This month's meeting was in two halves.The morning session was led by one of our own members Mary Seaman who had brought a box of chocolates! On closer inspection these were not real chocolates but hand sewn and embroidered ones. [See below]
We were provided with a card circle and either white or brown material. Mary demonstrated how to gather the material and then stuff to form the shape. A special slip knot was demonstrated so that we could pull the gathers really tightly.
Once the gathers were secure, we then shaped it in our hands and the chocolate was ready for embellishment.
The chocolates were embellished with stitch and beads in suitable chocolate colours.
It was a fun morning and we all took home a chocolate. Thank you to Mary for leading the session and for passing on tips from her inexhaustible depth of knowledge.
Our afternoon speaker was Jacky Cardy who came to talk about her work and how it had developed.
Jacky spoke about how she made her felt and then machined and hand stitched into it often to make plant like organic forms. She often experimented with how much she felted the fibres leaving them quite soft and open before stitching.
She is most well-known for her pretty brooches which often contain silk velvet and have sinuous forms.
The colours of her work are beautiful and range from muted misty tones to bright primary colours.
Her talk was interspersed with lots of samples of her work and it was a pleasure for us to look more closely at them when she had finished speaking. There are a few pictures below where you can see the shapes and stitches better.
It was a very enjoyable and amusing talk with lots of work samples to inspire us. I think quite a few of us will be getting out our felt making equipment over the weekend!
Thank you to Jacky for a very interesting and inspiring talk.
