May Meeting and Exhibition

The meeting on the 16th was spent finishing off work for the exhibition and working out how it was all going to be hung.  We still had a few changes to make on the day but we started at 8.30am on the Saturday and we were ready for opening the doors by just gone 10 o'clock.  How's that for teamwork!
The two day exhibition went really well.  We had more visitors than ever and the repeat ones said how good it was to have such an exhibition in our area.  The sales table did really well and was looking quite depleted by the end of Sunday.  I am quickly searching through my work and making extra cards for sale at Picturesque Gallery, 8-10 St. John's Road, Scarborough, YO12 5ET, which starts on Saturday 1st June and runs to Saturday 29th June, 10am to 4pm Monday to Saturday.  The sales table is only available on Saturdays.  Thoughts are now turning to a new topic to work on and the side items that we do as well.
Here are a few photographs to whet your appetite to visit us in June.

Christine's 'Bomber Command' seagulls caused much amusement.

Christina's piece on fishing, nets and crab pots.

Ann's ammonites.

Lesley's delicately coloured landscapes and sketchbooks.

March Meeting

Today a few of us started putting together the postcards for the exhibition.  They look stunning once they are all together.  Just waiting for a few more to come in.

Here is a poster for our exhibition with all the information for Ayton and Picturesque gallery. Hope you can read it OK.

Everyone else was working on pieces for the the exhibition and things are moving along well.  It was a lovely sunny day and a shame to be inside but we enjoy our day working away.

Christina's shells are lovely

Some rusting been going on here.

Christine's high seas which morph into a sea serpent is coming on really well.

Shame this didn't photograph so well but it is Ann's tiny pieces of work attached to a larger fabric.

February Meeting

I hadn't forgotten to do the blog  for February, I have just been so busy this last week with my daughter here for half term, we have been out and about enjoying tea and cake as much as possible.
We had an enjoyable meeting with lots of work going on for the exhibition and lots of arrangements sorted for it.  Posters are printed so if anyone wants one, just get in touch with me.  Unfortunately it won't upload onto this site.

Beach huts on the Yorkshire coast.

I think Helen is working on her 'Cargoes' piece, one of these looks like a 'stately Spanish galleon'

Carolyn has returned to the plaster work technique we learnt with Maggie Smith.

Christine has gone for a fun collection of work using the idea of the family going on holiday to the seaside.

This is the start of the postcards coming in for mounting on strips of canvas which will then be hung on display boards for the exhibition.  Always an interesting moment when we see the postcards we didn't get and everyone's interpretations.

January Meeting

Into the new year now and the exhibition is creeping closer.  Planning is going ahead quite well although my brain still keeps trying to tell me it is a long way off yet.
Today we did some experimenting with such things as lutradur, tyvek and other heat dissolvable fabric and also using expandaprint and moulding paste as resists.  It's always useful to have a go at these things before going out and buying them and then finding you don't like them.  Christine was also trying out angelina fibres for a lovely piece of work she is producing.

Christina has been working on crab pots.

Some painted and heated lutradur

Ann has been busy making lots of samples of ammonites and also this lovely blue rock pool using a marbling bath.

Cath's lovely ammonite will probably be on our poster this year.

November Meeting

Two exhibitions on in Scarborough until the 28th November, Picturesque Framers and Gallery on St. John's Road, Falsgrave have Ayton Artists and Friends, Monday to Saturday from 9.30am to 4pm with tea and cake available on Saturday along with crafts for sale.  This is a mixed media exhibition with artists and textile artists together.  The other exhibition is at Woodend, next door to the art gallery, where Helen Birmingham has her 1568 Hearts exhibition.  This is a commemoration of the end of WW1 and each of the 1568 hearts represents a day of the war.  All done in individual styles, mostly stitch but inspired by the hearts that the soldiers made while recuperating in hospitals.  Both are worth a visit if you are in the area.

A busy day again on Thursday, this time we were printing.  We had stamps, stencils, gelliplates, paint and markel sticks on the go and most were working up to 2 o'clock getting lots of printed fabric to stitch on.  Here are some of the work that was done.  Not sure who's is who's.

This stamp is a string print taken from an ordnance survey map.

These are the leaves that Lesley had left after using them for printing.  She is hoping to varnish them and use them in something else.

October Meeting

I hadn't realised I'd forgotten to do this blog until I was updating the Guild one and saw that I hadn't updated this one for five weeks.
Well we had a lovely messy day dyeing fabric.  Some members had never done any dyeing before so those that had brought in their dyes and we made up some plastic bags full of fabrics and eventually we all went home with some very bright pieces of fabric for future use.  There was a bit of magenta and some blue left so I took them home, mixed them up and got some lovely raspberry coloured fabric and thread.  I think I will buy some black dye to tone down the colours for the next time I decided to do some dyeing.  It's really easy to do at home when you use the plastic bag method and not really messy if you remember to put your gloves on.

Here are some of the results.  Look at these lovely colours in the cat litter trays (sorry cats).

I kept my wet wipes with the dye mop ups and have got some pretty pieces I can use as backgrounds.

Fabrics all wrapped up ready to be taken home.

Not everyone was dyeing and this lovely crab and cliff face were being stitched.

Next month we are continuing with the messy work and doing some printing.  Useful for the pieces we weren't too keen on from the dyeing.

August and September

I hadn't realised that I had missed the August blog.  We had a reasonable turn out as I know many are on holiday or looking after grandchildren.  We just did sewing and getting on with our work and made plans for a dyeing day in October. 

The problem with leaving it so long to do the blog I can't remember which is who's work so I will leave you to just enjoy the photographs.

September was another meeting where people just carried on with their work but there was some interesting work to see.

Christina's piece from the Embroiderers' Guild summer school with Anne Brookes.

Think this is Kath's work using chiffons'

Carolyn had been printing on fine fabric

Maureen printed this fabric some weeks ago using Markel sticks and is now embroidering it.

Next month we are all bringing in our fabric and dyes to have a day dyeing together!