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.

 

September meeting

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.

https://christinestanford.uk

https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=decorum%20artists

North West Textile Open Day 2024

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.

 

Happy New Stitching Year

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.

July meeting

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! 

We only  time to make a small start, but what an inspirational beginning to our Gaudi gala!