April meeting – Saturday 10th

A talk by Caroline Jordan “Behind the Scenes”.  Caroline works for the Harris Musuem in Preston and will be talking about their current exhibition - ‘EMBELLISHED: THE ART OF FABULOUS FABRICS’ which will be on show until November.

The exhibition brings together some of the finest examples of embroidery, printing and weaving in their collection.
Open Monday and Wednesday to Saturday 10a.m to 5p.m; Tuesdays 11a.m to 5p.m.
For more information go to: www.harrismuseum.org.uk  
or phone 01772 258248

REMINDER TO COMMITTEE – that we also have a committee meeting in the morning.

MONTHLY COLOUR RAFFLE

The Comensal Shrimp – includes the colours – lilac, royal blue, pink/red and translucent white.

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.

March meeting – Saturday 13th

We are looking forward to a talk by Judy Fairless - the title  is The Journal Quilt Project, which she describes as follows -

The Contemporary Quilt Group is made up of members of the Quilters’ Guild of the British Isles who work in a non-traditional way. We undertook to make one A4 sized quilt per month  for a year in 2007. In 2008 the size was 12” square and in 2009 -  the size was a challenging 6” x 12”.  The 2010 size is 7"x10" portrait format.   Judy will show her own quilts and images of others.

 

Judy has been embroidering and quiltmaking since 1981 and has taught City & Guilds in both subjects for over 16 years. She regularly exhibits her work and has had articles published in books, magazines & online. 
You can see examples of Judy’s work  just by typing her name into the Google search page and choosing the ‘littlegems’ site  -

March Colour Raffle

Based on the colours of another underwater creature – The Nudibrach – colours lemon, orange, burgundy and white – though they are not clear from this picture.

REMINDERS

At our February meeting I was very pleased to receive 14 small pieces of work for the Photograph Album Cover but I need more.

I cannot be at the March meeting but you can take your contributions and Sue Chisnall will collect them and pass on to me.  Alternatively you can post directly to me if you prefer.  I would like to have the cover completed, or well on the way, for our April meeting so that it can be displayed at our Open Day in May.

Some of the pieces are shown below – courtesy of John Clark’s photographs -

I will need all your names when I am starting on the construction so please let me know which is your piece.

The following are pieces worked from the Local Heritage workshops we have been running and will be on show at our Open Day in May.

A selection of stitched belts, glass cases and purse based on the style of Canal Boatmen’s Belts.

One of the ‘Iron Men’  from  Crosby Beach.

A nostalgic beach scene - Postcards - also for our Open Day.

 

Some lovely samples from the Silk Painting workshop – love the penguins!!

Again I need all your names

MARCH 20th Workshop with Sheila Smith – FELTING

Only a few places remain so if you want to come please contact Karen Hurrell as soon as you can – first come first served.  Spare places will be offered to members of other Branches.

See you then.

Silk Painting

Hello again,
Just to let you know that the Silk painted flower was done by Mary Seaman and shows the use of salt applied to wet painted silk.
Hope to have more for you later.

UP-DATE PICTURES

Since my last report on 12th January, several things have got in the way with writing anything for the Blog – mainly nothing to report as we cancelled our January meeting due to bad weather and as I could not attend the Silk Painting workshop I had to rely on other members getting pictures and a report to me.

These were duly received but then they coincided with my 50th wedding anniversary and of course that had to take precedent so a late entry I’m afraid.  (YES I was a child bride!!!!!)

Report from Sue Chisnall our Chairman -
The day went well, with the roads now clear of snow and ice. Paula asked us to do a small painting to get the feel of how the paint flows on silk. She showed us how to mix the colours, dilute them for different effects and add rock salt to enhance. We were shown how to apply gutta, and after the break we completed either Paula's design of a church and fields or our own designs. All the members enjoyed the day, and felt we had achieved something.

Unfortunately I can only get one photo to print off and I don’t know who it belongs to – will let you know.

I then received a ‘fun’ photograph from John Clark , after my request for ‘Snow photographs’.   He likes to play around with ‘pics’  where you have to look carefully for little hidden bits and pieces – can you find the needle in this one?

Just to add to the collection – a ‘pic’ of our Anniversary cake  and the Church where we were married – sorry it has all been eaten!!   AND that’s all you get to see of me or you will know how old I really am!!