March morning meeting

I can't believe a week has gone by since our meeting and I haven't done the blog yet.  As usual I forgot to take my camera and there was a lot of good work to look at today.  Val was working on her Elements piece, as was most of the members.  Ann's silk paper she had made was absolutely fantastic, lovely colours and shades.  Pam decided she didn't like the black border she had put round her canvas work and took it out and we all agreed that it looked better.  I had a great morning painting papers for my sketchbook course.  Working in the village hall meant I could spread out and had plenty of room to put the paper out to dry.  Go to my sketchbook blog to see the results.

Time is getting short now, we are a matter of weeks away from our exhibition and I have started on my final piece.  I had thought to do quite a bit of machine embroidery on this piece but it isn't going to work, I think it will be mostly hand sewing so now I am starting to panic that I have left it all a bit late.  It is going fairly well though, and the effect is what I wanted. 

For non members of the group, here are the details of the exhibition.

Hope you can read this OK, the flyers look quite good.  This is a piece of work that was produced at the Dionne Swift workshop last year.

February Meeting

There was plenty of sewing machines and various other bits of electrical equipment as we had arranged a group PAT testing session.  Our thanks to Craig who manfully ploughed through them all much confused by all the soldering irons.

The World War 1 projects are really coming along well and we hope to have them ready to join the exhibitions in April.  There may be one or two more to add in at a later date but they are looking good.  We have two poems to include as well which enhances the body of work.  See what you think.

Don't know if you can read the words but the poem is Perhaps by Vera Britten and is reflected in the broken hearted piece and the large felted piece.

 

This poem is by Jessie Pope and is about women working during the war.  Some of the other pieces aren't quite finished yet but they are well on their way.

 

 

 

Everyone is now pushing on towards completing work for the exhibition.  Ann was preparing a large piece of silk paper, Moira was also working with silk paper to produce a book.  Marilyn was lacing her work up, so that must be near completion.  Jenny was working on this lovely piece of felt, not sure what it will be but it is certainly eye catching.

 

This is Roma's felting, based on a photograph she took in Scotland.



February Morning Meeting

Just a few of us in today we all got some work done as well as putting the world to rights. 

I have put a new blog of mine on for you all to look at if you want.  I have signed up to the Distant Stitch Sketchbook course and as it is all online I have to have a blog of my own.  The first module is on colour so some of it is stuff I have done before but it is good to remind oneself and there are some new things to do as it goes along.  I am just doing their own certificate at the moment but if I keep all the logs up to date, I could switch to City and Guilds at a later date as all the work is the same.  Not sure I need C&G for all the extra cost.

Barbara brought in her pieces for the WW1 exhibitions that will be going on around the area.  We are doing a collection of pieces based on 'Women in the War' and made to look like the medals some of them deserved.  Barbara has focused on the Red Cross and this piece looks really good.

 

Unfortunately the red on red colour hasn't photographed as well as it could hav.  The second piece is weaving the Barbara has done based on a field of poppies.  She is also doing a larger piece for the exhibition that goes to the Royal Armouries next year.

 

Pam is getting on with her canvas work depicting various minerals.

 

Marilyn was attaching birds to her piece of work.

January Meeting

Happy New Year to everyone who looks at this Blog.

We had a good meeting this month.  A workshop has been arranged for later in the year with Alysn Midgelow-Marsden so we are all looking forward to that.

The ladies who are joining in the WW1 project that is running in this area, have chosen their topics to work on.  I am doing a piece based on the women munitions workers because my husbands grandmother was a munitions worker in London during the first World War and I think this will be a small tribute to the work she did. We are basing our pieces on medals, with the idea that all the women represented deserved medals for what they did.  Most of the pieces will be based on 'Women in War' and we hope to produce a small but interesting display. 

