November meeting - something old, something new

Our morning workshop, led by Pam, was inspired by the Gawthorpe Textiles collection, following the September presentation by Rachel Midgley, curator. The Gawthorpe collection ranges from an embroidered herb pillow circa 1580’s with spangles and metallic lace on linen, to canvas work, silk work, and lavishly embroidered skirts and tablecloths from 1900’s.

Pam had prepared fabrics, templates, examples, ideas for stitches to use and embroidery resource books. Sue’s example was a paisley pattern on finer dress material.

Stitches:

Burden, Brick, Couching, Darning, Detached buttonhole stitch

Forbidden stitch, French knots, Outline stitch, Pekinese stitch

Running, Satin, Stem, Silk shading and Tent stitch. 

The Anchor book of Crewel Stitches was very helpful. Crewelwork developed in the 1600’s. Wall hangings, clothes and household items were decorated with exotic plants, animals and fruits, using brightly coloured wools and a range of stitches on linen or wool fabrics.  Now cotton and silk threads are often used, with a Crewel needle. Shapes are outlined first in chain, stem stitch or couching and follow the design outline, ignoring the material’s weave. Then the design area is filled with different laid stitches. Very exciting and colourful. And it's also possible to add previously-made motifs, such as Petra's Suffolk puff.

 

In the afternoon Lynda gave a presentation - The Alchemy of Design - on her journey to becoming a textile artist.  Winding down to retirement, having started work at 16, she found courage to enrol in a Stockport college foundation year and she did a taster week with each discipline. Week 4 was an instruction to play, with white cartridge paper – for her a light bulb moment that fired her creativity. She thought about Sense of Place, made a plan, a mind map, played with photos, gelli plate prints (Lynda says you can never have too many of these!), rubbings, collages, and experimented with how to produce ideas on fabric.

Fuelled by a continuing desire to learn and develop her practice, Lynda attended at a wide range of workshops, including some on-line, made a hexagon meander book, added words, layers, and lattices - all leading led to the making of more complex pieces. 

Thank you Pam & Lynda for an inspirational day, and to Clare for the words and pictures.

 

 

Great Northern Textile Show

Only two more days to buy your ticket for this local show as ticket sales end on 28th October. Go to https://greatnortherntextileshow.com for booking via Eventbrite. Tickets are £7.50, with timed entry.

Lots to see, including demos (Pam is on the IFA stand), and, of course, it's a great retail opportunity whether you sew, knit/crochet, quilt, felt or dye.

The venue is BeActive Urmston (formerly the George Carnall Community Hub), Manchester, M41 7FJ.

Interested in natural dyeing?

STRETFORD COMMUNITY DYE GARDEN is launching a new project, in partnership with Friends of Victoria Park Stretford. Thanks to RHS funding, they are working to create a dye garden in Victoria Park. There'll be workshops on natural dyeing and other resources, with lots of opportunities to learn and volunteer. If you've got green fingers, are interested in natural dyeing or growing, or keen to learn, find out more and complete their survey below to register your interest.

Survey link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdWnipE1rRZsAQn-ld5Fv-jEVSwlwlIolQ1y7sODbVFfeaWBA/viewform

October meeting - Bring On the Beady Bling!

Nicole led a fun, friendly and fiddly workshop at our October meeting making small beaded danglies/decorations.  She saved us the trouble of sorting through our own stuff by bringing packs with all the requirements - although we did have the problem of colour choice, whether it was autumnal, festive (for those of us who like to be prepared!) or traditional. Thanks you, Nicole.  Here are some of the completed pieces.

Our afternoon session was a talk by Stewart Kelly, a locally-based and internationally recognised artist. Using some excellent photos of his work, Stewart took us through his career from a BA at Liverpool John Moores, an MA at MMU and, currently as a Post-Graduate Researcher at MMU. He has also taught in arts and community mental health projects.  Much of Stewart's work is based on his drawings of the human form, cutting, weaving and heavily machine stitching the new surface.

There's more information about Stewart Kelly's work, and some excellent photos, in the March/April 2023 edition of Embroidery magazine.

Leek Exhibitions

It's not often that there's an opportunity to see two great textile exhibitions in such close proximity!

Stitchlines - Exploration and Transformation (until 11 November)

Textiles and mixed media work exploring different techniques that transform surfaces.

Foxlowe Arts Centre, Stockwell St, Leek       Tel: 01538 386112

Exhibition in The Gallery on the first floor (stairs, no lift), excellent cafe on the ground floor.

Open Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 4pm

Threadmill - Kaleidoscope (until 4 November)

An exploration of colour, texture and pattern developed from the Arts & Crafts Movement and The Leek Embroidery Society

Nicholson Institute, Stockwell St, Leek          Tel: 01538 395530

Exhibition on the first floor (stairs & lift), with museum (includes work of the Leek Embroidery Society) and Tourist Information.  Library on the ground floor.

Open Monday to Saturday 10am to 4pm

September Meeting

Welcome to the new year at Megastitchers!

We started our 2023-24. season with a relaxing Zentangle session led by Jean and Maureen. Or relaxing if you felt confident in drawing a few wiggly lines, for other it was easier to take inspiration from a design from our continuing artist of the year,Clarice Cliff. 

Once outlines were completed we would be able to fill selected areas with colour, using stitches of our choice. Still a long way to go after a short session to match the samples provided by our tutors!

The afternoon session was a talk by Rachel Midgley, curator of the Gawthorpe Textiles Collection. Supported by some excellent photos, Rachel told us about the history of the collection, which, in turn, illustrated many aspects of embroidery history of the last 500 years or so.  The density of some of the stitching was amazing - most of the threads on the front of the pieces, of course, because of the cost of materials at the time. 

And, there was also a small Gawthorpe retail opportunity to round off the day!

Many thanks to everyone involved for an excellent start to our year.

July Meeting - Snakes!

The morning started with a talk from Angela about her favourite animal - SNAKES (although she does like other reptiles, as well) - and their place in history, religion, culture, art and medicine.  Angela's early interest in reptiles, and photography, was clearly demonstrated in her presentation and her enthusiasm continues to this day where she has used them as inspiration for her BA.  We admired lovely printed fabrics Angela had designed, along with some snakeskins, and were able to look at some sketchbooks she had produced as part of her degree work.

After the AGM and lunch, the workshop started with Angela showing us the stitched snake she has produced some time ago, the first piece she had designed.

Angela told us several ways in which we could create our snake using stuffed fabric tubes, twisted fabric, crotchet with multiple lengths of yarn and beads, using some of her resources and those we had brought. Here are some of the early results.

An enjoyable day with some techniques that could be used elsewhere. Thank you, Angela.