The Hebden Bridge WI Rag Market!
It's on Saturday, 12 April 2025 from 10 am to 3.30 pm with three venues - The Waterfront at the Town Hall, Northlight studio and the Making Mill. It's always a great day out and a good mixture of traders, makers selling offcuts and surplus, and individuals having a stash clearout. There are plenty of places for coffee or lunch and it's easy to get to from Victoria Station in Manchester.
https://hebdenbridgewi.com/rag-market/
Megastitchers are in print! Have a look at the article about stitch groups in the new edition (April/May 2025) of Stitch magazine for information about our group, what we get up to at meetings and photos of some of our work.
Another cool, but sunny, March morning saw us making (loosely) Gaudi-inspired fragmented patterns using some of our stash of old transfers. Here are Sue's 'ones I prepared earlier' samples.
Clockwise from top left: 'repaired' with Italian quilting, repaired (much too symmetrically) with raised chain band, Kintsugi-inspired, random pottery shard display.
By the end of the two hours everyone had made a good start on their piece, hopefully, sufficiently inspired to complete at home. Unfortunately, the tutor's photography brain was absent during the workshop, but here's a completed, Kintsugi-inspired, piece that Gill posted on the Megastitchers Facebook page. Thank you, Gill, well-stitched!.
In the afternoon, we had a talk from our member, Lynda, about her recent trip to Japan, and in particular the textile culture of the Ainu people from the north, around Hokkaido, and recent attempts to re-vitalise it.
The Ainu had three styles of embroidery: that directly onto fabric, embroidery over strips of fabric that form 'roads' and embroidery applied over wider strips. There are different symbols in the patterns depending on where people live, but many of the patterns have been lost because of earlier attempts to wipe out culture and customs.
Lynda illustrated her talk with an interesting YouTube video, samples, leaflets and books, and items on which she had recreated some traditional patterns.
There are some good short You Tube videos about Ainu culture, including using bark and other natural materials to make clothing and household items, and links to museum collections.
