February Meeting

 M is for.......Manipulation and Melanie

Last Saturday was another lively and interesting day at Megastitchers, with short, taster, fabric manipulation sessions in the morning and a fabulous talk from Melanie Kay in the afternoon.

Here are a couple of samples from two of the tutors showing all the techniques we covered - Suffolk puffs/yo-yos, prairie points, stuffed puffs and furrowing.

There was only 25 minutes or so for each session so it was not possible for tutor to do a long show-and-tell and for members to complete lots of their own samples, but a very good start was made by many. Thank you to the four tutors.

 

Members who weren't taking part in the morning manipulations made progress with their own projects, or with samples started at previous workshops (well done to the crazy patchworkers!)

After a short lunch and a quick re-arrangement of the UC furniture, we welcomed Melanie Kay, a design technology/textiles teacher and textile artist, who had come with sketch books, completed work and handling samples.

Melanie is a graduate of the University of Bolton, and in 2011 was selected to take part in the Embroiderers' Guild Showcase at the Knitting & Stitching Shows, where she was awarded the Textile Study Group Award. She also won first prize in the Bradford Design Competition and the Premier Vision award, with a trip to Paris.

Through her work, Melanie makes a thoughtful exploration of gender issues, including domestic violence and alcohol abuse. She cites Grayson Perry as an important inspiration, where a seemingly decorative piece of work, on closer inspection, has an underlying, significant social message.

Melanie told us about the various methods she had used for changing the surface of, and punching holes in, her original (and cheap) chosen 'fabric' - recycled beer cans - and how she embroidered them.  

Research for her Masters subject - 'Can an artist or designer impact consumer behaviour'? - has led her to move away from metals into packaging, making large (three times the size) replicas of such things as match boxes and chocolate boxes. Here are some photos of the display tables.

Thank you, Melanie, for a lively, humorous and thought-provoking talk.

January meeting

It was a gentle introduction to 2025 with a well-attended Zoom presentation from Pam about designing a piece of work using Gaudi mosaics as inspiration.

Once we had decided the overall shape of our work, and its orientation, we were instructed to look at our preferred mosaic and identify broad swathes of colour, rather than looking at the individual pieces of tile.  (Not all of us obeyed, see below!) The outlines of these areas could then be sketched onto paper or fabric. Six or seven areas of colour were deemed sufficient.  If sketched on paper, they could be scanned into a computer and manipulated by elongating, squashing etc. before being copied onto fabric.

The choice of colour, or colours, and stitching was up to us, but, as always with Pam, there was another condition.  We had to use a different weight of thread in each area of stitching, hence the limit of six or seven! White or cream thread was suggested for outlined to represent the mortar/cement.

Sue didn't quite comply with the instructions, but simply sketched out a small area of monochrome mosaic that had a variety of individual shapes and spacings between them. Threads used were 6-stranded - 1, 3, 5 and 6 strands -perle 8 and 12, perle 3 with no. 8 crochet yarn and a knitting yarn.

More photos, hopefully, next month when members have completed their samples ready for our February meeting.

December meeting

It was Robin Day! No, not the bowtie-wearing journalist and broadcaster but a day of making robins in various ways - decorations, Christmas tree ornaments and brooches. These are the examples made by Sue.

With lots of resources to choose from, members made a good start on their robins, before having a break for a very tasty 'Jacob's Feast' lunch and voting in our two competitions.

Then, it was back to some more stitching before the raffle was drawn and the competition winners were announced

Congratulations to Nicole (Kathleen Mason award for Stitching) and Christine H (Anne Mullins award for Design). Here's a section of Nicole's blackwork piece and the front cover of Chris's fabric book.

🎄🎄 🎅🎅 🎄🎄 🎅🎅🎅🎅 🎄🎄 🎅🎅 🎄🎄 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to stitchers everywhere!

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November meeting

An inspiring full day workshop using die cutting machines was led by Jane Hadfield. 

No, we didn't use the machines to cut out card or fabric shapes, we used them to make collagraph style prints using scraps of lace and braids and carbon paper. Who thought that carbon paper would make a comeback, and that it was available in such a variety of colours.

Jane was, of course, very well-prepared, presenting us with carbon paper, some card with which to create our print plate, a card envelope for passing through the machine. and a variety of ready-cut papers.

Here are some of the resources that Jane brought for use in making the print plates.

This was definitely a process in which experimentation was the key and could be a bit hit-and-miss trying to get the right combination of carbon paper (it can vary so much!) and correct pressure on the print plate. But... we all achieved something that we felt we could build on, and, in the afternoon, some of us moved onto using several different colours, overprinting, and even printing on fabric.

Here are some photos from the morning, unfortunately, it was a very dull day and lighting in our meeting venue was appalling, so nothing from the afternoon.

Thank you, Jane, for a great day.  Christmas cards are calling, and the multicolour pack of carbon paper arrived yesterday........

Exhibitions: Out and About from Manchester

62 Group - Making as Learning

At: Salts Mill (Roofspace), Victoria Rd, Saltaire, Shipley, BD18 3HU

Open: Now until 3 November 2024, Wednesday to Sunday, 11.00 am to 4.00 pm

Free entry, exhibitions, shops, places to eat.

It's 62 years since the formation of the 62 Group, this is a huge exhibition with many site-specific and large pieces.

https://www.62group.org.uk/

https://www.saltsmill.org.uk/

Threadmill - Remember, Re-act, Retell

At: Farfield Mill, Garsdale Rd, Sedburgh, LA10 5LW

Open: Now until 22 December 2024, Wednesday to Sunday, 10.30 am to 4.00 pm

Free entry, exhibitions, studios, shops and tea room.

An exhibition celebrating the heritage of the woollen industry or Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dale.

https://threadmill.org.uk/

October Meeting

Going Crazy over Patchwork

Our morning started with an introduction to crazy patchwork from Jean, with some examples (some more organised than crazy!) provided by Joy and Lynda.

Members were soon hard at work putting together their own pieces using an incredible range of fabrics. Not enough time to finish is a two-hour morning session, but a good start. Thanks, Jean, hope you're going to monitor progress at future meetings!

Velvets, silks, prints, faux leather (!), a Hardangar sample..........anything goes when you're going crazy!

Our afternoon speaker was Gale Owen Crocker, Professor Emerita of the University of Manchester, formerly Professor of Anglo-Saxon Culture and Director of the Manchester Centre for Anglo-Saxon Studies. Gale has written and contributed to many books and research papers on the period. She specialised in interdisciplinary research and this was evident from her talk.

In a well-illustrated talk, Gale told us about gold embroidery, in what is now referred to as the Early Medieval period, starting with the re-discovery of the Maaseik embroideries in Belgium through to the 'St Cuthbert' maniple and stole in Durham, with interesting diversions into tablet-weaving, stitches and gold thread manufacture.

Although there's no gold, Gale couldn't resist also mentioning the Bayeux Tapestry, on which we'd previously had (a much less researched!) talk and from which we'd stitched some small samples. 

Thank you, Gale, for a great talk.

If you want to go down memory lane to Bayeux, look at Ro's stitched book cover in the March 2023 meeting post and the October meeting post, where there's also some modern interpretations of Bayeux stitch.

North West Textile Open Day 2024

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.