November Meeting

A busy day this month as we had a workshop with Alice Fox.  We were adding found objects with stitch onto fabric.  This was a much calmer lesson than some of the ones we have had recently but it was very much enjoyed by everyone.  Lots of work for you to look at.

Here are the group photos taken at the end of the session.

Here are some of the individual pieces.  The first one is using train tickets.

These are tile spacers.

Shells have been used here.

I know this was Maureen's work.  She had a long narrow strip of hessian which she filled with all sorts of objects and which came out really well. 

October Meeting

A very busy day this week.  Jackie and one or two others brought along their Markel sticks and some paper and fabric and we all had a play with them.  We had lots of stamps and stencils to work with and everyone was busy all morning and into the afternoon.  Next month we have Alice Fox doing a workshop with us so we are all looking forward to that.  Some people have done their postcards already for this round while some of us haven't got started yet!
Here are some of the prints that were made with the Markel sticks.

My phone camera keeps putting some of the photos sideways on and I have to try and work out which ones are wrong, like this one of Carolyns.

Maureen did these two lovely prints on fabric.  We are looking forward to seeing what she does with them.

Sheila did these lovely poinsettia style flowers.

 

Roma produced these pieces using images she had printed before.

Can't remember who's these images belonged to but they are beautiful.  The flowers are so delicate.

I think this was Lesley's work.  It is the beginnings of a landscape and looks really good already.

September Meeting

Nearly everybody present this month now the summer holidays are over and of course everyone was keen to hear what we are doing for our next project.  After much discussion we decided to go for 'Yorkshire's Coast' which should give us plenty of scope for a varied exhibition.  We also decided to work a piece based on a poem and the poem we chose was Cargoes by John Masefield.  It has such a variety of words to get inspiration from and it ties in nicely with the coastal topic as well.  So with the postcard challenge on top of that, we have plenty to keep us occupied during the winter months.
Everyone was stitching or working with their own things this month so here are a few photographs of what was going on.

Liz was painting some papers to make mounts for some work she has done.

Barbara is making a piece inspired by a piece in Wendy Dolan's book Layer, Paint and Stitch

New member Lesley was creating a landscape in this piece.

I recently went on two workshops with Dionne Swift one on fabric manipulation and the other using the embelisher.  Both were excellent and I came home with lots of samples and one piece nearly finished.

This is my nearly finished embelishing work.  I have done a bit more to it at home and now am ready to put some hand stitch in.

The following pictures are some of the fabric manipulation we did.

August Meeting

We got the Lutradur out today to have a look at how you can use it.  We started with a small square to which we added some strips of tissue paper to create a different surface.  We then painted the whole, also adding moulding paste or expandaprint or both, through a stencil.  These were then treated with a heat gun to burn away the lutradur.  Here are some of the pieces that were produced:

I am not sure who's was who's so I won't put any names to them in case I get it wrong.  Some of these turned out really interesting it was a pity we didn't have time to wait for moulding paste to dry properly but everyone got the idea of what you can do.

I think most people are ready to start a new topic so we are thinking about poems, postcards and inspiration for the main body of work.

July Meeting

Today we started looking back as some of the things we have already done to give the new comers a chance to try out different techniques and fabrics that they have not come across before.  We started with Kunin felt which is made from plastic bottles and therefore melts when it is heated.  We made these little medieval tiles, painting bondaweb and attaching to a backing.  From there we add vilene to the back of the backing fabric on which we have drawn our design.  Adding the kunin felt to the front of the fabric over the bondaweb we then stitched round the design with cotton thread and also added a border round the edge.  We cut away excess kunin felt from between the design and the border and then zapped the remaining with a heat gun which melted away the kunin felt in small patches to create a distressed effect.  The remaining felt can then be painted to create a toning piece of work.
Everyone enjoyed doing this, some for the second time as they have been with the group from the start.  Other members brought their own work to do but we haven't started a theme yet although there was some discussion about postcards and another themed display.

Here are some of the tiles we did.

Moira was finishing off some work from the Embroiderers' Guild Regional Summer School.

June Meeting

Not an awful lot to report this month,  We welcomed a new member, Yvonne and set out a plan for the coming year.  We are not starting on our new topic until about September and in the intervening months we are going back to the start of the group and looking at some of the new techniques, fabrics and equipment you can now use in textile work.  We had a quick look at making printed papers as a start for ideas for printing fabric or making an embroidery of your own design.  We also looked at how to isolate a small area in a photograph or picture to inspire a piece of work.  I think work will start next month with Kunin felt and how to use it.

Exhibition at Picturesque Gallery

Our three week run at Picturesque Gallery comes to an end tomorrow and it has been quite a success.  We displayed most of the 'Under the Canopy' work and all the postcards and it filled the available space.  It looked very different to the exhibition at Ayton as the background wall was white and it is a 'gallery' space rather than the boards that we have and that give a more individual display.  See what you think:

exhibition

We had an excellent turn out for our exhibition this weekend and they were treated to a wonderful display of work by all the talented ladies in this group.

I was a bit worried that we wouldn't have enough room for all the work, they had done so much but we managed to find space for everyone on our new display boards.  They proved to have been a good buy and we are now a mobile exhibition, so if anyone wants us to grace their village hall or gallery for a few days, we could probably oblige.

Besides all the wonderful work done for the 'Under the Canopy' section, we had a table full of 'Blue' pieces and two tables of work from workshops.  The postcards took up both side of a display board and with the sales table a raffle, the hall was nicely full.  Our thanks to Val and Angela who provided us with a sales table of their work to which some of our members contributed some of their own work, thus creating a lovely selection of goodies to buy.

If you couldn't make the exhibition this weekend or you have a friend who may be interested, do come along to Picturesque Framing Workshop and Gallery, 8-10 St. John's Road, Scarborough, YO12 5ET between the 6th and 23rd of June daily from 10am to 4pm except Sunday and we will be in the gallery upstairs.

Here are some photographs to whet your appetite. Please excuse my photography.

Our new banners brought quite a few people in.  Several husbands having to do U turns to drive back to us.

Liz's lovely display of machine embroidery opened the show.

Space was so tight that Fran and Christina had to share  a space.

Barbara's Bedouin tent.  The wool scarf was woven by her using shetland wool and sari silk.

One of our newer members, Mavis, still had time to produce all these pieces.

Another new member, Ann hand sewed all this lovely picture of a child asleep under the canopy of her buggy.

Wouldn't you love to be out in the rain if your umbrella was as pretty as Maureen's.

Our cyanotype workshop

This was when we got 'plastered' with Maggie Smith

Everyone's depiction of 'Blue'.

Finally, our postcards, which once again was very popular with the visitors.