May workshop

Yesterday was a very busy day. 19 of us arrived at Bank Top for a workshop led by Clare of Colourcraft. WE were so involved that I hardly had time to take photos but a few below as a flavour. We began by using  Brusho powders that we sprinkled onto Lutrador and Evelon and the used liquid spritzers to see the differing effects. Then we used Kozo papers and similar techniques.We later used Expandit and applied dyes and heat. Then the old faithful, Angelina, with two methods. Tyvek came next when we made turned pieces to make dangles and finally we played with mmarkel sticks. ALL materials  and tools were provided by Clare but we were encouraged to experiment with any materials that we might have brought from home.Clare set up an extensive shop and I was sure that I had everything on offer . However i still managed to buy a flat iron, more paints, Evelon etc. The idea of the day was to introduce or remind us how to use all these innovative materials and it certainly did what it said on the tin. Highly recommended.

Clare holds a transfer paint banner

An Evalon bag

Members very busy

 Trying to dry my work

Angelina and foil

Angelina and printing

 Never waste anything

3 little maids

and a final demo.

Report about April Meeting

At our April meeting Liz explained how a knight led her into stitching when she retired from teaching ! Then onto the lady who from the look she was giving Liz explained, was not too impressed with the knight and  from there she was hooked! She had a beautiful display of the different techniques she uses including black work, white work and pulled thread.

She explained how sending one of her designs to a magazine which was accepted with requests for more, she has travelled the world teaching stitch and developed online communities in countries where it is not possible to have meetings .  So from a simple beginning Liz has become an important person in many peoples lives by creating unique designs for her kits she has found a way of satisfying people’s basic and human need to create. 

We are so proud to have her as one of our members.

Show and Tell was busy- Sylvia Silver had created a stunning cross stitch portrait of a friend who had recently died and gifted it to her friends daughter who was quite emotional  on receiving it.

Barbara Ryall brought a piece she won 2nd place with at the NWR day for the Tose Bowl comp.

Brenda Franklin brought 2 pieces of beautiful stitched images and finally Jenny Whittle showed us her piece started st s Marion Jazmik workshop organised by Pauline Bowling for her 70th birthday . 

Brenda Brown

April meeting

Embroiderers’ Guild – Bolton Branch      April 2018

     Our next workshop at Bank Top Chapel is on 12 May when Colourcraft will be coming to show us their products and how we can use them to enhance our embroidery.  The cost is £20.  Please give your names and payment to Clare.

Our Summer meal will take place at the Ridgmont in Horwich, as before, on 17^th July.  More details next month.

The NW region journal should be available next month, price £1.

Exchange Visit.

We will be visiting Merseyside branch on Saturday 16^th June in the afternoon. We have                  our three members who will speak for about 20 minutes each about their embroidery

 experience and show examples of their work.  All members are invited to go along in             support and to meet Merseyside branch members and see what they do. We don’t get many opportunities to meet with EG members of other branches or see how they run their meetings, so this should be an enjoyable occasion. They hope to visit us in 2019

Exhibitions

If you hear of any exhibitions or events that you think may be of interest to us, please let Sheelagh know.  In the meantime:

Ten Plus Textiles are having exhibition in the Atkinson Gallery, Lord St, Southport from

7^th April – 15^th July.  Open Mon – Sat 10am to 4pm. 

   Blackburn Festival of Makers will take place 12 & 13 May.  Lots of events around the town centre.         Our speaker last month, Bella May Leonard, had an installation last year in the Cathedral and

showed us some slides of this work during her talk.

“Slaves of Fashion”, work by the Singh Twins at the Walker Art gallery, Liverpool explores the history of Indian textiles, Empire, enslavement and luxury consumerism and the contemporary relevance of these issues today.   Until 20 May.

The Lowry has an innovative exhibition called Edit.02 Thread using digital techniques to turn biodata into a large quilt!

Our Bolton blog: begstitchers.blogspot.com

We now have Facebook pages for Bolton and NW Region. Please ‘like us’ to help publicise the Guild

and our activities.

