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.