October meeting - guest speakers from Altrincham Branch

At our meeting on 25 October we were very pleased to welcome speakers from Altrincham branch, who came along to talk to us about their work.  The first speaker was Sandra McFarlane who talked to us about her beautiful Japanese embroidery.  She displayed several pieces of exquisite work which showed great skill, and huge amounts of patience, and was very much admired.

The second speaker - Beryl Waterfield - described her journey through embroidery which showed a wide range of experience including quilting and passementerie.

Here is Beryl's wonderful quilt, the design of which, she told us, was based on a sheet of gift wrapping paper (you can just see it, rolled up on the table in front of Beryl).  We were then shown this distinctive, colourful box and a beautifully embroidered fan.

Finally, Jenny Legge began by telling us that after she completed her City & Guilds she wished to start making dolls.  But we really didn't expect to see the amazing work which emerged from her boxes!

Jenny showed a range of dolls inspired by the characters which appear in the paintings of Mr L S Lowry, the celebrated local artist:-

                 (apologies for the background photographs of cricketers, which were sadly unavoidable)

 
 I think this chap's name is Alphonse

All members of the audience were left feeling very privileged and inspired by seeing such a range of fabulous work - thank you so much, Altrincham!  

North West Regional AGM

The AGM was held last Saturday,  21 October at Garstang Golf & Country Club.  Several of our members went along and the event was well attended despite being held in such dreadful weather.

All the NW Region branches have submitted a piece of stitching which represents their location, and these have been made up into a beautiful tablecloth.  Glossop's embroidery represented the area's history in textiles, represented by four bobbins.  You can see the work on the bottom row, showing four circles with red centres.  

After lunch there was an enjoyable stitching session where everyone embroidered a paisley motif.

When all the finished works have been received they will be incorporated into a Regional group work and will make up the feathers of a peacock's tail.

GEG Rosebowl competition September 2017

The theme of this year's Rosebowl competition was 20th century artists. Members looked at the work of a variety of artists as a starting point for some very original textile work. The overall winner was Judi Brown whose industrial landscape was inspired by the work of local artist Trevor Grimshaw.

 Her winning entry is below:

All the entries were of a high standard and included reference to the work of Van Gogh, Raoul Dufy, Bridget Riley, David Hockney, Alphonse Mucha, Pablo Picaso, Takumasa Ono, Cornelia Parker and Gustav Klimt. See if you can match the textile images below to the artist who inspired the piece!

  

A visit to York Minster

I am a regular visitor to York Minster, and thought you might like to look at a small sample of the work of York Minster Broderers, which is on exhibition near the choir stalls.

These panels were worked by individual members and are based on birds and beasts to be found in the Minster:

The images aren't quite straight because I was stretching two feet above my head.  I seem to recall there are over thirty pieces of work which make up the exhibit.  If you have an opportunity then they really are worth looking at, as well as the rest of the Minster, of course.

There are also some beautiful embroidered textiles which are changed during the year.  Here is a picture of the altar frontal currently used: beautiful stitching and design.   Definitely worth a visit, especially if it can be combined with a visit to Betty's Tea Shop!

Tempting Textiles

Our Tempting Textiles event was held at Lymefield Garden Centre last Saturday, 30 September and was an astounding success!

We were able to hold the event in the greenhouses which provided lots of light and space.  The day started fairly quietly but quickly became very busy with lots of interested visitors.  Our Harry Ousey piece was much admired and many visitors took away information about our branch.

Our branch had its own stall, as did several of our members.  

The proceeds from the raffle will be donated to Reuben's Retreat, the charity based in the former Woods Hospital in Glossop which provides bereavement support and counselling care for families.

The donation was significantly increased by money raised from a 'name the dolly' competition organised by Joy, and featuring a beautiful doll which she made herself.

We were also fortunate to have two textile artists displaying their work: Hannah Dodd and Eva Thomas, who spoke at our September meeting.  




So we had a wide range of interesting and attractive work for our visitors to admire!

Lymefield supported us by providing excellent refreshments which helped to keep the visitors and stallholders going throughout the day, which was a great success for the traders and for our branch.  We send a huge 'thank you' to the members who supported our hard work.