We had a lovely workshop with Nicky Dillerstone at S.e.a.t.a last Saturday. On a beautiful warm sunny day, it seemed appropriate working with shells and driftwood along with neutral coloured fabric and threads.

Nicky talked and showed us some of her work, before giving us free rein to help ourselves to some of her stash to add to our own, and make a start.

I was giddy with ideas, the others on our table reckoned I was like a kid who had had too much sugar in the sweet shop.

All these lovely fabrics and shells to choose from, where to begin? I’d narrowed things down a little before I left home, not taking very many shells, a few (!) pieces of sea glass, my precious sea marble, and some of the fine fabrics and threads I’d taken to Amanda J Clayton’s workshop a few weeks ago.

The squarish piece of driftwood (above) has been on the window-sill in Miles’ bedroom for several (!) years, and I finally thought I would use it. I even arranged a few shells on it. Then I saw the piece in Nicky’s box which I couldn’t resist (bottom left in the above photo).

I started tying the shell to the driftwood, wanting to leave the hole in the shell as a spyhole to show off the grain of the wood, but it was slipping around too much. Nicky had offered to drill holes in the shells for us, so I asked if she could drill it while still attached to the wood. She’d try. Yes. How many? Three, please. Where? There, there and there.

I didn’t want to use them to anchor it any more, but to thread net through …..

……. some pale gold organza, a bit fiddly ……

… but managed.

I then used a strip of some softened (washed?) canvas wrapped in the fine wire from a wine bottle threaded with beads. This wouldn’t go through the final hole properly so a few stitches held it in place.

Some tiny beads were strung on the netting with a Madeira metallic thread.

A tiny felt ball, the size of my little finger nail, has some of the same beads stitched to it, but it’s not finished yet.

I’ve gathered up the gold organza with a few rows of stitching, and used some more of the wire to anchor the shell better to the wood. This is as far as I’d got by the end of the day.

I asked Nicky to drill some more holes in another shell for me before we finished for the day. Drilling shell isn’t something I’ve done yet, but I’ll certainly have a go.

I’ve put in some blanket stitches and started some button hole stitch.

I’m just experimenting with it at the moment.

As always I came away from Nicky’s workshop inspired. Just thinking of her and her work is inspiring. Thank you, Nicky.