Cheltenham Open Studios (yes, really!)

Two weeks ago we were down in the Midlands for my cousin's wedding near Ledbury and, happily, it co-incided with Cheltenham Open Studios.  We only had time to visit one venue, so we carefully picked the one we considered the most interesting from the online brochure before travelling down.

We chose Bren Boardman.  Her work involves painting, stitching and distressing Lutrador, which is something that I've also been doing for some time.  Her style is completely different from mine though, and it was fascinating to see a different approach to using this material.

Bren uses Thermofax Screens to paint images onto the Lutrador.  They are absolutely brilliant, and can be made to your own design.  I have plans!!

Here she is helping Kirsty to have a go.

And this is the result.

Kirsty plans to do some free machine embroidery to stitch some flowers (I think) around the bees.  Bren's gorgeous work involves copious amounts of free machine embroidery, mostly with a botanical theme.  She stitched a small piece for Kirsty, who then distressed it with a heat tool.

The setting was the most incredibly beautiful Mill Dene Garden.  Unfortunately the weather was dreadful - torrential rain all day long - but we still enjoyed walking around the garden which had lots of interesting, quirky features.  It's open to the public during the summer (check the website above for times) and is well worth a visit.

Here are a few highlights: