Tigley Textiles Blog
8 Top Tips for Successful Free Motion Machine Embroidery
8 Top Tips for Successful Free-Motion Machine Embroidery It is so easy these days to find information if you want to learn something new. Search engines and You Tube are most people's "go to". There are video tutorials and often downloadable instructions...
World Embroidery Day- 30th July
The first World Embroidery Day took place 5 years ago in Sweden. In 2011, a local group belonging to Sweden’s Embroidery Guild took the initiative to organise a special day to celebrate Embroidery and it is now celebrated each year on 30th July. Don’t you just love...
Top Tips for Mounting Your Textile Work
You've spent hours and hours making your beautiful stitched picture but have you thought about how you're going to frame it? When I first joined a textile group, one of our main aims was to exhibit- a scary thought as I'd never exhibited before. So I started...
Interviewing textile artist- Deborah Collum
Since I have become a textile artist myself, I seem to have made several wonderful friendships with some very talented stitchers. Deborah Collum is one of them. This month's blog features an interview with her. If you are lucky enough to visit one of her many...
How to Use Procion Dyes
The choice of colours that you use in your work can make or break your final piece. I have always used mixes of colours- harmonious or contrasting, and have played around with trying to achieve the perfect shade. Vintage lace and linens dye brilliantly. I sometimes...
Nostalgic Places in Stitch
It's funny how you get used to things and take them for granted isn't it? I was brought up in Cornwall and spent many a happy hour as a youngster, sitting on the beach with friends and family. I left to go to Uni and haven't lived there since but visit several times a...
Old friends- My favourite stitches
I approach my little textile pictures as I would decorate a room- The stripping back, the preparation of the surfaces are crucial, then comes the decoration, the final touches. So I source old cloth, dye it with tea or coffee, paint it or distress it in some...
A Labour of Love
A Labour of Love When my mum died, 20 years ago, I dispersed a lot of her "stuff" according to her wishes but also kept a few meaningful bits. Those bits wouldn't have meant anything to anyone else, but for me, they were her. In every handbag and pocket - albeit...
Sewing Tricks of the Trade
Over the years I have often visited the large stitch and knit shows that tour the country. They are full to the brim of all things stitchy- with new products appearing all the time. How many of us have got carried away with enthusiasm watching a demonstration and come...
Help! Sewing Machine Headaches……..
Using a sewing machine is great fun when it works but a nightmare when it doesn’t. We all have periods when there’s something not right- we can hear it, we can feel it but have no idea how to solve the problem. We get out the manual, and try all manner of things but...
It’s all about the food!
Well it shouldn't be should it? But in reality, for most of us, it is. Whenever I meet a friend for coffee, 9 times out of 10 it is accompanied by the calorie laden cake. Just makes for a much more treat like experience doesn't it? Workshops are the same. I've been to...
Containers matter
I'm always interested in containers. In the kitchen I love a good set of Tupperware. The click clacky type. See through, easy to stack. When I had a classroom, nothing gave me greater pleasure than having tidy drawers. Maybe I need to get out more. In my studio, I...