Listen in as Marie Roper reveals her inspirational design sources and demonstrates her techniques for machine piecing non conventional shapes and curved seams to Laura.

To work along you will need:

• A small selection of  fabrics
• Rotary cutter and mat
• Sewing machine
• Neutral coloured machine sewing threads

Watch Laura demonstrate Soy Wax batik using a variety of simple mark making tools to achieve double-sided, colourful fabric effects.

To work along you will need:

Wax pot
Soy wax granules
Cotton fabrics pre treated with soda ash solution
Procion dyes thickened with Manutex paste
Mark making tools
Plastic sheets
Paper towels
Old credit card

Join Laura for a walk through her sketchbook. ‘Face in a Crowd’ is all about the male portraits Laura created for the Sketchbook Project.

Linda’s contribution to The Sketchbook Project focusses on her favourite garden birds. Here she tells how she achieved some of the visual effects.

When you begin quilting a pieced top there are lots of design and practical questions to consider. Here Laura explains how she decides on a plan.

Linda loves traditional patchwork designs! In this video she tells how the Log Cabin block influenced the techniques she used in her quilt, ‘Rose’.

See how Laura makes gorgeous gift tags for that special person by making great use of scraps of paper, card and quilted fabrics.

To work along you will need:

• Scraps of closely quilted fabric
• Luggage labels or thin card
• Cartridge paper
• Narrow ribbon
• Decorative machine threads and a sewing machine with the eyelet function

Commercial sketchbooks usually contain just one kind of paper – here Linda shows how easy it is to substitute a variety of paper types and also how effective it is to incorporate separate sheets of paper that could include your own work, photographs or prints.

To work along you will need:

• A sketchbook
• A range of paper types and weights
• Loose sheets of imagery/prints/drawings etc.
• Gesso
• Craft knife/ruler/mat
• Basic art materials for drawing and adding colour to pages
• Fixative for graphite drawing
• Gluestick

Recycling at its best! Laura uses old unloved quilts to make humbug purses – all from an old quilt and a zip!

To work along you will need:

• Quilted samples or an old quilt
• Zip
• Fabric for binding edges
• Sewing machine and thread

Colour mixing is often confusing because there are so many options to choose from when buying inks, dyes or paints. In this video Laura explains the differences between a cool and a warm palette and demonstrates how to use both to achieve very different results.

To work along you will need:

• Water based  paints or inks in the following colours;
• Lemon yellow
• Cadmium yellow
• Cyan or turquoise
• Ultramarine
• Crimson or magenta
• Scarlet or cadmium red
• Watercolour paper or sketchbook
• Round paintbrush size 8

Marie Roper demonstrates her techniques for sculpting a doll’s head using stitch. Tragically, Marie died not long after recording this video – we include it here in tribute to her wondrous talents.

To work along you will need:

• Flesh coloured cotton fabric
• Pencil
• Sewing machine and thread
• Embroidery scissors
• Polyester toy stuffing
• Long darning needle
• Waxed quilting thread

In this video Linda visits the studio of Marie Roper and is truly amazed by the exquisite art dolls Marie creates. This is a fascinating insight into the stories behind each one. Tragically, Marie died not long after this was recorded – we miss her every day.

Run time approx: 19 minutes

Presenter: