Jennifer Collier - Paper Dresses Workshop

Jennifer Collier - Paper Dresses Workshop

A lovely day was had by all, with a very big thank you to Jennifer, for her enthusiasm, skill and help throughout the day. 

Jennifer's practical demonstrations were clear and instructive.

Her examples gave us all lots of differing inspirations to construct our own dress.

Our finished and semi-finished dresses, all very different - all very lovely and inspiring.

We were shown how to stitch paper, make pockets, bindings, buttons and other embellishments to make our dresses personal to us.

  Fronts and Backs too

  

We brought some of our own papers and Jennifer was very generous with buttons, bags of interesting papers to use, as well as many templates for the collars, pockets, and other embellishments.

Jennifer can be found at Unit 12 and we hope to see her back again soon.

Teresinha Roberts - Silk Road to Birmingham

Teresinha gave us a fascinating insight into the world of silk and her journal with this beautiful material. Teresinha told us a little about her own life from Brazil, via Malawi to the UK and how caterpillars have played a big part in her life.

She now has Mulberry trees on her allotment to produce her own silk and explained how silk is very different from other fibres, in that it has long fibres which allows the drape in silk garments. It is a very tough material in spite of its delicate appearance and has been used for fishing nets, medical procedures as it is non-allergic, as well as the cross hairs on microscopes!

Silk is extruded not grown, unlike other fibres has no cellular structure which is why is is has long fibres and the reason it is shiny is because of its prism type shape, which reflects the light.

The oldest piece of silk that we know of is 5,500 years old, which is staggering and it is thought to have been a baby's cloth.  

There are different types of silk, depending on whether the silk is reeled or spun and there are 100+ types of silk worm, such as Tussah and these are bigger than Mulberry worms and feed on Oak leaves.

Teresinha has a lovely way of speaking and has other talks on Wild Fibres and I am sure we will be inviting her back very soon. Her website is www.Wildfibres.co.uk

 January 20th In the hoop - Stephanie Redfern

Stephanie taught a workshop yesterday, using an embroidery hoop as the 'frame' for our work .

She initially showed us examples of her work

 

She then showed us how she uses a simple image and develops it 

We then set to and created our own pieces. Some of us got further than others!

 

 January 6th Narrative Textiles - Vivienne Beaumont

The first lecture of 2024 was a fascinating talk by Vivienne Beaumont

After doing her City and Guilds at Westhope College she went on to teach art , textiles and ceramics.

Vivienne then started an MA before lockdown. She needed to find a narrative for her work by using 50 words, 50 images and studying 4 artists

Her backgrounds start with acrylic mono prints. ink on top and then machine stitching, Texture is acheived with using the tailor tacking foot on her machine. She also uses abaca fibre  to create texture

She has an old Irish sewing machine which she has permanently set up with gold thread. as she likes harvest colours the gold enhances it. She has also used twigs and thorns.

As you can see she doesn't always stick to the inside of a frame or to a regular rectangular shape

Vivienne won a competition with ACE arts and the prize was to hold a solo exhibition, which she held last year entitled Seeds, flower and flowing hair

Thank you for a fascinating talk Vivienne

 Member's Christmas workshop 2nd December

Almost 30 of our members gathered together on December 2nd to have our Annual Christmas workshop and party.

Each member made a decoration of their choice and then swapped their decoration with another member at the end of the day.

We also had a bring and share lunch - magnificent as usual!!

The day was lovely although the weather cut short the day

Here are the decorations before our members took them away

 Unveiling the Panto project 11 December 2023

Three of our members went to the Grand Theatre for the unveiling of the Panto Project. Ruth, Jean and Debbie had a lovely afternoon and here are some images of the completed project. Thank you to Ruth for the pjot

 November 4th - Wolverhampton Grand theatre Panto project

17 of the group participated in a workshop, to create panels for the Wicked Queen's cape, which is part of a community project creating a display during the annual panto, Snow White, at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre.

The project is coordinated by Pauline from Heath House Studios.

She brought everything we needed to create the small panels that would form part of the cloak. We really did embrace our inner bling!!!

Some of the members have taken away kits while the rest of us either completed one or two in the morning session .

Here are some of those who participated

   

       

and some of the work that has been completed since

and the wicked queen of course needs an apple