Around once a month we have a 'Stitch and Chat' - an informal meeting where everyone does their own thing, bringing along whatever they are working on, having a cup of tea and biscuits, and a good natter. It's great way for anyone to get help and advice from other more experienced ladies, and see all sorts of other ideas, and spend a couple of hours with likeminded friends.
Andrea brought along a large selection of her beautiful art quilts to inspire us to use a photo as a basis for a quilt or wall hanging. She provided photo of a sea stack on a beach (the first picture below), which we used to make a small A5 sample or her technique.
The technique involved tracing the image, transferring it to paper, and then making a collage with tissue paper (second pic), in order to see the areas of the photo as 'blocks' of colour, enhanced with coloured pencil, and not get bogged down into detail. We then traced the blocks onto Bondaweb, which we adhered onto fabric scraps according to our colour scheme. Everyone's was different, even though the picture source was the same. It's always fun choosing a fabric to portray a piece of beach, say, and seeing the choices everyone makes from the fabric stash. Using more bits of fabric to add detail means less stitching, or we could keep the larger pieces to fabric patches and do more stitching, so it will be exciting to see the end results of everyone's choices.
We all had our pieces more or less glued down, ready to take home and finish at our leisure. It was very interesting learning a new technique.
Nancy taught a useful day school on how to utilise those annoying bits of fabric that aren't big enough to be used on their own. Here are some pics of cute wee hearts, sachets and bags.
Some photos here from a day school on making a table runner. Hope to have more to add when more are finished!
On a dreich, foggy November day we were treated to a riot of colour with Andrea's beautiful art quilts. A great traveller, visiting family in far flung parts of the globe, Andrea has a massive collection of photos from around the world to draw on for inspiration. These photos were a boon when we all went into lockdown and couldn't travel to the shops, never mind getting on a plane. Andrea had more time to sew in her lovely wooden cabin studio, and made a series of quilts and hangings during this trying time.
Andrea gave a very professional presentation depicting the creation of the quilts from conception to finished item, starting with a brilliant sketchbook detailing the working out process. She had a slide show showing the various stages of a number of quilts she had brought along, so we could see the progression and the finished quilt, exactly how it was put together and stitched, which was so useful. Many questions were answered.
Andrea is giving us a day school in February, which is something to look forward to.
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Members enjoyed a day with repeat tutor Morag Gray, making a draught excluder for those chilly winter nights. Lots of different fabrics were used to create houses from imagination, including especially some lovely tweeds. The first picture is by Morag herself, the finished item.
The photos following are just a few, showing different stages. I hope to get some photos of people's finished work when they are completed at home.
Today's talk was a bit out of the ordinary, we saw things we hadn't seen before in an interesting slide show. Jeni started her career as a photographer, and visited many places photographing artists and designers work, including lovely knitwear. From there her interest branched out into cyanotypes, which we hadn't seen before, and is a process of applying a chemical to paper or fabric, after placing items on it to make a resist, or shadow, and then the material is placed under light and left to magically make an image as the chemical turns blue, leaving a negative image. She had brought along items made up from the cloth. Due to long term illness she has made many cloth and knitted items.
She had done some research into the transatlantic slave trade and how it affected people in Angus in the past, probably without their knowledge. Some people who lived in Angus owned over 5,000 slaves, who knew? Jeni had made up a load of postcards with photos of Angus scenery, and on the back is written a name from the slave returns to commemorate the individuals, and leaving the postcards all around the county so people can learn about this history.
Jeni is also passionate about the awful plastic waste that blights our landscapes and beaches, and has turned some of this detritus into rather lovely jewellery, made from things like bottle tops and toothpaste tubes.
More of Jeni's work can be seen by searching for her on Instagram.
