Christmas workshop and Chair's Challenge - December 4th

We had a lovely day last Saturday creating our first Artist Trading cards with a Christmas theme. This will be our ongoing project to replace the Travelling books.

I am sue everyone was delighted with the one that they received when we swapped our finished cards.

Here are some of the finished cards

We were also able to vote for our favourite entry in this year's Chair's Challenge, entitled Together.

The winner was Judy  and this is her piece

The other entries were as follows . Well done and thank you to everyone who took part

 Saturday November 6th  Textile Collage- Saskia Poller

We had a lovely workshop with Saskia, combining photographs with images and other treasures.

Here are images of our work in progress.

  

                                                      

 Saturday 16th October Beyond Boundaries - Elise Stewart

This workshop was to create a modern day sampler either by machine or hand OR a combination of both.

These are 2 images of Elise's work that she used to promote the day.

    

These are Elise's words about the day.

'The photos show stitching down threads by machine and hand, trying out machine patterned stitches, adding fabric, beads and other embellishments, then adding "filler" stitches. Jan's table stand was much admired and there was quite a debate about equipment.   I thought it was lovely that people put their own spin on it - I gave them an outline of each stage and then they went with what they liked. As you can see from the final picture they were all quite different but all very lovely and I am looking forward to seeing them when finished. '

Thank you Elise

 Saturday 2nd October - My journey to stitch - Saskia Poller

Saskia's talk described how over the years her work has developed via feltmaking, bookarts and resin into stitched textile collages. It included her love of recording history using little treasures that are often kept safe in a box where they cannot be seen or are torn, damaged or broken and would otherwise be thrown away.

Her work is heavily influenced by her faith and the recording of history using ephemeral objects. She explained that she takes items that are often torn, damaged or disfigured and turn them into pieces of art 

                                                                     

                                                     

                                                        

Saskia will be offering us a workshop on  her textile collage techniques on November 6th.

Thank you Saskia

 Saturday 18th September - Kantha workshop

Following the lectue on our journey and obsession with Kantha, Ruth Tykiff and I ( Margaret McQuillen) led a workshop on new ways to approach this ancient technique.

Here are our examples of ideas that we suggested to the group

18 of our members spent a very relaxing Saturday designing and then starting to stitch. Everyone had there own interpretation of the technique. I think ( I hope)  many will continue and finish their pieces. It was so good to be back together doing what we love and just quietly chatting too. It was the first time that we had had a workshop in our new venue, Swindon Community Centre , South Staffordshire. We thought it worked really well.

 September 4th Kantha - Our journey - Margaret McQuillen & Ruth Tykiff

This was the first face to face lecture of our new group.

Ruth and I gave a lecture on Kantha, its origins, history, symbolism and how it has influenced our work.

Ruth started by telling us about the origins of Kantha in West Bengal and how it was a means of using old saris to create household linens . They were turned into works of art by the addition of colourful stitch

I then went on to discuss the symbolism in the designs which use animals and birds as well as symbolic motifs

 

I then went on to explain that the Kantha is constructed from several layers of fine cotton held together with running stitches in a variety of patterns, motifs and borders. The kantha stitch is worked in the background to create the ripple effect. The word Kantha means quilt but is now used as the process

My journey began with a small sample piece worked during my City and Guilds college course.

While Ruth started with a sampler workshop with Dorothy Tucker

We both went on to do a workshop together with Dorothy using everyday objects as a starting point

and then I did a further one with Dorothy , using leaves, which I used as a starting point for a wedding gift by adding words

Ruth then told us about her visit to Bangladesh and how she was shown how the women work and then was able to start two pieces of work

She then showed us further work that she has produced influenced by Kantha

I continued the presentation with me explaining how much I enjoyed adding Kantha stitch to my work

and how using  Kantha stitch backgrounds I worked pieces based on the seasons of the year

We finished the talk by touching on Boro work which is a running stitch background but is Japanese and differs from Kantha as it is more about patch and repair than layering of the whole fabric as in Kantha.

We will be using the Kantha technique at our workshop on September 18th