Last weekend I ahd the amazing opportunity to take a workshop with the delightful and ultra talented Margo Duke! She is affectionatly called Her Majesty Margo and this is, in fact ,the name of her business. The workshop was held at the Fabulous Artistic Artifacts in Alexandria Virginia.
Margo does some amazing work with her Embellishing Machine and hand dyed silks, wool , velvets, and other lovely textiles and fibers. With Margo's permission I was able to take some photos of the wonderufl items included in her delectable Trunk Show!!! Honestly, we could have all spent our entire day petting, stroking ,examining and exclaiming over all of the incredible creations included in her Trunk Show!!! These shots are mostly detail shots of her pieces that show her incredible color sense and combination of texture!!
The colors of this piece are simply stunning!!
This piece gives you a wonderful feel for Margo's remarkable and romantic color sense. She adds texture to her pieces with her own special free motion stitching techniques.
This was the piece that I could not bear to let go of!! Margo ahd knit up all sorts of scraps of yarms and felted and fulled and added felted motives and then crocheted the whole mix together with fabulous fibers . The piece was a wonderful shawl wrap that had wonderfully ripply edges finished off with fabulous crochet work. I am now more sure than ever that I will have to ask my talented neighbor Sherry to teach me to crochet ( a huge gap in my textile techniques repertoire!!!)
Here are the samples that we worked on during our working time. Margo taught us to create flowers in several wonderful techniques. She showed us how to use silk rods to create asters- the fluffy purple flower with the yellow center. She taught us to create multy petaled and dimensional flowers like the large deep pink pansey. She taught us all sorts of tips and tricks for creating interesting backgrounds with many different fibers and depth and lots of interest.In the bottom right corner she showed us how to create iris from hand dyed shibori silk. Then we went on to begin to create our own flower garden scene. I am working on creating a poppy garden with Queen Anne's Lace in the background. All of these pieces will be benefiting from more work, which I hope to get to this weekend. I will be sure to show them to you as I finish them off!!
In the meantime, if you ever have an opportunity to take a class with Margo, by all means, DO SO!!!! She will be at a huge Sewing Expo in Arlington Texas In May, so if you are lucky enought to go, be sure to look for her booth. She will be vending and will have many of her lucious hand dyed supplies to tempt you with!
Margo will also be teaching three days of classes at Quilting Adventures in Richmond VA, in May. I may just have to take advantage of this opportunity and spend another day in Margo's delightful company!!!
