July 2016

For our July meeting, four members travelled to the southern highlands region for a meeting at Annette’s home.  Annette’s warm welcome countered any winter chill in the air.

We began our gathering with a delightful morning tea, then it was time to begin stitching and show and tell.

Susan had been English piecing hexagons using fabrics in her stash.   We were impressed with Susan’s novel use of a thread organiser to contain her hexagons that are ready to stitch.

Geri has been given a commission and provided on overview of her plans and design.  Unfortunately, she cannot reveal any details.  Sourcing Geri’s preferred fabric has been a challenging issue.

Annette and Sheila both made bags using a multilayered design.  Annette incorporated a previously stitched needle-laced square into an overall bag design.  

Sheila continues to use her favourite raised chain stitch to decorate the bags she made.

Last month, we all looked at a bag design to determine how it was assembled and Sheila had made a sample.  The zipper wraps around the bag from one point to the opposite point.  Now to work out how and where to add the handle to it.

Sheila had been to  Melbourne and was able to view ‘The Dressmaker’ exhibition at Rippon Lea.  Rippon Lea is a National Trust property in Melbourne.  ‘The Dressmaker’ is an Australian movie starring Kate Winslet and a host of well known Australian actors.  The actors were dressed in a combination of vintage clothing and clothing designed specifically for the movie. 

 Then it was time for lunch, followed by delicious cakes compliments of Annette and Geri.  Annette’s collection of vintage place-mats were an added bonus to lunch.

After lunch, we assembled all of our works for our collaborative piece for the Embroiderers’ Guild biannual exhibition.  The details of that are under wraps until the exhibition is opened in late August.  It was exciting to see most of the works and determine the best arrangement for display.

The details of our collaborative piece will be revealed next month.

June 2016

Our small group of five met at the Powerhouse Museum this month. After coffee, our group headed the the Collette Dinnigan exhibition where we spent several hours oohing and aahing over the displays.

We had lively discussions about construction techniques, luscious fabrics and accessories as we wound our way through the exhibition. The ensembles ranged from the beautifully simple to the outrageous over-the-top. A constantly changing montage of models in different outfits was playing on one huge wall space to compliment the static displays.

Sheila especially liked looking at the story board displays. Three sides in a "U" shaped room were filled ceiling to floor with inspiration ephemera, fabric samples, buttons, ribbons, laces and such.

The museum presented paper dolls and paper ephemera at the end so that visitors could make their own designs. These were cleverly mounted on a mini catwalk for all to see.

Then it was off to lunch and show and tell.

Susan's scarf is made from a silk/merino mix yarn, from a fair trade group from Uruguay, which she found at her local wool shop in Pennant Hills (Sydney). The pattern is one that Susan made up herself. The body of the scarf consists of two treble crochets with a one chain space, while each end has  two rows of treble crochet and a fringe. The fringe consists of two rows of double crochet, the second with an addition of long chain loops. Susan found it easy to crochet a nice scarf with a lovely yarn and a simple pattern. Her treble crochet may be unconventional, but when she is making up her own pattern, she can make up her own stitch.

Sheila had made a number of bookmarks using off cuts from fabric samples. The stitch used is one that she learned at the recent Convenor's meeting  held at Newcastle. The stitch was taught by the  Newcastle Group. The flowers are stitched by running the thread through a small piece of knitting ribbon, and taking the stitch down in the same spot. Three pieces of ribbon create a simple flower. The ribbon was hand dyed by Sheila.

Lunch afforded some photographic opportunities for inspiration purposes.

There was also time to look at a selection of ceramics from the museum's collection. This work caught Sheila's eye, but in her excitement, failed to take note of the artist.

The day ended with afternoon tea. We are all looking forward to our July meeting with the intention of meeting in the Southern Highlands for a touch of winter and a large fire to keep us warm.

Note:- This blog post was produced with great help by our member Sheila.