Sunday 26 January 2014

FEBRUARY MEETING–Talk by Alice Colson–Saturday 8th.

   'Kays Practical Embroiderer & Its 
         Influences on my Work'


Alice Colson designs fabrics and trimmings for fashion and interiors. Her current collection is a digital interpretation of a vintage hand embroidery technique creating layers of stitches, which are hand finished to reveal stitch structure, joyful colour mixes and hidden patterns. Inspired by a love of surface texture and drawing her collection features circles, squares and floral motifs.
   

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PRIOR TO THIS TALK
WE WILL BE HOLDING THE FIRST OF OUR SIT & STITCH SESSIONS FROM 12.30a.m

If you are a beginner or newer member and want to learn some stitch techniques OR if you are more experienced and  would be prepared to share your knowledge, or want to get on with some personal stitching, we hope to provide space to spread out and relax while doing something we all love – STITCHING.

FEBRUARY COLOUR RAFFLE  
BLACK
The BLACK Mountains of South Wales

Wednesday 22 January 2014

APOLOGY TO KAREN SCOTT

Karen – a member of the Merseyside Branch, who was one of the speakers this month, has let me know of a few facts that were wrong in my report -
She is not at John Moores University but at Liverpool Hope University taking a BA Design.

She took her C&G Level 2 Textiles and Design and some textile based leisure courses at Greenbank College, simultaneously with finding Merseyside Embroiderers Guild branch.  This lead her to the Foundation Art and Design where as well as learning to melt and burn, also discovered her dyslexia. 

She is now into her second term at Liverpool Hope on her BA Design which includes Textiles, Metal and Ceramics with Digital design.

Apologies to Karen for the discrepancies – I must make sure I sit at the front in future when there is so much going on.

ADDITIONAL NOTE -
The link to the Merseyside Embroiderers’ Guild has been hijacked and points to spurious sites. Their actual link is http://www.megonline.co.uk/

Sunday 19 January 2014

Report from January Meeting–talks by 3 members from the Merseyside Branch.

As anticipated a very good afternoon with the three members from Merseyside - Norma Heron;  Karen  Scott and Marie Stacey

Firstly Norma’s work – machine stitched on her trusted Bernina and all very different – the first - a piece of stitched and slashed fabric for a small ‘Water’ quilt – a technique very hard on the hands;
then  a piece called ‘Resurrection’ with applied gold leather and fabric pieces – some of which were eaten by her dog before she could get them all stitched on!!!


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After a trip to Petra there were photographs of the wonderful ‘red rocks’ with colour and drawn samples which led to pieces inspired by the colours – a stitch sample piece and a cushion shown below.

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The next speaker – Karen Scott who had been made redundant, wanted to take up a hobby, heard about the Guild when she was on a course, and joined the Branch. She was so bowled over by it all that she is now doing a Textiles degree at John Moore’s university in Liverpool where she has discovered, among other things, melting and burning and the use of digital technology in textiles.
She had made a Kaleidoscope and Trileidoscope so that she could photograph pieces of painted fabric through them to get some very different patterns – shown below are my photographs of some of her fabric pieces –taken through her ‘scopes’ - absolutely fascinating.

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Then for Marie Stacey who first of all gave us all a health warning about
Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) – and her symptoms – amongst other things, straight lines started to look wavy and distorted.    Her warning being that you should act before it is too late – she could have gone blind very quickly!
Marie had put up with these symptoms for some months before realising there was something wrong and eventually after treatment, her sight was saved and though it wasn’t perfect she wanted to get back to stitching - 
BUT she discovered that it was more difficult than she expected and as she knew a very accomplished local tutor who was also a friend, she was eventually convinced by her that she should take up machine embroidery, and that is what she started to do using a magnifying glass attached to the machine.

You can see two pictures below of some of her recent work - firstly a machine embroidered panel made on a course with Louise Gardner – please note the ‘TIE’ border using those ‘dreaded ties’!
We may see it at the Regional exhibition.
It tells the story of the Murdoch enquiry and makes fascinating reading!

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And now onto Goldwork – something she thought she would never do again, but with a lot of perseverance she managed to complete this piece on a course with Golden Hinde.

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A lesson learnt and an inspiration to us all.

Many thanks to all 3 members for a very entertaining afternoon.

Thursday 2 January 2014

NORTH WEST REGIONAL NEWS– Things to do in January.

REGIONAL DAY – SUNDAY 27TH APRIL 2014 10a.m to 4p.m

To be held in Rochdale at the North Grange Hotel, Manchester Road, Castleton  so not far from us.
Tickets are £25 to include lunch.
If you wish to attend, please pay for your tickets at the January meeting.

 REGIONAL EXHIBITION 
26th May to 21st June 2014 at the Storey Gallery, Lancaster.

Open to all North West Branches - 
the title - TIED BY STITCH – will include all work made from the donated Ties plus any other items you might like to enter.

All work must have a title, size, value for insurance purposes and if selling; and notification about whether it will be wall mounted or will go into a cabinet.
This information will need to be given to Marguerita, our Secretary at the January meeting.

PLEASE NOTE -It is most important  to have all packaging clearly marked with your name, branch and selling price if appropriate, and all items must be well protected - preferably in bubble wrap, and enclosed in a labelled fabric or heavy duty protective bag NOT a plastic bag.
There will be a 30% commission charge on all items sold.
Delivery instructions will be available soon.
You all did so well with our Branch exhibition in June that it would be good to see the Branch being well represented at this Regional event – so do have a go!!

NOMINATIONS FOR NEW REGIONAL CHAIRMAN

Monica, a member of our Branch will be retiring as Regional Chairman next October and nominations need to be notified to HQ in time for the National AGM in April.
Anyone interested should see Carole or Kay for a nomination form.