Tucked away down a rural lane, but only 20 minutes’ drive from the centre of Monmouth, thebestof Abergavenny member Chapel Cottage Studio is a lovely place to spend a day doing something creative, as I found out when I went along to a day workshop called “Embroider your garden”. Good signposting provided by the studio gave me confidence that I wasn’t going to phoning up to say I was lost and in no time Tirza, daughter of founder artist Jantien, was welcoming me in with a cup of coffee and introducing me to the course tutor, textile artist Jan Thomas.
Our group of eight participants included people with loads of experience and others, like me, who didn’t know what an embellishing machine was or that you can do machine embroidery on all sewing machines! Jan quickly put us all at our ease, took us through the techniques involved step by step and didn’t once get lose her cool when we broke needles or changed our minds about what materials we wanted to use. She provided a rainbow treasure-trove of fabrics and threads and we all had a fantastic time producing stitched pictures of gardens, or in my case, an attempt at a stitched vegetable!
At 12.30 Jantien joined us for an absolutely delicious home-made lunch (included in the cost of the workshop)and we were not just allowed but positively encouraged to try both soups. A testimony to Jantien and her family’s generosity was that when a group of hungry cyclists turned up looking for somewhere to eat, she immediately offered them tea and cake!
Chapel Cottage Studio (www.chapelcottagestudio.co.uk) offers a range of art classes, and is currently offering day courses at a 50% reduction to members of thebestof Abergavenny. So sign up and get along there. You’ll have a brilliant day. As Jan said to us at 4pm: “Never say you can’t do something.” We can all surprise ourselves, and have fun in the process.
And if you’d like to see Jantien’s paintings, the Studio will be open during the Crickhowell Open Studios Art Trail over the late Spring bank holiday weekend, 25th to 27th May – follow the link on the Chapel Cottage Studio website.