Plans are starting to take shape now for our Exhibition on the 10th and 11th May this year at Ayton Village Hall, near Scarborough.  The postcode is YO13 9HY for those of you with sat-navs.  It will be from 10am to 4pm and the topic for the main exhibition is 'Elements' so please come along and meet us.

Some of the work this month was interesting.

Jenny had some interesting results using kitchen towel and she has mounted the pieces onto felt and is now stitching into them.

Moira's hand dyed fabrics are going to make a lovely seascape.

Liz had brought in her workbook from her 'snowflake' project

 

Liz was also working with some hand printed papers that she is making into books.

Last Meeting of 2013

There were 16 of us at the last meeting and we had quite a busy session.  Most were stitching or drawing, painting was not indulged in as we were all dressed up ready for our lunch out at Betton Farm. 

Six of us had a talk with a lady who is setting up a textile exhibition based on World War 1.  We are joining in as representatives of our group.  The exhibition will tour local libraries during 2014 but in 2015 it will go to the Royal Armouries in Leeds and then onto Portsmouth.  It will also display in York but I can't remember where.  Hopefully there will be even more venues over the four years commemorating the war.  We had a good session bouncing ideas around and have decided to produce pieces of work based on the shapes of medals but about A4 size.  The theme will be 'Women in World War 1' and looking at the different roles they played.  Hope to have some ideas on paper next month.  Some of the pieces already produced are quite dark so we are going to try and do 'colourful'.  There should be a website in action in the new year so I will put up a link to it when it gets going.

We cleared away about twelve o'clock and headed out for a really nice lunch.  Afterwards we came back and collected our things and headed home.  No photographs this time as I forgot my camera again. 
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all.

1st Thursday December Meeting

Only five of us here today but we all managed to get some work done.  Maureen has completed her piece based on some old machinery, Ann was painting bondaweb so she could get started on her pieces, Pam and Val were busy stitching and I was making a cobweb felt scarf which turned out very well and I am really pleased with.  The village hall is great for making long pieces of felt because they have some good solid, long tables that can be put together to create a long surface to work on.  I can feel everyone slowing down now for Christmas, clearing bits and pieces and getting ready for the break.

 

This is Maureen's piece, now shaped into a pot

 

Val has done a piece of her own design using various drawn

threadwork stitches. My photography doesn't do it justice.

 

 

 

This is my felted scarf, still very wet but it dried lovely.

November Meeting

Fifteen of us had a good day working hard.  Ann kindly brought her laptop with some photographs she took of the exhibition at Salts Mill a few weeks ago and it  was good to see the work again.

We had a discussion about the request we have had to submit work for various exhibitions around the local libraries next year culminating in a large display at the Royal Armouries in 2015.  Topic is of course the First World War and some groups are already under way with their work.  We have a few members interested in doing something so we are going to look further into it for next month.  Apparently there isn't much work done so far on women in the war, so we may go down that route.

A few people brought in their 'Elements' work so far and we had another discussion about how we would arrange our own exhibition next May.  There is some really good work been done and I think it is going to look fantastic.

Everyone was geared up for the Knitting and Stitching Show next day and it didn't disappoint.  We all came home with various bags and boxes and everyone declared it a good day.  I think there were more people there than ever before.  I certainly didn't get as long as I would have liked round the exhibition stands and I didn't have time to double back and revisit traders for a second look.  Jenny and I looked in on the Art in Action stand and picked up some interesting tips from one stand but unfortunately I didn't get the ladies name.   One is photographed below, not very good but I did a quick sample on Saturday so I wouldn't forget the method.

First, stitch tissue paper onto a piece of fabric using either hand or machine sewing.  Next, cover the tissue and stitch with gesso.  While the gesso is still wet, place another piece of fabric over the top and leave until it is completely dry.  When dry, rip the two pieces of fabric apart.  You will get some of the tissue clinging to the stitching and the rest will have attached itself to the other piece of fabric.  Two samples in one go!!

I will do this again with some more interesting fabric and tissue but the idea is good.