September Meeting

Well today I remembered my camera so we have some good photographs and lots of people getting on with warriors.  We have got our trip to the Royal Armouries organised for next month se we won't be meeting that day but those of us who are going are really looking forward to it.

We are also looking forward to our workshop with Alysn Midgelow Marsden at the beginning of November.  It seems a while since we last had a workshop. 

Christina is looking at Norman's.  There were some chopped off limbs on the table before we left.

Janet was working with Roma doing mono prints.  Janet's is from an Aztec warrior.

Roma was actually printing chain mail designs but I particularly liked this print she had done in a workshop.

Jackie is going for viking style chess men.

Ann saw this design at the British Museum. It is a chariot and horse with a Syrian warrior in the driving seat.

 

Maureen was also printing and trying out these blocks she has bought.

 

It was a really busy day and everyone seems to be enjoying the work they are doing.  Hope so anyway.

August Meeting

We didn't have a morning meeting at the begining of the month because several people were involved in an exhibition at Ravenscar which went really well as usually.

I was away in China for the begining of August and had a fantastic time.  It was slightly spoilt because I fell down a step on the third evening and pulled the ligaments in my left foot.  Although I didn't know it at the time, I had also fractured my fibula in my right leg so I spent two weeks limping about.  I have had a pot on it for a week which has now been removed and I am just trying to get around steadily and not do any more damage.

I took my camera to the meeting but completely forgot to take any photographs and there were some interesting things going on.  Moira had been doing some potato printing and was doing some more print work on the fabrics to enhance what she had already done.  Ann's whip stitch is taking on some all sorts of shapes and looks really interesting.  I wish I could settle to doing samples in the same way.  Angela was cutting out a dress pattern because the big tables we have at the village hall are great for spreading out fabric.  Some are starting on their research for the Warriors topic.

We are hoping to get together a trip to the Royal Armouries in October but numbers are a bit low at the moment so I am not sure if it will go ahead yet. 

As I had forgotten to take photo's at the meeting I thought you might like to see a Panda instead.

July Meeting

I didn't write e report about the July morning meeting as we were all busy doing bits and pieces and there wasn't a lot to photograph.  However, Ann has been busy on the piece of work she started and is producing these lovely designs using whip stitch.

Colleen, has been making bags using hand dyed fabrics and also these lovely little dolls which she is making for the children of visiting Austalian friends. 

The lace was dyed at the last meeting and is being used to decorate the dolls hats.

Jenny was using her skills learnt with Isobel Hall and is making another vessel.

She also brought along this lovely array of fabrics she dyed last month.

I can't remember who these belonged to but thought that they deserved to be seen, they are lovely colours.

The new topic of 'Warriors' seems to be going down quite well and causing a lot of discussion and it has been decided that our October meeting will be spent at the Royal Armouries getting a bit of background for it.

June Meeting

Today I announced the new topic for the next exhibition.  We are going to look at 'Warriors'.  It can be any period, any country, male or female or anything that the title brings to mind.  Most people seemed OK with the idea so hopefully there will be lots of interesting pieces of work coming out.

The postcard challenge got under way with everyone getting their postcards in and changed for a new one.  Now all we have to do is make a postcard size piece of work based on the picture on your postcard.  No one saw what they were choosing, all the cards fitted into identical envelopes.

Several members joined in a 'Dyeing Day'.  We had a really busy time, and everyone enjoyed themselves and was pleased with their results.  We plan to display them all next month when they have been washed and ironed.  We followed some very simple instructions from a very good book called 'Dyeing in a Plastic Bag' by Helen Deighan which demonstrates how you can dye small quantities of fabric at home without make a lot of mess.

 Here are Barbara, Roma and Janet all working hard.

 

One of Barbara's patterned pieces in the making

 

 

Ann wasn't dyeing today.  She has been doing Kantha style stitching and also practising whip stitch on a patterned fabric.  You can't see the stitching very well here but it does look lovely.

June morning meeting

Just five of us attended the morning meeting this month.  Several were busy working on items for another exhibition in August by the Scarborough Stitchers.  It will be held at St Hilda's Church, Ravenscar from the 7th to the 10th August, 10am to 4pm.  A couple of us were doing samples and trying things out.  Maureen was working on a small book using pelmet vilene.  She had seen the technique at the Ryedale Embroiderers' Guild meeting last week.  I was quite pleased with these samples I did from Maggie Beal's newest book New Ideas in Fusing Fabric.  I took the photos at home as I had forgotten my camera again last Thursday.

