Expressive Stitches by Dionne Swift

Dionne's talk has been much anticipated by our members, and we were joined by a number of visitors on a very rainy day.

Dionne told us about her background and journey in textiles.  She studied at Goldsmiths College and was fortunate to have some of the very best tutors: Alice Kettle, Michael Brennand-Wood, Audrey Walker.  She offers a wide range of workshops, some of which are held at Janome (only a few miles away from Glossop) and some are based online.  Leaflets were available at the meeting but if you wish to know more details then either contact Dionne or speak to a committee member at our next meeting.

She brought along some of her work, which beautifully illustrated her use of free-machine stitching:

and through her slideshow she showed how important her sketching is to the finished textile work.  She also stitches the most covetable brooches, its so easy to visualise them on your favourite dress or jacket.

Dionne told us about some of her other work for example 'Collective Stitches' which is a touring exhibition of work undertaken by her students around the world.  She also showed images of some of the work done in her community projects.  A very busy lady!  For more information take a look at her website: www.dionneswift.com.

Elsewhere during the meeting, many of the travelling books were brought along and have now started the next step of their journey.  And we were very pleased - and impressed - to see four of the completed rag rugging projects:

North West Regional Day

A group of members drove over to Leyland in Lancashire on Saturday, 21 April to attend the North West Regional Day, hosted this year by the North West committee of which our own Chair, Ann Cornes, is a hard-working member.

At last year's Regional AGM attendees were asked to stitch a paisley shape in blue and lilac threads.  These were sent away to be incorporated into the tail of a beautiful peacock, which delighted everyone and was much admired, with everyone identifying their own tail feather:

The Guild's Members' Challenge for 2017-18 was 'Underfoot'.  There were over 80 entries including submissions by several of our members, and Christine Bardsley received a Highly Recommended certificate, which was presented to her at Regional Day.

There was a small display of work by Glossop members:

Nikki Parmenter took along her beautiful work of a peacock, which made a great contrast to the stitched hanging, and was much praised (apologies for the chairs in the background, but they were unavoidable):

So - a great day for Glossop!

Other news is that this year's Summer School is fully booked.  At the meeting everyone voted on the theme for the Regional Rose Bowl in 2020 which is 'All you need is love'.  Lots of time to produce your own work!

A Coastal Perspective by Alice Fox

At our March meeting we welcomed a number of visitors when Alice Fox came to talk to us about the work she did in 2012 whilst she was Artist in Residence at Spurn Point, a nature reserve and a place which is very exposed to the weather.  Alice was based there for six months and found the old lighthouse to be very useful for sheltering from the weather and also for displaying the work she had produced during her residency.

Her work from this time shows a range of marks and stains made on fabric and paper by the collection of discarded objects she found at Spurn Point:

The objects were trapped or stitched into cloth and exposed to the outside elements over a period of time, which resulted in a beautiful range of marks on the cloth and stitch.  The members and visitors very much enjoyed Alice's talk and found her work to be both interesting and inspirational, which generated much discussion.