If you have any spare hand made cards for birthdays, please give to Ann.

Raffle prizes are always welcome.  Please see Janet if you have anything.

If there are any library books you think would be suitable for us, please tell Linda. (An ISBN would be helpful).  Anything for the sales table please give to Karen.

Guild website:  www.embroiderersguild.com

A delayed march newsletter

Embroiderers’ Guild – Bolton Branch      March 2018

 

Regional Day

 We need final numbers tonight for our Regional Day on 21^st April at the Wellington Park Hotel, Leyland.  The tickets are £26 including lunch.  If you wish to attend, please give your names to Sheelagh.  There are two competitions of interest at regional day: The Rose Bowl competition on the theme of “Our Beautiful North West”, and the Autofill Award for “Excellence in Embroidery”. More details of the conditions and judging criteria are on the notice board.   Both competitions will be judged at the regional day.

The National AGM this year is in Milton Keynes on Saturday 14^th April. Details on the noticeboard.

The NW region journal will be published in April, price £1.

Exchange Visit.

We will be visiting Merseyside branch on Saturday 16^th June in the afternoon.   We have our three members who will speak for about 20 minutes each about their embroidery experience and show examples of their work.  All members are invited to go along in support and to meet Merseyside branch members and see what they do. We don’t get many opportunities to meet with EG members of other branches or see how they run their meetings, so this should be an enjoyable occasion. Details of the venue and times, etc nearer the date.   They hope to visit us in 2019.

Exhibitions

There doesn’t appear to be much going on regarding exhibitions at the moment. If you hear of any interesting exhibitions or events that you think may be of interest to us, please let Sheelagh know.  In the meantime:

Ten Plus Textiles are having exhibition in the Atkinson Gallery, Lord St, Southport from 7^th April – 15^th July.  Open Mon – Sat 10am to 4pm. 

Glossop EG have an exhibition of their work until 23 March at Jobling Gowler Solicitors, 250 Park Lane, Macclesfield SK11 8AD, open weekdays 9.30 – 4.30pm.

Our Bolton blog: begstitchers.blogspot.com

We now have Facebook pages for Bolton and NW Region. Please ‘like us’ to help publicise the Guild

and our activities.

If you have any spare hand made cards for birthdays, please give to Ann.

Raffle prizes are always welcome.  Please see Janet if you have anything.

If there are any library books you think would be suitable for us, please tell Linda. (An ISBN would be helpful).  Anything for the sales table please give to Karen.

March with Bella May Leonard

An interesting title to our talk last night,Sculptured Stitch. I had a pretty good idea what i would see as I had been taight by Bella at Summer school a few years ago.It was lovely to meet up with her again.
Bella is certainly an imaginative and somewhat whackey stitcher, who love perspex. At our summer school we used acetate and a laminator but for her graduate piece, Bella made a life size arch , embellished with unusal "thread" to represent her journey and completion of her degree. It was on display in the Market Place some years ago and no photograph could really do it justice.
However Bella gave us a potted history of her craft so far. She had worked at Gawthorpe Hall and many other interesting places, including the  Slumberland  bed factory. Her view of materials and what can be done with them is amazing. I loved her work for the Orient House in Manchester, combining social and industrial history  and using the jaquard loom as her starting point.
Bella has travelled and learned many new skills, including a variety of local mexican stitches that were really colourful. My photos will not do justice but she can be contacted for presentations/workshops at
bellaleonard@hotmail .com
Thank you Bella for your amazing slant on stitching. I will never really use perspex but love your thought process.

An idea of her work in perspex

Mexico, stitching , braids and back strap weaving.

 India

and Bella CAN use a basic needle and thread!!!!

Our meeting began with Glennys showing us 4 of her pieces that were inspired by Marion Jasmiks workshop.

and finally there was a small display of the work created at the Encaustic Art workshop last weekend. Most pieces need a lot of stitching.

March workshop.

Sue Tyldesley came back for a second workshop yesterday. Sadly due to illness we were down on numbres but fortunate for those of us there as it gave us a better opportunity to experiment and take Encaustiv Art a stage further, Sue had planned that we could make a book cover or bag with one technique, create a carvas picture with a second or make a vase cover as a third. I went along with the second option in mind but some members were keen to try them all.
Sue is a very patient instructor who began by demonsatating each of the techniques. She also brought along her demo pieces, lots of fabrics and papers and of course her waxes and all the associated equipment. Last time I had purchased an iron and the waxes so was keen to use my own.

Looking at her samples, it was difficult to choose what to do.

Demos over we needed to start. I chose the picture so we experimented firstly on card and transferred the image to fabric before a second attempt staright on to the carvas. The flower image is quite random and needs to be enhanced by stitching. I have jsut started...

A flst tyre and a very important rugby match meant that I left earlier than usual. I have Ann to thank for taking some show and tell photos at the end.

You can see just how much work we managed. Thank you again, Sue. I hope your journey home was not hampered too much by the snow.

February meeting

It was not a very nice night to travel and also half term so comsequently we were a little down on numbers. Phil broughtalong his latest Ruskin Work. It is simply amazing, precise and beautiful. The four table mats each have a differing design in the corner. Phil told us how long it takes and I just respect his dedication.

Brenda one of our newer members then led our work evening. She demonstrated how we could use french knots to make something like a flower or a brooch. She often uses the wider frames to create white pictures, incorporating lace and french knots.

It was then our turn. We were given a small square of fabric, drew on it a circle the size of 2p and filled it with stitches. A running stitch around the outside, drew it up like a suffolk puff and done!!!

Embroiderers’ Guild – Bolton Branch      February 2018

This Saturday (24^th) we have our Saturday Stitch day at Bank Top Church, Ashworth Lane. We will be creating and working with batik fabrics.  Our next workshop is on 17^th March with Sue Tyldesley, “Creating with Wax”.  Her previous workshop in 2014 was popular so please put your names down tonight if you wish to attend.

We will take orders tonight for the 2018 NW region journal to be published in April.  Price £1

Our Regional Day this year is 21^st April at the Wellington Park Hotel, Leyland.  The tickets are £26 including lunch.  If you wish to attend, please give your names to Sheelagh.  There are two competitions of interest at regional day: the Rose Bowl competition on the theme of “Our Beautiful North West”, and the Aurofil Award for “Excellence in Embroidery”. More details of the conditions and judging criteria are on the notice board.   Both competitions will be judged at the regional day.

The National AGM this year is in Milton Keynes on Saturday 14^th April. Details on the noticeboard.

Details of the regional Summer School, 1-3 June, are on the notice board.  The two tutors are Julia Triston who came to our regional day at Haigh Hall and Valerie Wartelle who came to our June 2017 meeting.

Exchange Visit.  We will be visiting Merseyside branch on Saturday 16^th June in the afternoon, so we need to decide who will be our three members who will speak for about 20 minutes each about their embroidery experience and show examples of their work.  Any volunteers?  Please step forward!  All members are invited to go along in support and to meet Merseyside branch members and see what they do. They hope to visit us in 2019.

Exhibitions

Ten Plus Textiles exhibition in the Atkinson Gallery, Lord St, Southport from 7^th April – 15^th July.  Open Mon – Sat 10am to 4pm. 

Glossop EG exhibition of their work until 23 March at Jobling Gowler Solicitors, 250 Park Lane, Macclesfield SK11 8AD, open weekdays 9.30 – 4.30pm.

Our Bolton blog: begstitchers.blogspot.com

We now have Facebook pages for Bolton and NW Region. Please ‘like us’ to help publicise the Guild

and our activities.

If you have any spare hand made cards for birthdays, please give to Ann.

Raffle prizes are always welcome.  Please see Janet if you have anything.

If there are any library books you think would be suitable for us, please tell Linda. (An ISBN would be helpful).  Anything for the sales table please give to Karen.

If you hear of any interesting exhibitions or events that you think may be of interest to us, please let Sheelagh know and details can go in the newsletter; smtmadden@talktalk.net

Guild website:  www.embroiderersguild.com