Banner Making with Super+Super at Drink, Shop & Do

I had quite simply the most brilliant time at the Super+Super workshop at Drink, Shop & Do last week. I’m under absolutely no obligation to blog about it again, but I came home absolutely buzzing from it and therefore want tell you all about it.

Firstly, the workshop itself.

As I said last week it was put on by the publishers GMC to promote the two new books by Super+Super: Embroidery and Printmaking, and a review of both books will be coming soon. The aim of the workshop was for everyone to make their own banner on the night – either embroidering it or printing a design on to it. Both books contain a banner project which use the same simple plain tote bag as the base so it was up to participants to choose on the night as to what they wanted to make and there was inspiration hung up around the room to help us choose. Each table was laden with craft supplies making the whole event a craft addicts dream.

I’d gone with the aim of having a go at printmaking, quite simply because it’s something I hadn’t done since school art lessons, but in the end I was inspired by one of the embroidered examples hung up and decided to go with that route instead.

Taking more inspiration from the wonderful Karin at Embrace Happy I knew that I wanted to create something with the phrase “Today is a good day” on it and I used an alphabet print out that Super+Super had brought along with them to trace the letters onto my plain banner in pencil before starting to embroider around the letters.

The example embroidered banners had just a simple running stitch around the letters, but as the ones I had traced were quite small and I wanted them to stand out a bit more I decided to go with backstitch around the edges instead and I also opted for a different colour for each line, ending with the darkest colour for the final line which reads “good day”.

Again, to make the letters stand out I decided to use all six strands of embroidery thread which worked well in terms of the stitches standing out, but they did keep getting a little tangled. It also may have been a bit easier if I’d had an embroidery hoop to use as instead I was scrunching the fabric up in my hand as I went along, but a good press with an iron once home sorted out some of the creasing.

I’m rather pleased with the finished banner which is now hanging by my front door. It certainly makes me smile every morning as I go out of the house.

I’m also definitely inspired to have a go at a printed version too. The woman I sat next to at the workshop (a doctor so handy with a scalpel!) went with a printed pineapple design, but it took her quite a long time to cut out the design to print though it. I’m wondering though if I can use my newly acquired Cricut Explore to help with that stage though and use a photograph of one of the pineapple prints to design and cut a template on the Cricut. Watch this space for that one!

I can’t finish this post though without talking about our wonderful venue and the whole workshop experience. Drink, Shop & Do is quiet simply my dream venue. Not only is it less than ten minutes walk from St Pancras station which is my route into London, but it just has one of the nicest vibes of anywhere I’ve been lately. The bar staff were excellent, the drink menu was vast and completely my style (lots of teas and cocktails) and I also saw some gorgeous vintage crockery in use. Their events calendar has some brilliant stuff in it and the Play with Clay night where people had to make their own Dolly Partons to celebrate her birthday was just inspired. I met some lovely people on the workshop and everyone I spoke to was just happy to chat to everyone else and hare what they were up to. Now I’ve discovered the place there is no doubt that I’ll be back! After all – how can you not fall in love with somewhere that has this childhood memory on the wall.

Disclaimer: I was invited to this free workshop by GMC, the publishers of Super+Super’s books. I was under no obligation to blog about the workshop at all, or the venue. All views and opinions are my own.