Goodbye from Glossop & District Embroiderers' Guild

The branch has now closed, as have all other branches of the Embroiderers' Guild although there are plans for us to continue as an independent stitch group in the name of Textile Connections.  So the blog is no longer live and we would like to thank all our readers very much for taking an interest in our activities and our work.

Glossop's Small Books

At the moment we are all very restricted in our activities, which has given some of us enough time to work on our Small Books created at the recent workshop with Sandie Maher.  

My book is about birds.  Here are a few of the pages I have done:-

This is the cover of my book, using part of a ladies' hat made in the 1920s.

Please excuse my fingertips in the photos but it was the only way of holding the book open

Flowers are the focus of Joy's book:-

Chris's book is inspired by a holiday in Machu Pichu:-

and Jean, a member of Manchester branch, has used her book to record zentangle designs - zentangles are designs created from structured patterns:-

Very different results from the same workshop, and lots of inspiration for creating your own handmade book.

Workshop with Sandie Maher - Small Books

Sandie brought along a wonderful collection of her own hand-made books covering a wide range of subjects.  They gave everyone so much inspiration for their own books, and we couldn't wait to get started.

Many of the books had intricate cords and fastenings, and the covers were beautifully worked

Now for our own books:

first of all the pages - made from wallpaper lining paper - had to be well soaked, then everyone decided on the colours for painting the pages of their own book.

Then came the fun and messy part of the day - mixing the colours and sloshing the paint onto the paper.  

While waiting for the pages to dry Sandie talked to us about her work and the things she had learned while making her own books.  She was very generous with her ideas and advice for best practice, inspiring everyone to try something a little different.

Here are the projects at the end of the workshop - all of them very different, and you can see that some people worked much faster than others!  Everyone took their books home, looking forward to working on and completing them.  

Glossop - a town built on calico and cotton

At our first meeting of 2020 we were joined by a number of visitors and were very pleased to welcome Matthew Cox, a historian  and tour guide specialising in the history of Glossop.  

Matthew gave us an entertaining and absorbing talk accompanied by a presentation about the history of Glossop, especially in relation to its cotton mills and their social history.  The talk will provide lots of background for our next collaborative group project based on cotton mills.

Also at the meeting was this stitched map of Glossop, including some of its many old cotton mills.  The map has been skilfully stitched by our members Ann Cornes and Christine Bardsley.

Everyone was also asked to bring their stitched fishes and other sea creatures so that Nikki can take them for incorporation in a panel which will eventually be presented by Glossop EG to Reuben's Retreat.  Here is some of the wonderful work you have created:

- and a few close-ups:

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.