WELL TRAVELLED BOOKS AND FOLIOS

Best wishes to everyone for a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Our first meeting of 2016 is on Saturday 2nd January.
Please bring along your travelling books for everyone to have a good look at.

Those of you who are going to carry on "travelling" even if you can't make
it on Saturday please pass it on to another member to bring to the meeting.

Carole Hood

These are some of the examples from our Travelling Books

Betty Ditcher

Heather Waring

We will also have some of the Guild Folios for members to enjoy.

Interesting video...

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER 2015

Our Christmas got off to a really pleasant start on Saturday afternoon.  We had our very lively Branch get together.
Lynda Jamieson organized a Christmas tree making workshop which was enjoyed by all of us.  It's always surprising you all start off with the same materials and how different they are by the end.

We also had a lucky ticket draw with prizes of a Christmas flower arrangement and a pretty bag.   Kindly donated by Christine Hoggarth and Bridget Lowe.  Thank you to everyone for the prizes and the fun workshop.  Of course we finished with afternoon tea all brought by the members, as always it was absolutely delicious.
Merry Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year.

Fashion Felt Design - J Hill Felt

Fashion Felt Design - J Hill Felt
What is Felt Art? Watch how J Hill Artisan Felt fuses fashion and art together through an ancient textile known as felting. By fusing wool and silk together by hand, Jenny creates wearable art fashion. Bryce Johnson Visuals did an amazing job capturing my art!
Posted by J Hill Artisan Felt on Thursday, 3 December 2015

YSL Style is Eternal

I went to see this exhibition at Bowes Museum last week. The embroidery, especially the bead work on the dresses was amazing. The exhibition has been so popular it has been extended until November 8th, so there is still time to visit.

Interesting video - The disappearing art of making scissors by hand....

The first Monday Workshop of 2016

The first Monday Workshop in 2016 is on Monday 11th January has two elements.

One will focus on the Travelling Books that lots of our members have been working on.  Even if you've not been taking part they are very interesting to look though.  You can read more about our Travelling Books project here...


Some other travelling books from around the 'web' world...

Treads Across the Web  is written by someone in Oxford, also an Embroidery Guild member, she tells of her adventure with Travelling Books...

The image about is from the  South Cheshire Embroiderers' Guild blog Travelling Book Challenge.

The second element of the January Monday Workshop is to be directed by you...  please bring along anything that you are working on that you would like to share or maybe have a mini 'show & tell'.  Just like at school, what did you do in the holidays..?  but with an embroidery twist.  

Looking forward to see lots of you & your work there....

Digital Magazine

Another digital magazine for you to drool over...

Two copies of the digital magazine 'Through Our Hands are also been added over here....

CHRISTMAS CELEBRATIONS SATURDAY 5TH DECEMBER

We will be having our Christmas Celebration meeting on Saturday.
A pleasant get together with a buffet tea.
This year our light hearted Christmas workshop will be twig Christmas trees made with 6 inch pieces of twig and plenty of ribbons tied around the trunk and a string hanging loop.

NATIONAL STITCH DAY

This is the finished picture by a lady who joined in the daisy stitching at the library. She was so pleased with it when it was finished that she had it framed and brought for us to see and said how much she had enjoyed the experience.

Interesting video - Cultivating silk...

Cultivating Tasar Silk from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Craft Fayre

We had a very successful day at the Craft Fayre at St Nicholas Church Hall on Saturday. Many thanks to all our members who donated items for us to sell.

So successful we were wondering about taking a stall with a Spring/Easter theme next year. What does anyone think?

Monday workshop 9th November, 2015

We had a very busy morning with Betty showing us how to pull threads and wrap them to make tree trunks which we could then add leaves in a variety of stitches.

Some members have previous experience of this technique and were able to help others to master this method. 

There were eighteen members and one visitor at the workshop so it was useful for people to help each other. 

I think that is the most ladies we have ever had on a Monday morning.

I am sure we are looking forward to seeing the finished samples!

This was one of Betty Ditcher's original woven
trees that she brought along for us to see.

Another lovely example of woven trees.

NATIONAL STITCH DAY   EMBROIDERED T-SHIRT


At our branch meeting on Saturday 7th November Carol Chapman brought in the Caffe  Nero t-shirt that she had embroidered.
It had lovely needle woven daisies as part of the embroidery and our initials and date along the bottom.
Caffe Nero made us very welcome on our National Stitch Day and hopefully the t-shirt will be displayed in their cafe.

    Thank you Carol;  it's lovely.

SATURDAY 7TH NOVEMBER   VICTORIA McLEOD   DIY

We had a very interesting meeting this afternoon.  Victoria talked us through the tools we would find useful for DIY embroidery.  This included a hammer, pliers, screwdrivers, bradawl and others.

Some of the items she used to make her pictures were washers, curtain rings, curtain hooks, zips, buttons, tile spacers and so on.

Victoria used fabrics as backgrounds as well as textured wallpaper and muslin which she sometimes then painted a uniform colour but which still retained the texture.

We got lots of ideas to try out as well as possibilities for outdoor work for the Capability Brown festival at Gibside next year.

This piece used plastic tubing which was wrapped, chains
and washers.
Really colourful and effective.

 This particular piece has washers of different
sizes, buttons, eyelets and electric clips.