These are pelmet vilene and acrylic felt bonded together with bondaweb, the one on the right has pink painted bondaweb.  The one on the left had gesso lightly painted over the surface.  Both were then patterned with the soldering iron and then stitched into with either black or pink thread.  Might make interesting book covers.

Exhibition!

What a brilliant exhibition we had this weekend, despite the weather being very showery.  Lots of people came on both days, some of them on Sunday had been told about us by visitors on Saturday.  One comment we received several times was how good it was to have an exhibition of this quality in this area.  So well done ladies.  I took over 60 photographs and I shall make most of them into a booklet but it's a bit too many to sit here downloading onto the blog, so I am just showing one picture of each persons work and the 'Chinese Whispers'. 

The topic of the exhibition was 'Elements' and this was everyone's interpretation.

Shirley did a wonderful display using all four elements, earth, air, water and fire.  This cliff was the star attraction of her display, especially the gull which was made by her husband.

Roma took a monthly photograph of the sky outside her window and used mark making to interpret the clouds.

Moira did 'Earth' and rock strata, soil strata and fossils in this lovely display.

Liz put all four elements into her first picture and the second represents water as snowflakes.

Christina also did 'Earth' showing the change in farming from medieval to modern day

Barbara has taken 'Rainbow's' as her theme using her talent at weaving to make the cushion and blue cloth.

Christine's piece based on the Escher drawing, fascinated everyone.  It is still a work in progress but we all hope she completes it as we are waiting to see the finished piece.

Ann has also chosen 'Earth' and has used mirrors to create these lovely mirror image patterns based on photographs she has that were taken in Australia. 

Jenny uses such subtle colours in her work, these I think are based on photographs taken in France.

Angela has chosen 'Water' as her theme and as we live by the sea she has used the sea in her work.

Val has chosen 'Titanium' as her element and the periodic table.  I have unfortunately cut off her free standing pieces in this picture but she has used them to hold the plants that you can see.

Pamela has used 'Water' for some of her work and also 'Copper, Lead and Gold' for other pieces.

Maureen's pot on the right has featured in earlier blogs when she was making it.  She has used 'Iron' for her theme and based it on a photograph of an old engine that she then distorted on the computer.

Marilyn has done a piece for each element and this is her 'Fire, Air and Water' pieces.

Ann went for 'Water', the piece on the left represents a whirlpool from the southern hemisphere.

Anita chose 'Earth' using memories from a holiday in Peru.  The piece on the left represents the landscape and the minerals mined in Peru.  The piece on the right, is the earth godess Pachamama and some of the crops grown in Peru.

Barbara produced a lovely piece based on a Hokusai painting.  The scarf on the right is hand woven.

Ann is our newest member and didn't have time to do any work on the Elements but this is a piece of her batik work representing sunflowers.

Chinese Whispers number 1.  The photograph is of a windmill, taken at an odd angle.  Most of the pieces of work follow through quite clearly coming from the same design.

Chinese Whispers number 2.  The photograph is of a French antique shop with lots of pots outside and flowering plants in tubs.  How this became a seascape I am not sure.  The first piece of work was based on some of the designs found on the pots and this follows through for a while but then changes completely.

We had fun doing these, and I hope everyone will enjoy the next challenge as much.

Also on display were items from the workshops we did and they all looked really good, we have done a lot of work over the past two years.

April Meeting

I was away for the March meeting, having a lovely time in Bologna so I don't know what happened that day and I have been so busy with the Embroiderers Guild exhibition that I never got the April morning meeting posted, so here we are in the middle of April.

Everyone was busy working today, mostly for our exhibition next month.  Some were tidying up workbooks, some were finishing off pieces and some, like me, were frantically sewing their final piece.  We have planned a 'Dyeing Day' in June, there are a few members who haven't done any dyeing and some who don't like to do it at home, so we thought it would be a good idea to get together and pool our resources and have a go.

Plans for our own exhibition are under way now, the flyers are printed and being distributed, the hall is booked and the display boards hired from the Art Club.  I reminded everyone to bring their 'Chinese Whisper' pieces and there was a groan and some frantic chatter as people tried to remember where they had put them.  That's the only problem with a project that goes over a long period of time.

Here is some of the work that was being done on Thursday.

 

Roma has been to a Batik class and was stitching into her printing.

Ann has produced one of the most beautiful pieces of silk paper I have ever seen.  It really is gorgeous.

Jenny was searching through her stash of coloured papers when I took this picture.

 

Pam is working in beads doing a piece based on the sea.