December Meeting

A suprising amount of work was done today considering we finished at lunchtime to go for our Christmas meal.  Another successful trip to Betton Farm which provide a really excellent lunch as well as giving work to people with learning difficulties.

Marilyn was working with turquoise fabric and threads to produce this intriguing piece of work.  Canb't wait to see the finished piece.

Liz was trying out the gelli plate she bought at the Knitting and Stitching show.  Some of these prints were excellent.

This was bubble wrap that Liz had used to print.  You can see the prints that this made on the picture above.

A good end to the year.  We start January with some paper colouring.  See you all then, have a lovely Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

December morning group

Not very many of us today but we all managed to get some work done.  Roma and I were felting and the village hall tables are great for that, they are pretty solid and quite long for doing big pieces.

This is Roma's piece which is planned as part of a bigger textile.

I was doing a cobweb felt scarf as a christmas present.  It still had some work to do on it at this point but I was reasonably pleased with it although one or two of the holes are a bit on the big side.

Ann was working with some stamps she had made from funky foam based on designs on a bronze statue she had photographed.  She was also having a play with markel sticks to make the lovely wavy patterns.

This photograph hasn't come out so well but Maureen has taken a print from a wooden block and turned it into this lovely piece of goldwork.  You can see the original block print in the photographs from the September meeting.

We could do with a few more at our morning sessions and it would be a shame to loose them as those that do come find they get quite a lot done. 

November meeting

Another busy day.  Some people remembered to bring in their work from the worshop earlier in the month and some were carrying on from there doing more pieces of metal work.    A few people were working together making beads from a variety of textiles.   Various pieces of 'Warrior' work are coming along and we spent some time sorting out Christmas lunch, changing cards in the postcard challenge and arranging the date for our exhibition in 2015.  It will be the 24th and 25th of October so get that date in your diaries.  We will move our meeting day forward to the 22nd and then we can follow that by setting up on the 23rd.
Here is some of the work that has been created by the members.

Below are some of the beads that were created on Thursday.

Workshop with Alysn Midgelow-Marsden

We didn't have ameeting in October as several of us went to the Royal Armouries in Leeds for the day to get some inspiration for our Warriors.  We had a really good day out, some ladies brought partners or friends so the mini bus was full and the weather was lovely so it made for a really good day.

An even better day was last Thursday with Alysn Midgelow-Marsden who came to demonstrate 'Meetings with Metals'.  We embossed, burnished, painted and then stitched metal to fabric to make a good set of samples for our books.  After that, there was just enough time for a quick go with Angelina fibres to round off a really good day.   I have now got all my samples in my book but Moira beat me to it as she did hers on Thursday night.  I liked making samples as it is something I don't get much time to do at home.

Here are some of the samples we did.

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.