October meeting - starting a wall hanging for Reuben's Retreat

We had an early start to our October meeting - 10.00am, so we had extra time to work on our contributions to the wall hanging.  We were led and directed by Nikki Parmenter who is generously giving her time to design the hanging and to help us to see it through to a successful conclusion.

The wall hanging is to have a theme of 'under the sea' and, on arriving for the meeting, we were greeted by a wonderful stash of shiny, twinkly fabrics and trimmings together with a selection of templates to get us started.

Everyone started on their contribution to the panel with Nikki offering help at every step to anyone who needed it.

 

Lots of busy stitchers.  Some fabulous work was started and everyone took their piece home to carry on stitching  - now we are all waiting for the next step in making the wall hanging...!

Textiles Day at Lymefield

Glossop EG's latest Textiles Day was held at Lymefield last Saturday, 12 October.  We were very well supported by other crafts artists and members of other EG branches, and we attracted a constant flow of people who were interested in the beautiful work exhibited and for sale.

We put on a great display of our own work.  Here are some of the Travelling Books:-

And this is some of the work exhibited as 'Busy B's' - bowls, books, bags, birds, boxes, bracelets.....

We sold lots of items from the branch sales table - this is a very small selection of the Inspirations packs.



Lymefield made us very welcome and we all felt that we had a very successful day.

2019 Rose Bowl competition

The theme for this year's Rose Bowl entries was to incorporate lace into your embroidery.  We had lots of original entries - very accomplished and very beautiful:-

Unfortunately by the time photographs could be taken several of the works had been removed, so many thanks to Pat Babbage for the use of her photographs.

The entry which received the most members' votes was Serene Swan (by Judi Brown) which incorporates antique lace and real swan feathers:-

Judi would like to thank all those who voted for this work and would like to assure you that no swans were harmed in its making!

September meeting - From Image to Stitch

After the AGM we enjoyed an interesting talk by Allison James as she took us on a journey through her life in stitching.  Like many of us, when she was young Allison enjoyed lots of crafts and stitching and when she was older she attained a City & Guilds Certificate and Diploma, where she also learned the importance of design.

Allison went on to tell us how her husband's photographs inform her work and have led to inspirational collaborations resulting in several bodies of work.

The 'Leaves' quilt (on the right) was designed by Allison from the atmospheric photographs on the left:

This beautiful quilt - Nature's Necklace - was inspired by the photograph of raindrops suspended in a cobweb.  The raindrops were expressed on the quilt by lines of French knots:

This composite photograph was used to design the quilt below, called 'The disintegration of a dandelion' :

A photograph of trees in autumn was one of the sources for this quilt, using improvisational piecing techniques :

And, finally, a wonderful quilt on the theme of 'In the bleak mid winter':

Allison's talk was very much enjoyed by everyone and was a marvellous start to our 2019-20 programme.

Exhibition at Glossop Railway Station

Our exhibition has been mounted in Glossop Railway station's waiting room.  Most of the embroideries were exhibited at Chatsworth earlier this year.  Here they are:-

The exhibition will be open until the end of October so there is plenty of time to pop along when you are in Glossop.

June meeting - three corners

National Stitch Day

On 22nd June, the Saturday before our meeting, several committee members spent the day in Glossop indoor market explaining the aims and activities of the Guild to anyone who would listen.  A number of people stopped for a chat with some enjoying stitching under Joy's supervision.

Three corners

The branch meeting held on 26 June was 'Three corners': Kantha, Batik and Canvaswork and everyone could take part in the activity of their choice.

The first activity was Kantha, led by Allison James.  Kantha is a traditional form of embroidery practised in Asia and especially in India to re-use old fabrics - recycling at its most creative!  Allison brought along a couple of stitched items including a beautiful jacket made from old kantha quilts, which she wore to the meeting.  She also showed a book of her own researches, illustrating different forms of the stitch.  

Allison brought some beautifully stitched items for inspiration.

- and here are two of the pieces stitched at the meeting.

On another group of  tables, members were busy being shown how to work with batik wax-resist dyeing, led by Ann Cornes.  To make a batik, areas of the cloth are painted out with the resist and then the fabric is painted or dyed with colour.  Ann brought this colourful bag as a skilful example of the technique-

- and members set to work to create their own batiks.  What beautifully coloured samples!

In the third 'corner' a group led by Chris Harris were shown canvaswork, which is a form of counted thread embroidery worked on - you've guessed it - canvas.  Here is a sample which includes a range of different stitches and threads:

Under Chris's expert guidance, members were inspired to create their own work:

Amongst other work displayed at the meeting were these two pieces.  Here is an embroidery in a new travelling book (love the alligator peeping out of the water): 

and this is one of the felted pieces produced at the recent nuno felting workshop held by Valerie Hughes:

Everyone who attended the meeting would like to thank the tutors for their enthusiastic and inspirational help.

May meeting - South African textiles with Catherine Leighton

We were very pleased to welcome Catherine, who brought along a wonderful range of embroidery and other pieces of work which had been inspired by her interest in South African textiles.  She is a regular visitor to South Africa and told us of her love for such a colourful country, and for its tribal arts using hand dyed cloth.

 

Catherine told us of the Kaross embroidery project, which was founded as a way of bringing creative opportunities to mainly rural women.  Their work reflects a passion for colour and for African culture.  One of their products is hand-embroidered cushion covers and Catherine showed us some she had stitched in the style of Kaross.

She then passed around more of her beautifully hand-stitched work for everyone to admire.

Catherine also enjoys making beautiful hand-stitched bags, using space-dyed fabrics:

 

Many thanks to Catherine for such an informative and interesting talk.