 A variety of items in this piece include staples, cuphooks, curtain rings, buttons and sequins.

 This symetrical piece is very effective using tile spacers, washers, curtain hooks and sequins.

 A complete change of scene - this piece uses varous textured wallpapers, brown paper, muslin, paints and then stitch.

This piece uses air dried clay.

Victoria printed off fabric maps of places which had special memories for her and then embellished the piece with stitch.

                               These two piece use a zip, back pockets from jeans, shirt pockets and various other pieces.  Definitely re-cycling.

All in all a very interesting and pleasant afternoon.  Certainly a different take on embroidery and stitch.

Monday Workshop 9th November 2015

This months workshop is Trees by Betty.

Materials

Loose weave fabric size 6" x 4" (approx) threads will be withdrawn (scrim works well)

Assorted threads

Blunt needle

Embroidery hoop

Please note that the workshop is the Monday following our Saturday meeting.

Saturday's Meeting

Saturday's meeting is a talk by Victoria Macleod titled DIY Embroidery. Sounds intriguing.
At the meeting we will have some calendars for sale featuring work by various guild members from our region.
We are also selling a new magazine, Creative with Workbox. These will be sold at £3.50, a pound cheaper than from newsagents.
Hope to see you there.

Interesting video - Dyeing the Kimono...

Yohji Yamamoto: Yuzen from Victoria and Albert Museum on Vimeo.

Whitworth Art Gallery Manchester

I visited the Whitworth to see Cornelia Parker's Magna Carta work. It was fascinating and I loved the story behind its making. It was fun spotting the famous names and finding the words they had stitched. The embroidery pictures stitched by Guild members were impressive. I hadn't realised but there was another exhibition involving textiles called Art_Textiles. This had pieces by various textile artists, most of which I hadn't heard of, but including Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry. The exhibition was interesting, exploring the 'art or craft' conundrum, and was definitely textiles on a large scale

Interesting video - How beauty is produced...

Observing and Transforming Tradition from Takashi Hirukawa on Vimeo.

TRAVELLING BOOKS

During most of this year 3 groups of branch members have been producing some beautiful small pieces of work for the travelling books.

There were 6 members in each group and a list of who to pass it to next.

Each month the members involved made a new piece of work, fastened it into the current book and at the next meeting passed it on to the next member on the list.

At each meeting there were lots of ohhhs and ahhhhs as the latest pieces were admired by everyone.
The photos are from one members book, Gillian Garrod, one of our newer members and the name of the person who made it.

The first piece in the book is one put in by the owner of the travelling book, in this case Gillian Garrod.  Her inspiration was an Autumn walk.

 This is Lynda Jamieson's version of using Shisha.
Traditionally used in Indian embroidery, the mirror catches the light.

Carole Hood's inspiration was a photograph and an article in Stitch magazine.

Diane Jones put recycling and "waste not, want not" to good use for her piece.  A small piece of painted canvas, inherited canvas wools, and ribbon from the shoulders of a garment  used to keep the top on the hanger.

This was done by Linda Danby on holiday
 in Crete.
 Blues and greens were used as they remind
 her of holidays in the sun.

CORINNE YOUNG DAYSCHOOL 6TH SEPTEMBER 2015

After a talk at the branch on 5th September several members took part in a dayschool with Corinne Young on the following day.  (Sunday 6th).

Staithes Festival

I heard Staithes Festival of Arts and Heritage 2015 mentioned on last nights Look North. The event looks exciting and we have some members taking part. Further details at www.staithesfestival.com/artists/

BRANCH MEETING 5TH SEPTEMBER 2015

CORINNE YOUNG  FLOWERS

We had a very interesting afternoon with Corinne Young.  Her talk was about all the wonderful things she has done since completing her degree course.  From showing her degree pieces in the Pall Mall gallery in London to designing and producing pieces for the publicity of the stage show of Lord of the Rings.
Corinne has a very good way of expressing what she has done with a very good selection of slides to go with her talk.  All in all a lovely afternoon and it was a privilege to listen to her.

 

Embroiderers' Guild National Stitch Day

We had a very enjoyable day in Cafe Nero, Guisborough and were made very welcome by the staff.
The idea was to stitch daisies or other flowers on to 4" squares in the same style as the Rainbow Squares.
I've finally finished my piece this afternoon.
Thank you to everyone who came and supported the Branch.

 This Daisy piece was stitched by Carole Hood.
Carole took fabric and thread into a local library
and  persuaded some friends to have a go at stitching daisies. 









This is one of the daisies stitched by a friend of
Carole's in the library.

Holy Skirts....

In March 2011, fragments of 23 medieval manuscripts were discovered sewn into the hems of dresses.  These dresses were made by nuns at the Cistercian convent of Wienhausen (Northern Germany) in the late 15th century to dress up sculptures for feast days.

You can read more about the book here...  (however it is in German)

or Nora Wilkinson talks about 'Finding Manuscripts in Unusual Places' here...

Embroiderers Guild National Stitch Day

The ladies from Grove Hill library Knit and Natter Group celebrated National Stitch Day by stitching daisies. We had a discussion about the best way to make French Knots.

I would like to thank  everyone who took part it was very enjoyable .

Posted by Carole Hood

Carole took fabric and threads in to her local library and persuaded some of her friends to have a go at stitching daisies.  This is one of those pieces.