This was a great opportunity to catch up with other North West textile groups, display samples from our workshops over the last couple of years and sell some surplus books, magazines, fabrics, threads and beads.
Many thanks to members Anne, Clare and Jayne for their help and to Sue S-C for organising.
We were off to a flying start ........
making butterflies for the Butterfly Effect, a charity project organised by Helen Birmingham at Untangled Threads, where Megastitchers has a group membership. For more information about the project and Helen's other work, see
https://www.untangledthreads.co.uk
The butterflies are easy to make and just large enough not to be too fiddley.
Our afternoon speaker was Christine Stanford with a talk entitled A Stitch Back in Time. Christine's presentation, unfortunately, was hampered by IT problems, but we gained an insight into the development of her practice starting with a visit to Platt Hall Museum of Costume as part of her Textile & Embroidery BA degree at MMU. Since then, social history has formed a significant part of Christine's inspiration, whether it be that of the elegant costume wearers or of millworkers.
Christine was one of the founder members of Decorum Artists who have exhibited at a wide variety of venues across the country.
At the end of the talk, we were treated to a demonstration of Christine's signature textile technique of trapping papers and fabrics between layers of paper, which are then waxed and stitched. A sneak preview of the workshop that Christine will be providing for us next May.
For more information about Christine's work and that of Decorum Artists, see the links below.
Megastitchers will be taking part in the 2024 North West Textile Open Day in Barton, Lancashire on Saturday, 21 September.
Ten stands run by various groups - mainly former Embroiderers' Guild branches - showcasing workshop pieces, with sales of fabric/thread inspiration packs, project packs, cards, books and magazines. Demonstrations and a raffle. For more details look for the poster under 'Exhibitions' to the right of this post.
Tomorrow, 1 September, is the start of our new stitching year. To get things off to a good start, there's a preview of what we'll be doing until July 2025 under the 'Programme' heading to the right of this post.
Going all Gaudi!
Antoni Gaudi, the Spanish architect and designer, is our 'Artist of the Year' (for the next two years!).
Our July meeting started with an introductory presentation about Gaudi from Ursula, one of our newer members. This was an interesting and well-illustrated talk taking in some of Gaudi's most famous sites, with insights into his life and design stimuli. It was amazing how little documentary evidence exists for someone who was so innovatory in his creations. Using Gaudi as inspiration, we are definitely going to have a colourful two years!
Before breaking for lunch, we had our AGM where Pam and Jean set a new speed record. Welcome to our new Secretary, Chris.
Ursula then led our afternoon workshop where we took inspiration from the natural forms she provided. Using organza sandwiched in a laminator pouch, then cut into shapes, we added our own beads and threads. Ursula 'encouraged' us to think for ourselves by not providing any samples that we could sneakily copy!
Vintage hand embroidery and dyed threads with Anne Brooke
What better way to start the meteorological summer than with a session putting together fabric and threads with Anne Brooke, who, as always, was chatty, friendly, supportive and generous with her stash.
Anne brought lots of her completed pieces, as well as fabrics, haberdashery, print blocks and 'messy' resources.
We started the morning by learning how to colour threads in an easy, minimally-messy way using Koh-i-noor dye-based watercolours. After a quick demo from Anne, we were soon mixing colour (and tea, intentionally or otherwise!) in pre-prepared trays, taking inspiration from some of the fabrics Anne had brought with her. Such an easy technique, but with great results. Colouring may have been easy, ensuring the threads remained tangle-free when getting them ready for drying was a little more problematic for some of us!
After a quick lunch and another demo, we dived into Anne's stash, combining pieces with some of those that we'd brought from home.
Towards the end of the session, Anne provided more hints on adding fastenings and lettering to our pieces. We didn't quite reach that stage, but we all finished with pieces we were happy to continue working on at home.
Many thanks to Anne, who posts regularly on Instagram and YouTube - look for Anne Brooke Textile Artist and hannemade by anne.
One Saturday in May ..........................
some Megastitchers members and a few friends met up in Poynton for a day of botanical contact printing with Maggie Pearson. It was such an interesting, informative and productive session!
Maggie came well-prepared with fish kettles, pans, hotplates and pre-mordanted fabric. She started the day by giving us a brief overview of what we would be doing and the opportunity to look at and handle some of her work. All accompanied by step-by-step printed instructions should we with to do more at home. It wasn't long before we we arranging leaves on fabric and paper.
Here are photos of some of the outcomes.
Thank you, Maggie, and also Joy for organising such a great day.
