Author Archives: Laura

Creative Stitch Combinations Class

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My new online class, Creative Stitch Combinations, is all about combining basic hand embroidery stitches to create dynamic textures, patterns, and shapes with thread for your free-form embroidery projects. I hope you can join me!

I’ll show you my favorite ways to combine stitches using 15 embroidery stitches to create exciting and enjoyable art. Colorful examples and helpful tips are given in each of the three lessons. And there is a bonus project too!

A bonus PDF for this project, Lovely as a Tree, includes step-by-step directions and colorful illustrations on how to make this small landscape full of texture, pattern, and shapes. It’s the perfect project to put all you’ve learned into practice.

Read more about the class here on the C&T Blog. Or visit my introduction to the class on Creative Spark to learn more.

An Exhibit Down Under

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Soon it will be autumn in Illinois. (That is if we can survive the summer!) And soon my duet of art quilts, Fine Line Trees Summer and Autumn will be on view at the SAQA and Timeless Textiles Exhibition, Joining Threads.

The exhibition opens on August 13th, 2024, at Timeless Textiles in Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Timeless Textiles, the only commercial fiber art gallery in Australia, and SAQA are partnering together to present this unique opportunity for SAQA artists. This exhibition is composed of 2 artworks (each 30cm by 30 cm) by each artist which are a diptych or speak to one another. My pieces are both made with hand dyed silk fabrics and hand embroidered. I’m so pleased my artwork is traveling down under!

A Secret Life

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Did you know I live a secret life? Yes, I am one of those crazy people exploring the mysterious world of ceramics.

Not ceramics made on a potter’s wheel. No, no no, I’m a hand builder. Once I tried throwing a pot on the wheel and the clay flew off and splattered all over the studio. Hand-building is safer for my fellow students.

Like other art forms you’ve probably explored, working with clay is like working with textiles. Both mediums let you create texture, and shape, and explore favorite themes like houses, birds, and trees. But most importantly for me, hand-building lets me improvise and create whimsical pieces like this tiny home with a hole in the roof for dried flowers.

Once in a while I make sewing related items like this handy pincushion with a loop for holding your small scissors. Now that you know about my secret life as a ceramicist maybe it’s time for you to explore other avenues of creativity too. Do you have an secret artistic life?

Please check out my recent ceramic creations here.