The Tapestry of Scotland

Anne Covell was lucky enough to visit Edinburgh and while she was there took the opportunity to view the Tapestry of Scotland on display at the Scottish Parliament.
These are a few of the photographs she took to whet your appetite!

Vikings

King James VI of Scotland King James I of England

Close up of above

Spinning and Weaving      Paisley Shawls

Close up of above

The embroidery looks stunning and it would be nice to view it so we will keep an eye open for where it will be displayed next.
Meanwhile you can find out more information about the tapestry on the following website
www.scotlandtapestry.com/

Tie Challenge

On Monday Brenda and I arranged the "flowers made from ties" into a basket ready to take to the Regional A.G.M. in October where they will be displayed along with other efforts from branches in the region. 
They look really colourful and each flower is very individual. Thank you for taking part and to let you know the basket is insured for £50!!!!!

Silk Paper [Iron Method] September Meeting 2013

One of our own members Sandra Kendall led the workshop this month on gummy silk paper and ways of embellishing and embroidering into it. 

Sandra brought an array of samples with her based on the book by Sarah Lawrence. These included papers with natural things, incorporating other fibres and then working on the surface. The samples can be seen below.

Sandra then showed us possible ways of using our silk paper to make pictures, book covers and embroideries with patches. See below for ideas.

Sandra demonstrated gummy silk paper by laying out the fibres and then spritzing with water and finally ironing. The paper produced is very attractive in its natural state but we were then shown how to add natural thing like petals, skeleton leaves,and other gummy fibres. You can see our efforts below.

The next stage was to colour the paper with spray colours and add metallic pieces as well as natural things.

We were then shown how to pull a silk rod apart so it could be coloured and used to add texture or to be woven into the paper. We also soaked a cocoon and pulled that apart so it could be coloured and added to the paper.

Once the papers were dry members were going to have a go at embroidering into them. Sandra advised them to use an iron-on interfacing to support the paper to make it more sturdy. She also told us that anything you can use on fabric for surface embellishment you can use on the silk paper e.g.foils, 3D paste etc.
It was a fun messy day and we feel there is a lot more we can do with gummy silk paper.
Thank you, Sandra

Summer School July 2013

It was a beautiful sunny day as we set off for Summer School and remained so for the whole weekend.
This year only two of our members attended  and we both chose the embroidered book making workshop with Isabel Hall.
Isabel showed us a range of beautifully decorated and embroidered books and told us we would be making two books with embroidered spines, a book with Japanese binding and a silk paper/book.

Members busy with their books

Isabel showed us how to make our cover by using encaustic wax, coloured inks and mod podge to highlight the uneven texture of the hand made paper. We added colour on colour until we had the result we wanted.

A few of the covers in progress

While our covers were drying Isabel demonstrated making the pages and the stitching of the spine over tape.

We were then shown how to embellish and decorate our covers with embroidery, beads, cut outs and casting moulds. The rest was up to us!

Some books were finished but quite a lot were taken home to complete

Sik Paper was demonstrated wih possible ways of embellishment and incorporating items e.g. petals. Some of us turned our paper into little books.

Silk paper book on top

We then made a small book with Japanese stitched binding.

On the Sunday we had a look at what the other groups had been doing.
Pat Barrett had led her workshop on a kind of darning which was akin to weaving and you can see some of the brightly coloured samples below which are reminiscent of folk art.

The other group was led by Amy Senogles and was a specific kind of recycling using older partly finished embroideries and incorporating them into possible clothes parts. [See below]

As usual it was a very enjoyable Summer School,  we all learnt a great deal and enjoyed the company of like minded people and of course the food!