FELT TO STITCH Workshop with Sheila Smith

On Saturday 20th March  14 members met to take part in the workshop ‘Felt to Stitch’ and what a day we had.

Sheila is a very accomplished teacher and she brought some beautiful inspirational samples for us to see as ideas for starting  points.  These included raised areas, ruched shapes, bobbles, tucks and cut flower shapes and we couldn’t wait to get started.

Ann and Marjorie below in deep concentration!!

All of the samples below are in the initial stages of felting and stitching.

A piece of layered felting by Pat Bean.

Beautiful fine textured piece on scrim by Gwen.

The 3 photographs above were taken by Sue Chisnall.

These 2 are mine – based on fungi on a tree – the piece above was worked on scrim with a variety of wool tops and throwster’s waste.
The piece below is layers of   throwster’s waste, wool fibres, felted cords and distorted silk sheers on top of a ready made pre-felt.

I think you will see from these that we all had a most enjoyable day and I for one can’t wait to get on and finish my pieces.

Thanks to Sheila for a most inspiring day.

I hope to have more pictures of the finished pieces at a later stage.

Journal Quilts talk by Judy Fairless

Unfortunately I could not attend this talk and was very disappointed to have missed it – everyone who was there tells me how much they enjoyed it and were amazed at the variety of designs that Judy had brought.

It really is quite a challenge to make even a small quilt every month but when you see the collection on display at exhibitions they really are quite stunning. 

Perhaps it is something we could do as branch members – a small embroidery every month for a year – how about it???

Photographs courtesy of John Clark.