Making a rag wreath at The Studio, Skipton

Saturday was a lovely, crafty day, spent in The Studio, home to two lovely creative spirits, Tracy of Patchwork Chickens and Lucy of Attic24, the globally famous crochet blog.

Tracy signed us in and came to say goodbye at the end and we were all glad to hear that her mum is doing better after her accident in February. We also heard more about Yarndale in September, when The Studio will be open on the Friday and the Saturday.

Excitement difficult to contain

I love doing craft workshops but actually being in The Studio, which has featured on Tracey’s and Lucy’s blog, was double bliss. All around were things that Tracy and Lucy have made, including Tracy’s wonderful textile figures, mesmerising felt balls and Lucy’s crochet wreaths, bunting and her gorgeous upcycled chair. I actually sat in this chair to choose my materials for part of the rag wreath. It was hard not to squeal. Honestly. Are we grown women?

Our tutor for the day was Rachel Terry of Bewitched by Stitch. There were seven of us all together, including two sisters and a mother and daughter. We were all crafting nutcases, totally bonkers about working with fabric, paper, glue and getting absorbed in a project, so we had a great day. If all we had to do was lick stamps, we would have been happy enough but we did so much more.

The project was to make a spring wreath using a rag rug technique. The first gallery shows the examples of what we were going to do with a few photos of The Studio because its so luscious.

After a little practice on a scrap piece of hessian, we got started on choosing our fabrics and deciding on our design and colour scheme.

The raw materials

We all started with the same raw materials; a piece of hessian, a wooden clothes peg and some old clothes. Yep, this is not an expensive craft to take up! I went a bought 2 metres of hessian afterwards from the Boyes store across the road in Skipton, and it cost £3.98.

You can buy a professionally made prodder, but the clothes peg worked fine. I actually preferred it to the handled proper ones.

The materials used to generate the rags are anything. Old tea shirts are good. Florists’ netting, cheap remnants, clothes you don’t want anymore. Charity shop finds are an excellent source but heed some important advice: when shopping in charity shops for likely garments buy Size 20+ as these provide more material and so very good value. They are often in loud, garish fabrics, or multicoloured, so great for all sorts of colour schemes. Wear dark glasses and a hat and remember to breathe in at all times so no-one in the shop could possibly think you might be buying said garment to wear yourself.

Different choices, unique results

Even though we started with the same raw materials, we all had different ideas of what we wanted to do. No-one finished their wreath in the day (too much talking, laughing and eating) but we could see how things were progressing. I opted to do a flower-based wreath with deep orange and rust tones for the flowers and rich turquoise and pale baby blues and whites for contrast. Bright orange ribbon and a deep turquoise felt heart would finish it off.

The other ladies had wonderful ideas. One was made from tee-shirts in grey, maroon and black and white, cut so that the rags curled once they were in place. Another was sunflowers with a green backdrop, with the green rags cut down to make the long rags of the flowers stand out. The youngest member of our group produced a gorgeous pale muted spring wreath out of what looked like rags of silk. A local lady did beautiful shocking pink and navy contrasted with pale pinks and whites. All lovely and we are all going to share the finished wreath once they are done.

I am busy finishing my wreath today and I’ll be back with another post to show the finished result and chart its progress through the stages later in the week.

Take a look at Tracy’s photos of a previous rag wreath workshop, held last year, to make winter wreaths. And check out Rachel’s work on her website and course dates at The Studio for later in 2014.