September 2020

 Vlinders, Papillon and Butterflies

Our exhibition is  snow open on level 2,  Gallery 76, 76 Queen Street , Concord West. NSW.

We have all been working hard towards our exhibition and it is now open for viewing. COVID set us back a few months, though we have pulled through and the exhibition is now open. 

We still held our meeting via Zoom last Saturday, with five of us attending. Show and tell is always a treat.

Jenny had finished off another pincushion. This one had begun life as a sample for a major piece using a pulled thread stitch. The pin cushion is now with it's new owner.

Jenny had also made a needle case using scraps of linen from the same major piece. Jenny had no plan, and just started stitching. First with a buttonhole stitch edge, then a row of satin stitch and eyelets. The piece talked to her as she worked and finally grew to this needle case featuring Hardanger and pulled work. Threads used were left overs from another project. The needle case is now with its new owner.

A small section of Jo's butterfly which is part of our  Vlinders, Papillon and Butterflies exhibition. The piece is called 'Golden Butterfly' and features Gold metal leaf, machine embroidery’ French knots and appliqué. 

A snippet of Jenny's little butterfly trinket bag. The piece features counted 'Blackwork' stitches worked in blended threads.

A section of one of Robyn's butterflies featuring wire, needle lace and beads.

For the exhibition, Sheila created a number of butterflies using painted fabric samples made in a class.  The design on the fabric was the starting point for each butterfly.  This butterfly has a hand dyed cord couched over the design on the fabric and a painted felt body.  She made ten butterflies for the exhibition.

Lesley's current work in progress is apiece of Tuscan Lace. The  project is featured in  "Inspirations" issue 103. The design is by Maria Elide Melani of Italy and the technique is Deruta Sfilato. 

Jo's current project is playing with Valdani pearl cotton with satin stitch.

Jenny's current project is a piece of Hardanger, also using Valdani pearl cotton in a variegated colour. The design is from Inspirations magazine no 106 and is by Di Kirchner of Australia. 

Sheila took part in the Inchie challenge hosted by Amy Maricle:  https://www.instagram.com/amymaricle/.  She took the resulting pieces and created a small accordion button book.  Then she created a box to hold the work.  The circular pages were painted with fluid acrylics and marked with a variety of markers and paint pens.  The box was made with gelli printed card and is based on a box that Sheila has had in her collection for many years.

For the month of August, Sheila stitched on a heavy paper previously marked with india ink.  When the pages ran out before the end of the month, she converted to tracing paper, marked with white paint.  The completed pages have been assembled into a book with a coptic binding.  Details of individual pages can be found on Sheila's Instagram account:  https://www.instagram.com/thingstitcher/

Even though COVID 19 has been been making it's presence known, we have all been stitching and creating. Our exhibition  'Vlinders, Papillon and Butterflies' is  snow open on level 2,  Gallery 76, 76 Queen Street , Concord West. NSW. Please drop by in reality and have a look. Until next month, happy stitching.

January 2017

Welcome to a new year of Stitchers Plus. For the moment we are still meeting externally from Guild HQ while the building undergoes major renovations. We hope to return to this new and improved meeting space sometime this year.

We usually only meet casually in January anyway as our normal meeting space is full of Summer School participants. Our January meeting is typically a look at what's on exhibition at Guild HQ, checking out what's happening at Summer school, a chat with old friends who are participating in Summer school, then out for lunch somewhere.

This year we met at The Art Gallery of NSW. Only three of us attended, meeting in the park opposite the Gallery, then proceeding to the coffee shop inside the Gallery for morning tea.

Jenny began show and tell with a new piece she had begun as part of 'A Year In Stitches'. 2017 was going to be the year of finishing UFO's  for Jenny, however it doesn't take much inspiration for her to start something new.

 The challenge had come from two of her internet friends to participate. This piece was begun on January 1st, by first searching for some suitable fabric. A piece of Danish Linen was quickly spied in her stash, complete with some Waterlilies silk thread. Other complimentary threads were soon found in her stash to add to the mix. They included both DMC Perle threads and DMC stranded threads.

Jenny had always wanted to try coloured needle weaving, so a border of three colours was first, followed by re-enforced corners and ends  another border found in an old leaflet of Lagartera Embroidery from the 1970's, then a black-work pattern worked in blended threads. It will be interesting to watch this piece evolve.

Sheila had attended an Embroiderers' Guild summer school course with Carolyn Sullivan called 'Ideas Development in Collage'.  Carolyn taught a number of different techniques for creating collages.  The class began the first day by working through a number of exercises using drawn grids and progressed to collaged grids, and expanding ideas from either personal drawings or created collages.  Painted papers were combined and added with highlights, then worked from the back to create serendipity collages.  On the second day,  black and white papers were combined with added colour and  oil pastels, and washed with water based mediums.   Selected areas were then found using a moving window shape.  Finally, students were let go to create a number of collages based on a theme.

As an interlude, Carolyn presented an overwhelming number of samples and journals and discussed her methods of working.  There was a brief discussion on adding embroidery to the paper based works and using the collages as inspiration for a textile work.  Carolyn was generous in sharing her works and ideas with her students.  It was a truly inspirational class.

