September 2017

Our meeting this month was held in Gerri's temporary residence in Randwick, in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. After a quick catch up on all the news, we settled down to morning tea and show and tell.

Jenny had finished her first ever bobbin lace handkerchief edging. Made in the Bedfordshire style, the edge uses 90/2 Linen thread. The edge is mounted on linen fabric using 'Nun's Stitch' in the same linen thread that the lace has been worked. The full story of this edge can be found on Jenny's personal blog.

Jenny had also finished another bobbin lace Christmas decoration. This star pattern came from an old issue of an Anna magazine, and has been worked in DMC No50 Cordonnet Special thread

Gerri has been working on 3" (75mm) embroidery hoops and themed fabrics in preparing mini Christmas trees. Once stretched into the frames, the fabrics are then embellished and stitched with beads.

The hoops will be then backed with felt, and joined in the shape of a Christmas Tree to be hung on a door or wall.

Robyn continues to work on her country piece, stitching through tea bags and dyed fabric

The Saga with crochet squares continues as Gerri experiments with more shades from the Cake balls of wool. These will be joined into another rug for a Christmas present

This month Robyn has been playing with drawing faces, stencilling, ink, acrylic paints and textas in her journal.

Susan has  started a new unit in her course, Sculpture/Studio Processes, and tried to do some work for it while on holidays  in the forested hills inland from the Sunshine  Coast. Her  first exercise was an ephemeral sculpture and working on the theme of time. Susan was to use found materials, create a form, a la Andy Goldsworthy, and photograph it over 5 days to show the effect of time on ephemeral materials. The photos show 2 things that Susan  created on the day , and which she found was quite fun to do. 

Our travelling adventures are still happening while our new Guild building is being completed. Maybe next month we will be in our new space. Please come back to visit next month, not only to check out what we have been playing with, but maybe also our new meeting space.

November 2014

It was our last Meeting of the year last Saturday. Being this time of the year, a few of us had other commitments so there was only five of us for the day.

Our Collaborative Project had been shown in late October at "Surprise", an exhibition of the Embroiderer's Guild NSW Inc. For anyone who missed this delightful exhibition and our group display, our pieces can be seen below. Our theme - "Houses". All pieces were to have the same angle, so when placed in a row, a curved "Thread Needle Street" was formed.

"Little Green House" by Robyn

Painted artist canvas with surface stitching and stumpwork. 

H 18cm, W 36cm.

"House - Lost World" by Susan

Relief panel of mono print and appliqué.  House in shallow relief with embroidered details, and a 'sleeping beauty' garden in various couched threads and french knots.

H 15 cm, W 29cm

"Small Double Fronted House" by Wendy

Surface stitchery on linen.

"Holiday House" by Jenny

Coloured pulled work using blended threads and worked on linen.

H 31cm,  W 28cm

"Wicked Van" by Annette

"Tree House" by Sheila

Surface stitching, appliqué and  machine embroidery. Using her own hand dyed threads of various sicknesses, the tree trunk is stitched in raised chain band while the windows& doors are raised stem stitch and have appliquéd separately. The leaves are machine stitched using commercial threads on hand dyed fabric, mounted on wire. The ladder is machine stitching over wire.

H 44cm W 37cm

"No 23" by Robyn

Machine embroidery on red felt with beading.

H 41cm, W 17cm

"Windmill Home" by Gerri

"Road To Where ?" by Dianne

A birds eye view of a street scene. Surface stitching on Linen.

H 44cm. W 37cm

"Dog House" by Donna

Painted canvas, clay figure, appliquéd felt, and free form embroidery.

H 74cm , W 21 cm.

Show and tell for the day included the following:-

A page from Sheila's travel journal - watching people in the Flower Dome in the gardens by the bay in Singapore. Her husband was snoozing at the time.

Donna's crazy patchwork project incorporating her "An Apple A Day" personal challenge that she has set herself. On Saturday Donna managed to draw, stitch, and print an apple, and hopes to have a journal full of apples by this time next year.

A sample of Jenny's travel  knitting. Jenny needed something mind numbing to do on a recent trip away, but creative enough not to get bored. This drop stitch pattern provided enough interest without needing too much thinking, especially when incorporating three different colours.  Using all pure wool in a combination of 2ply and 4 ply, the end result will be a tubular scarf knitted sideways on circular needles.

Robyns Canvas work embroidery playing with stitches and threads.

Sheila brought in a little fun for us to participate in for the morning. Making stamps with some cheap foam pads and a ball point pen. The following are our efforts for a small part of the morning.

Following our fun with our own hand crafted stamps and stamp pads, discussions were held  as to our program for next year. We are all set on our thinking path, but to find out what this is you will all have to come back next year to continue to follow us in our journey.  Until then, we wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and creative 2015.

September 2012

Our meeting this month saw 9 members and two guests, a total of 11 people in all. Our two guests were sisters of two of our memebers, one all the way from Canada, and  the other from Tamworth in the New England region of NSW.

 
Show and tell as always filled the day. Susan's canvas work is a work in progress called "Spring Walk". An abstract interpretation of the glorious spring - flowering gardens that she walks past at the moment.

  The above is the beginnings of a journal cover by Donna using raised chain band. A lot of fun, and with some luck Donna will remember how to work raised chain band forever.

Jenny brought in her reticella table mat for some of our members who had not seen it finished. The piece had recently been on exhibition, and the full story of the piece, as well as other pieces of Jenny's in the exhibition, can be read about on her own personal blog.

Both Robyn and Jenny had been to a private, invitation only, workshop with Chrishine P. Bishop in Byzantine Lefkara Lace. The workshop was over two days. The above piece is Robyn's WIP while Jenny's can be viewed on her own personal blog.

Wendy had been making bookmarks in various techniques using silk thread on linen fabric. Being free in design, the bookmarks will be displayed at Concord and Five Dock libraries during October and November, along with other embroidery works and textile books.

Gerri's samples above are a work in progress from a class in Ukranian Insertion stitches. For Gerri it was a breath of fresh air to learn new things.

Sheila had recently been on a trip to Uluru and Kata Tjuta in Cental Australia. The above drawing is one in her travel diary where she used sand from the location to colour the page.

This is a fabric rubbing done by Sheila using oil pastel on cotton fabric. The design was on a bench in Alice Springs.
I wonder what our next meeting will bring. Be sure to pay us another visit to find out.