random selection from the last six weeks and post them  - just so I can see them once in a while!

Children's felt drying alfresco.

Addison catching the last dying rays of the autumn sun.

Canning and preserving stuff - ready for show.

Quilt strips on their way to being finished.

My daughter Sydney made a gorgeous Octonaut cake for Addison's birthday. 

The beginning stages of the Canning and Preserving workshop that just passed.  What a great workshop!

I hope you are all gearing up for the holidays - I know I am but this year I have decided to pace it out a bit. I have slowed down on workshops from the beginning of December and am concentrating on some other studio stuff - putting new stuff on Folksy, sorting out a monthly "Create" night at a local business, writing a business support section called This Crafty Business on the Crafty Network and of all things - hopefully being filmed by the BBC!

All the best and for those back in the States, here is to a wonderful Thanksgiving! 

 

 

 

Just a quick one about our Autumn workshop schedule

If you are visiting our website and expecting to be hit on the head with a schedule, we are much more subtle than that! The complete listing can be found on the above link, both a live version and a take away version for reading at your leisure. If you want to register, you do it via the live page where it is a simple, few-click process! 

And now off to have a few hours in the lovely sunshine!

Make and Take Sessions at Stockton Heath Festival

Calling all creative wanabees!  Stockton Heath Festival has been kind enough to make some room for us to have a Make and Take session on Saturday 9 July!  Make and Take allows for a quick "dip in and out" approach to crafting  - and you can take home your completed project! All registrations can be allotted and paid for on-line or by post.

First, look at our list of workshops and decide which one (or ones!) you would like to register for -

 
 2. If you would like to register on-line click on the following link(s) to the individual workshop(s) and this will take you directly to a payment page which also acts as a registration page.  NOTE: You do not need to have a PayPal account to do this - the payments taken are Visa, Mastercard or American Express - just click on the link  for payment using these payment cards.

Making Simple Bunting - AM or PM workshop

Simple Felt Flower Corsage 

Wrap Bracelet

Simple Felt Jewellery

Charmed Bracelet

Vintage Birdfeeder

Beaded Bag Charms

3. If you would like to register via post, please fill out this form, and post to the Studio address on the form. 

4.You will be e-mailed on the 7th of July to remind you that you have booked on your workshop and also to give you more detailed information about where you can find us within the Arts tent.

5.Your workshop fee is non-refundable. However, we are happy to have someone else attend in your place but we must be notified of any changes by 6 July.

If you have any questions or queries, please e-mail workshops@themakeanddostudio.co.uk.

Thank you for supporting this great local festival - and here is to being creative!

Houston- we have lift off (or at least a workshop listing for Spring!)

The latest schedule seems to have taken much longer than usual to get organised and, in a self reflective moment, I was asking myself "why?".  But then I Iooked at the schedule and we now have 15 unique workshops - with four highly qualified and creative tutors - and I realised how much we had grown in the last year. So I am okay with the workshop schedule being a bit later to press than usual - we hope you think it is worth the wait!  

• We now have a "refer a friend" scheme as it appears you all want to come in pairs!  If you refer someone who books on to a workshop, you get either £5 off an existing workshop that you may already be booked on to or £5 credit towards any future workshops you may want to take.
• We now have evening courses for the Beginning Quiltmaking workshop as well as the All You Need to Know to Sew workshop.
• Our newest workshops include: Making Beaded Necklaces, Creating Felt Jewellery, Making Simple Roman Blinds, Making Simple Lined Curtains and just in time for Mothers Day - Creative Wrapping!
• We are so passionate about what we do - and are so sure we do it well! - that we back each workshop up with a 100% satisfied customer experience.  If you were not happy with any aspect of your workshop, we will refund your money - no questions asked.
• We have added a few February half term workshops for anyone that would like to have their child learn the basics of sewing!  We only have eight places so book early to ensure you get a place.
• If you want to keep on top of what is going at the Studio, we are now on Facebook! Feel free to "like" us!
• To register for any of the courses - or if you want more information on any of the courses- send an e-mail to maeri@themakeanddostudio.co.uk. 

I will be updating other sections of our website over the next week or so but the course listing link above is the most up to date place for information on the workshops until then!

Who'd have thought I'd get a re-brand?

I wish I could be so much better than I am about posting.....but when I get busy, it falls to the back of the que.

 And I am busy with a few time-zapping things - the kids after-school programmes have started again and are full. For the infants, almost all of them are new so we are introducing them to making felt with the idea being that they will produce a leaf coaster via the instructions from The Longthread. Ours will look much more organic as the felt used in producing the ones in the tutorial is the more industrial kind.For starters, we took them outside to get some real leaves to look at.    

We are also going to get them working on the sewing machines so that they can have a go at machine sewing on the coasters. For the junior school children, we have a real mix of kids, some who have been with us since we started two years ago and those that are new - so have two skill streams to cater for. But the older kids are going to work with felt (I also am going to set them a challenge to make create something out of a grain sack!) and the younger ones will work with felt as well as making an apron.

  

I have also been working to create a new website which will be a much better portal for Make and Do adult workshops - this is due to be sorted for the first week of October. And I even have a re-brand to coincide with the website launch! I have also been on a mission to re-do the actual studio which I have just put the last bit of paint on the wall this afternoon and also submitted a photo for an article about the Lending Stitches programme which will be in our local magazine. 

And the adult courses have started with some new additions as well.

It is great to be this busy but it would be nice if it was spread out a bit......

Its a bird, is a plane...... it's a man with a cushion?

 

Yes folks - that indeed is a photo of a man.....not just any man but what I would consider to be a very brave man. You will see him pointing to a cushion cover, which he completed whilst attending the Everything You Need to Know to Start to Sew Course earlier this month - which is my precursor to all things sewing related.  I have to come clean though - Pete is a friend of mine.  We worked together in a previous life and when Pete heard that I was offering classes in, amongst other things, sewing, he said he really wanted to learn and signed up.  And the rest is cushion history.... 

It has also been really busy at the moment as I have added on more of the classes that are proving to be popular  - Everything You Need to Know to Start to Sew was only going to be once every three or so months but at the moment it is every two or three weeks! I also added another Quiltmaking course as the one I am currently running is full too.  It is great news but it means that the work/balance gets tipped the wrong way sometimes.  I have also decided, based on feedback from folks that come to classes, I will offer a dressmaking course in September - which might not mean much to you but I can be a bit of a perfectionist at the wrong times and it has reared its ugly head with reference to designing the Dressmaking course.  Several people have said to me that they have taken dressmaking courses that are long in length but that they felt when they left the course, there were big gaps in basic instruction.  Or the classes were so big that they spent most of the time trying to get the instructors attention or machine time. My idea is two half day courses, with a gap of a few weeks in between (very much the same as the Quiltmaking course) where at the end of it, you have all the basic instruction you need to go it alone.  And like all the other courses - everything is provided and the numbers will be low - under four in a class. So now that I have said it out loud, I need to kick the perfectionist to the curb and get busy with getting it up and ready for September!

I also thought I would leave you with a photo that I took at the last class - it is a photo of pecan pumpkin bread ready for our half time break.  Anyone that knows me knows I like to bake and I feel that if you are making the effort to come to a workshop - I should make the effort to feed you well.  

 

Well, as the week ahead holds three adult workshops and two end of term kids workshops, I think I will hit the hay (a good Vermont expression!) Night....