Marna Lunt does applique the way Picasso worked with paint.  She has a joyous feel for embroidery, likes making lines higgledy-piggledy (what a lovely, freeing word that is) – and she does workshops.  Watch her at work in this video:

Inspiring others

I first came across her work today, via @Hippystitch, who attended one of her embroidery courses, and made a rather lovely lampshade.  She wrote up a

blog post on the process, showing the materials she had to work with, and describing the process – including such technical terms as a few parts being “…a bit fiddly”.  The overall impression is that the workshop was an enjoyable success.

Workshops

If you live in England, you can travel to a Marna Lunt workshop – but for everyone else, there is an online embroidery course,

You can find out more on Marna’s website here.

Upcycling

The type of embroidery/applique work done by Marna uses even very small scraps of fabric, in varieties of style and thickness – so this is a great way to use up little bits of beloved old clothes or curtains.  You can cut them up and recycle into a new picture, cushion cover, lampshade, bag….

Join in!

At the moment, Marna is running a February monthly stitching challenge on Instagram, called #threaduary.  The friendly challenge is to post a picture of sewing work in progress daily (in real life, most days) and tag her @marnalunt so she can see your progress.

Creative Takeaway

Marna’s work comes from a strong feeling for the landscape around her.  How can you put your landscape and its texture and layers into your creative work?