Ice Walker Harrogate 2016

If you get a chance to see the Ice Walker he is definitely worth a look. Here are some of the pictures I took in Harrogate of him and the surrounding embroidered badges.
The embroidery on the costumes for the Game of Thrones is also very interesting: just type into your search engine "Game of thrones embroidery" and click on images and the costumes will appear.

Felt Angels Maureen Clement November Meeting 2016

 Maureen, who is one of our own members, led this month's meeting by showing us how to make angels from wet felt ready for Christmas.
She showed us a whole array of very pretty angels in different colours, embroidered in different ways and completed using a variety of techniques. See below

 

Maureen demonstrated how to make the base of the angels in two ways; by making a piece of flat felt and then cutting out a circle or using a resist to make two circles. After three layers of fibres had been laid out, soap and water were added.This was then felted by rolling etc.

Flat felt being rolled

 

 

Felt being made around a resist

We then were given a demonstration of how to make a felt ball for the head hopefully without any creases!

Because all the felt needed to dry we were given instruction on how to complete the angels and we took them home to dry and complete.
Once the felt circles were dry we were to cut them in half and make each half circle into a cone for the body. We were advised to embroider while flat and then sew the cone together. The head would be attached next and features added. Hair could be made from a variety of fibres. Lastly wings were to be designed and made using any technique we wanted. 
Maureen said that pieces could be attached by needle felting and if we had an embellisher we could use that to make the body. One of our members brought her embellisher to do just that.

 Maureen told us how she likes making felt particularly pieces that have been manipulated and she showed us some beautiful pieces she had made.

 At the end of the workshop we took our wet felt home to complete our angels and bring them back to the Christmas meeting where we can enter them in the competition.
So when you look at next month's post you should see a choir of felted angels, all complete and embellished in a variety of ways!
Thank you to Maureen for leading the workshop and giving us such clear instructions.

North west Region A.G.M. Garstang October 2016

 Circle display from last year's AGM afternoon stitching activity.

On Saturday 22nd October  the North West Region AGM was held at Garstang and most branches try to send representatives so they can report back any news and developments to their branches.
AGMs are necessary but can be a bit dry so Val has tried to make ours more interesting by encouraging displays of group work from the branches and having an afternoon stitching session. 
You can see some of the circles from last year above and the enthusiasm, creativity and ingenuity of our members shows no bounds.

Pictured below is some of the work from last year's Summer School.
If you have never been it is well worth taking the chance to immerse yourself in textiles for a couple of days.

A collaborative piece from one of the branches

 Some members have already made their piece for the Chair's Challenge of a continuous landscape. It is on our programme for the April Meeting.

The afternoon stitching session was led by one of our members and it was entitled "what can you do with 4 lines?"

Samples of what can be done with 4 lines

Members were provided with a piece of hand dyed material with 4 intersecting lines. Some samples were shown and suggestions were made but our members are full of their own creative ideas and set off with enthusiasm to stitch their piece making it their own. 
Some pieces were near completion and they were taken home to finish off at the end of the session and to be brought back next year for a new display.
A thank you to everyone for responding so enthusiastically.

Goldwork Mary Seaman October Meeting 2016

Our workshop this month on Gold Work was taken by one of our own members Mary Seaman. This technique requires precision and patience and is not for everyone but looks stunning when it has been done properly as you can see from Mary's samples and work pictured below.

Mary gave us a choice of either embroidering an ammonite or an initial and most of our members chose the ammonite. We were provided with a pattern which we had to transfer to our supported framed silk.
Members then applied the felt shapes one at a time and added the gold work or applied all the felt first.

 

Pattern transferred to silk and leather applied over the felt on the first chamber

 

Felt applied to the background

Leather applied over felt padding

 

 

 

One of our members  decided to have a go at embroidering a bee and here you can see the felt padding attached to the background.

Members took home their ammonite/initial to finish off at home with metallic leather and various gold threads. When they are finished they will look very rich and beautiful.
A big thank you to Mary for her preparation and patience in encouraging us to have a go at this unique style of embroidery.