Carolyn's work can be found at:  http://www.carolynsullivan.com.au

During the break, Jenny had been knitting. This is the front of  the new jumper she is making for her Hubby. Knitted in 'Savanna - Harbour Blue', a 70% wool, 30% alpaca yarn  from Bendigo Woolen Mills. The pattern is Sirdar 9248 purchased from Patternfish. The back, front, and one sleeve have already been completed. It will be finished shortly, ready for our Australian winter in a few months time.

Annette, although not being able to join us on the day, had been busy stitching. 

This canvas work robin was worked by Annette. Inspired by a Christmas card 'Robyn' by Richard Spare 2005, a hand coloured dry point print. Worked on 14 count canvas with tapestry wools using a variety of canvas stitches. The background has been worked in pattern darning.

This little monkey is Annette's attempt to crochet after a break of 40+ years. A soft toy worked in double crochet using 4 ply cottons and wools. He is stuffed with fiber fil and stand approx 30cm tall.

As you can all see, although we may be spread far and wide, have transport issues, personal issues, and for the moment a varied meeting place, we can all still create with fiber, fabric, thread, yarn, paper, paint, or whatever else may take our fancy. So come visit us again in February to see what we will get up to next.

May 2013

Our meeting this month brought eight in attendance with lots of show & tell. Donna & Wendy have  been working hard on the Capital Campaign Committee & have given us all a new challenge which can be read about here. Please all help us in our challenge, it is all to help raise funds for our new Center of Excellence For Embroidery.

Sheila had worked this lovely gum leaf piece using surface stitching and fabrics from Kirsten Ingemar's natural dyeing course at the Context Art Forum.

Robyn had been been stitching letters for the challenge. Look at all those french knots!

 Annette had finished this biscornu, using a counted thread pattern from a magazine. It had been sitting in a drawer, stitched, but not made up, for a long time. When her local group's project was to make a biscornu, this fitted the bill.

Jenny had attended the first day of a three day workshop "My Swatchbook 2, Holes, Windows, Textures &  Edges" with Effie Mitrofanis. Above are her samples of Hedebo edges worked on day 1.

 Donna had been experimenting with paint on fabric. This example uses watercolour which was then embellished with surface stitching.

Donna had also been playing with surface stitches to create a cactus theme.

This is Wendy's passport cover. It is aari work, stitched onto bandhani silk by Asif Shaikh, from Ahmedabad, India.

Wendy purchased this design from Carol Douglas. it has been worked in free form ladder chain stitch onto cotton by a village woman from bujh, India.

Our next meeting is in June. I wonder what we will get up to then.

May 2012

What a great day we had on Saturday. There were six of us present on the day, & Robyn gave us all a "Stitch Play" exercise. We were all given a different stitch to go home & play with in our own way. It will be interesting to see what we all come back with. 

As usual, there was  show & tell aplenty. 

Annette was working on her Giraffe,  "Terrific Textures" book cover. It featured scrunched & bonded tissue paper on scrunched calico, decorated with stitch, cut up crochet work & paint. At this stage it was not quite finished.

Gerri had made a name tag using a combination of needle-lace, chain stitch, lazy daisy, french knots & back stitch. It was further embellished with beads. Stitched onto seeded calico & mounted onto card that was  encased with pellon.

Jenny had been playing with a black-work pattern. It was her own design that she had created using a photo as inspiration. This sample was just to find out how the pattern could be played with using position, colour, additions & subtractions.

Sheila was in the process of making a book cover from her own discharged velvet which had been dyed & stitched. The herringbone stitch was being worked in her own hand dyed threads.

This book cover was also made by Sheila at the  Contextart class with Sue Dennis. The fabric was first dyed, then quilted & painted.

These little thimble holders are also by Sheila & were made from minky fabric.

Jenny was   knitting a new scarf using a fine 2 ply cashmere yarn from  Belisa Cashmere in Bundanoon. The pattern is a simple drop stitch one found at Frazzled Knits.

Robyn was starting to cover her wire tree, using silk fabric that she had dyed with silk dyes. The beginnings of this tree were in our April posting. I wonder how much it will have grown by June? Perhaps you will all have to come back then to find out & to see what else we have been up to

April 2010

Another quiet meeting this month with some of our members being busy with other activities, including attending workshops at Orange, in Central Western NSW. As usual, there was much chat, (including reports on the meeting in Wagga Wagga), along with checking out of new books & magazines that some of had aquired over the last month. There was also much discussion about possible future challenges & the use of computers for creative purposes.

Show & tell included the following:-

"Watermark" by Donna was inspired by her need to "play", as well as ripples on a beach. Acrylic painted calico was then free machined in variegated thread & hand stitched using perle threads.

Susan had been to Wagga Wagga & had produced a concertina style book to illustrate her time away. Made using maps, carry bags, phamplets, postcards, decorative papers & her own notes, a wonderful memory of her trip between Young & Wagga Wagga in the Riverina District of NSW. Above is the cover, and below are just two of the pages inside.

Robyn had finished the second last shape on her bag & it includes paint, carved lino block printing, & surface stitching.


There was also this play with stitches on a Pfaff sewing machine by Robyn, which had been turned into a small bag.
Just a snippet of Jenny's creative piece of Drawn Thread on her own hand dyed linen. Where is the drawn thread you all ask? Well you will all have to come back for another visit to see that!

Enjoy!