Last Saturday brought our final official meeting for the year. Twelve of us got together for show and tell, and to enjoy a final lunch together for the year. Susan made the effort to travel from her home in Country NSW to join us in person, and we welcomed another new member to our group, boosting our numbers still further
Our exhibition for May 2020 is gaining ground and pieces. Snippets of some of the pieces being displayed next year are shown below.
Jenny is using butterfly wings as inspiration for one of her pieces. Circles on the design called for eyelets, the decision just had to be made as to what colour and thread to work them in. The photo above is a sample worked to test out various colours and threads. The first photo is just a snippet of the final piece.
Sheila has completed another 2 butterflies for our group exhibition in
May 2020 at Gallery76 Queen Street. Both were made using previously coloured
fabric samples. The blue butterfly above is a hand dyed cord stitched over the lines
of a stencil. The green is raised chain stitch, again using a hand dyed thread.
Both are finished with machine satin stitch around the edges.
Robyn has been working on her Needle Lace butterfly this month, thinking about what fillings stitches to use.
Jenny has been trying her hand a bobbin lace butterfly. Taking a photograph off the internet, Jenny drew up the design, worked out how many bobbins to wind, and played with Finca 40 thread. This butterfly will join the crocheted ones from last month in a final piece with other added bits and pieces.
Susan has been working on her "Memory Quilt". The top photo shows how it fits
over her king single bed, and the other is a detail. The quilt is close to being finished, and Susan is keen to have it finished. It is a paper-pieced, 3/4 inch hexagon quilt top, all done by hand, using her own fabrics. Some of the fabrics are nearly 40
years old, and some are from her Mum's dressmaking fabrics. Started over 3 years ago, with no
other aim than using up scraps, it's grown like topsy to become a bed quilt. Susan added to the memories held
in the patchwork by asking friends in Sydney and elsewhere to contribute
fabrics, so they are sewn in too. The task comes now to work out how it will be put together as a 2-layer quilt, with no padding.
Above are three pieces of Suganthi's. They are non-assessable pieces for Mary Brown's component of the Contemporary
Stitch and Design Course that she has been doing. They demonstrate heightened,
high and low key pieces.
Annette Y has completed her Drawn Fabric bookmark and sampler submitted for the final component of the Guild's Introduction to Embroidery
coarse. She will now focus on butterflies.
Sheila attended a course with Helen Parsons on the south coast of NSW , where she spent 2 days learning collage techniques. The final piece contained donated fabrics and found elements stitched onto a heavy paper.
The next 3 days, Sheila learned about creating sculptural works. Helen
provided many unusual textiles and fibres and gave everyone permission to play.
Sheila enjoyed making a wire face and working with pantyhose and stuffing
it then adding stiff fibres to the blobs. Most successful was the
stitching through foam core with a thick paper thread. Thank you to Helen for
leading the course and thank you to the fellow stitchers who were great
company.
Our little group has grown to seventeen this year, including our country members who visit in person on occasion. Our tastes, techniques, and methods of working are many and varied, though we all have a united love of stitching and playing with textiles. I wonder what 2020 will bring? Please join us next year and follow along in our adventures.
