Regional Day 27th April 2013

Yesterday almost half our members were able to attend Regional Day as it was fairly near to us at Kirkby Lonsdale.
We were welcomed with tea/coffee and we were informed drinks would be on tap all day. 
There was a variety of exhibitions and demonstrations including patchwork, smocking and lacemaking.Anyone who wished to buy material or threads to add to their stash was able to go to the Trade Stands.
The host branches of Kirkby Lonsdale and Appleby had mounted a beautiful display of their work and we were particularly taken with the boxes.

The raffle prizes of filled bags were set out in one of the rooms and looked very appealing but all of our members were unlucky!

 The competition pieces were displayed in another room.

 One of our own members, Sandra Kendall, won the Rosebowl with a piece entitled King Cotton. Well Done Sandra!

We were well looked after at lunch time with a nice meal and particularly tasty puddings.
After lunch we all settled down in the hall to listen to a very interesting talk by Jacqui Carey on Elizabethan Stitching.
It was a very enjoyable day and all thanks must go to the host branches.

April meeting Tie Challenge followed by a talk on Indian Embroidery By Liz Matthews

In the morning of this month's meeting we made a start on making flowers from the ties we had been given by the regional committee for the "Tie Challenge".

  Some of our members had already made a flower at home, some had half finished ones and some were still at the design stage. You can see the beginning of our efforts below!

We have yet to decide how we are going to display them!


In the afternoon we had a very interesting talk on Indian Embroidery by Liz Matthews but there are no pictures because my camera batteries went flat! Sorry about that!

A few more members brought their completed stump work animals and they look super.

Well Done Everybody!

Completed Stump Work Animals

Jennifer, Margaret and Sandra K. have completed their stump work animals started at the meeting in January. Here are the animals mounted as pictures in the photographs below.

Lion by Sandra K.

Rooster by Jennifer

Two Rabbits by Margaret

All so very different yet from the same starting point. Well Done!

Starry Night with Sandra Kendall March Meeting 2013

Starry Night

Our Meeting this month was led by Sandra Kendall one of our own members who brought with her a copy of Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh which had been cut into a 4 x 5 grid of 20 rectangles.
Each member chose a rectangle to interpret in stitch using any technique or combination of techniques they wanted.

Starry Night and a few of the rectangles

Sandra had completed the rectangle in the bottom left hand corner to show as an example.

She had used painting and then appliqued on two shapes. This was then over stitched with couching and stem stitch as shown below. 

picture rectangle on left embroidery on right

Members had brought all sorts of materials and threads with them to interpret their rectangle and Sandra had brought  a selection from her stash!

extra materials to use

Most members already had an idea of how they were going to proceed and the techniques they were going to use including wet felt making, needlefelting, couching, weaving, embellishing and a variety of stitching which can be seen in the pictures below.

The colours being used in the room were beautiful and members had an enjoyable day. Sandra is looking forward to all the rectangles being completed and then the work will be reassembled as the picture Starry Night again. 

Continuation of Stump Work Animals with Gillian Darrington February 2013

This month we all arrived with our finished animals and a background which we had made at home. We were all waiting for Gillian to show us how to attach our animal to the background.

We had to seal the edges of the embroidery with PVA glue and then cut it out. Gillian then showed us how to attach it to the background by a slanting stab stitch stuffing it at the same time. As we stitched the animal began to take shape and look more realistic and here they are nearly completed!

Here is Gillian's sample piece below. Thank you to Gillian for a good and productive workshop.