April 2020

 Another month has gone by, and still we are in the midst of this World Pandemic of Covid19. This little virus has made us all stay home, and venture out only for essentials, to go to work, or to exercise. We had another meeting via Zoom last Saturday with seven members joining in for show and tell. 

 First up we have Robyn who been working on a UFO, a  black-work piece from an Alison Snepp workshop.

Susan's  "Happiness" quote embroidery is the 4th in what's turning out to be a series. It is all in stranded cotton, with lettering outlined in whipped back stitch, and filled in with satin stitch, and the background filled in with irregular satin stitch. Susan has been using up her stash, and hopes the effect is joyful and energetic. 

Annette has made a Crochet donut. Over the years she has spent a fortune on pink iced donuts for her daughter. During a clean out, Annette found the instructions for the crochet donut pincushion which she decided to try. Worked with DMC no 4 cotton and 2.5 hook. No  more bought donuts for her daughter.

These Raised Butterflies are to go on Annette's  Pulled work background from last month. The butterflies are worked with silk thread and a thread of shiny variegated machine thread together in the needle. Why a non machine embroiderer had a lot of machine embroidery threads in the cupboard Annette  did not know but it gives life to the wings. Worked on silk organza backed with iron on vilene.

Jenny has been using up tiny scraps of even weave fabric, left over from other projects, to create tiny Hardanger motifs. Thread used is a variegated Perle 8. A decision is yet to be made what to do with them .

Susan had crocheted a beanie for herself, making up her own pattern with a couple of new stitches including a rib effect.  It will go over her ears so great for winter in the Tablelands.

Jenny had made progress on her new winter cardigan, finishing another front, and beginning a sleeve. It is being worked in Bendigo Woollen Mills Bloom - Blackberry Bliss

Susan had started her first ever mosaic, an old dinner set being smashed to cover a birdbath, the inside of the bowl so far, such fun.

For April, Sheila's daily practice is collage.  Continuing to work in a 1995 diary, she creates a paper based collage using her painted papers, gelli prints, stamped papers and mixed commercial papers to create a design.  The diary confirms that 25 years ago, Sheila was doing the basic (introductory) course with The Embroiderers' Guild.  That lead to the intermediate certificate which ultimately lead to the formation of Stitchers Plus.

While being overwhelmed with numbers in relation to the pandemic and trying to see the relationship between the days, Sheila started collecting and stitching on a graph that appears in the daily newspaper.  She is stitching a french knot for each death using the state and territory graph bars.  The individual blocks are being assembled in weekly rows which are then joined together.  The resulting work will grow to whatever size it becomes until the newspaper stops providing the graph.

Sheila is also working on a major project that needs to be kept under wraps.  The work is still at the point where it could be submitted for exhibition or submitted to the garbage bin.

Normally our little group has a ten minute exercise at the beginning of our day to get our creative juices flowing. As COVID 19 and the world pandemic has interrupted our meetings, Jenny decided we still needed a creative challenge. A music challenge had been on her agenda for a while, she just had to work out how to deliver it. YouTube Music made it easy, so a link to the following music video was e-mailed to all members of the group, with the advice to close our eyes as we put pen to paper. Our inspiration was found here - Maddie Poppe - 'Made You Miss Miss Me'.

Our results can be seen below.

We hope that this COVID 19 virus will soon be at an end so that we can meet in person again. In the mean time, out Face Book page might provide some other insights into what we do.

                                   https://www.facebook.com/Stitchers-Plus-638409429660889/

May 2018

 Our May meeting was once again in the library, this time with a visit from Jacky from  Victoria, and Margaret finally being able to join us after lunch . This gave us eight in attendance.

Show and tell always gives us varied and interesting items to look at, ponder over, and generally be inspired.

This little triangular coin purse was made by Sheila. It has been decorated after attending a class with Jenny O'Sullivan.

These coffee cups are by Sheila, ready for the display at upcoming quilt and craft show in June.

Jenny was adding a needle lace edge to some UFO letters that she had found while looking for something else.  The actual letters were unfinished when she found them, and they have since been finished, had extra stitching added, and hemmed. They will eventually adorn a book cover. The letters were started quite some years ago for another project.

Above are two pages from Sheila's journal, which was her daily practice for March. Her task was to journal every day, and her first priority was to complete the journal that she had made with paper shopping bags. Sheila had been working through the 'Art To The 5th Document Life Project' , and three years later the journal is finally completed. The two pages above have been completed with different journaling techniques.

Sheila's daily challenge for April was to do a stitch collage every day. The idea came from Cas Holmes 'Stitch Stories'. Sheila has enjoyed the practice so much that she has decided to continue until she has filled a 1984 Monet diary . Sometimes there is a connection between the Monet painting and her stitching or design. The leaf above is just one of her pages.

This Christmas tree has been made by Gerri using small wooden embroidery hoops. Using a variety of printed fabric, Gerri has added embellishments to the front, felt to the back, then glued the hoops together.

Annette had completed Gerri's mandala. Her starting point was that her life was going around in ever increasing circles, and that nothing was ever just black and white. The sparkly beads indicate the high points of her life.

Gerri had finished her needle roll from Annette's blind stitching exercise , gaining enjoyment and satisfaction by adding further embellishments.

This dove has been embroidered by Gerri using a cut out Christmas card as inspiration and made intp a small pouch.

This is the beginnings of Annette's Southern Highlands and CWA craft group project that many of the members are working on.Some of the ladies are working exactly to the published pattern, but Annette is modifying hers to make it more personal. She is using 'stuff' from her stash and will not be buying any extra bits.

Gerri had turned her two extended  squares from last month  into business card holders.

A crocheted mixed thread wall hanging made by Gerri using a large sized crochet hook. The work has been turned sideways with a fringe added to give extra length.

Susan has completed a top for the Installation 4 section of the EG exhibition at the upcoming Craft and Quilt Show. A top with moth holes became an exercise to do lots of chain stitch family stitching - more visible mending than a new wearable art garment

Susan's table runner has also been finished, with lots of fun playing with a family of stitches.

This is Gerri's Christmas quick fix Teddy. Used for stocking fillers and made from felt and blanket stitch.

A Very Nice Mice made by Sheila from Ann Wood's pattern and instructions found at Anne wood Handmade

Sheila had made a book of cards for her sister as an encouragement while she was going through treatment for a serious illness. Above are two of the cards that were sent.  

Early in the day Jenny had given us all a creative design exercise using only circles and their properties. Below are some of our efforts.

We will all meet again in June for another creative exercise, some more show and tell, and lots of fun and laughs . Please come back for another visit to see what we get up to.

February 09

Our February meeting was held last Saturday. Sheila had a fun exercise for us to do using stamps & inkpads.

Below is Robyn's foot,

Sheila's figure,

Jenny's fig,

and Susan's pattern.

Then there was the challenge that Sheila gave us for the year using these fun glasses, from a "Creative Hands Mega Camp Kit". http://www.creativehands.com/. Made of foam, they are flexible, can be stitched into, painted and glued on. It will be interesting to see what we will all do with these.

Sheila had also been making more brooches from felt, with FME. The design came from her tornpaper exercises at Summer school.

Sheila had also been busy reducing her stash of scraps and turning them into this QAYG quilt.

We welcomed Wendy to our group, who showed us her "doodle cloth" of cretan stitch. I might add that this is only a very small section of this cloth.

Donna had been making a postcard,

as well as a cabachon in a workshop with Pearl Red Moon.

Jenny had been making lace.

and Susan had made this "Pay Mistress" paper collage from time sheets, paper clips, photocopied bull dog clips, and other bits found in her office.