November 2020

 Ten of our members met in reality in November under strict COVID guidelines for meetings inside.

A very successful day was had with show and tell, a shared lunch, a birthday cake for one of our members having a "0" birthday, and chatter about next year.

We also welcomed new member Sheila C to our group.

Show and tell brought lots of items, a small section of which is below.

Above is Suganthi's exercise from a Vinny Stapley's workshop for Stitch Club that Textileartist.org hosts. The exercise called for sheer pale fabrics which Suganthi had zero of , so went with what was in her stash.  A stylised version of a eucalyptus twig was used as her motifs.

Sheila B's daily practice for November was to stitch a 10 cm square. She used a plant dyed fabric, plant dyed threads and non-plant dyed threads for these stitch meditations. The blocks have been connected to create a scroll. 

Susan's progress on her memory quilt. Susan still needs a few more rows of hexagons, especially to make it longer, then  will have to work out how to finish it. The quilt will be left unpadded so it can be used  as it is in summer, and possibly over a doona in winter. Susan is still thinking about it all.

Sheila B is participating in  #carvedecember hosted by @balzerdesigns. This block was based on her grandson's drawing. She repeated and coloured the blocks for a gallery of Grammas, Andy Warhol style.

Jenny had completed a bobbin lace hankie edge for a friend's '0' birthday. It had been completed for some time and has now been gifted. Completed with a variegated Gutermann Sulky thread, and two strands of  Gutermann cotton in yellow as a gimp along the edge.

Recently, when Jo was stuck getting something started, she made a series of spot samplers.

In this one  metal threads and beads were used .

 

Susan's  first mosaic project, a bird bath, which has been therapeutic in more ways than one. 

So one COVID year has passed and we all survived. I wonder what 20201 will bring. Please join us in 2022 to find out. 

As the world continued with a pandemic of COVID 19, Australia was beginning to come out of lock down, and our group was looking forward to meeting in reality once again. However, a second wave of the virus spread from a southern state back to Sydney, and we were all on notice again. We decided it was better to forgo our reality meeting, and to continue via Zoom for the time being. Six of us attended, with much show and tell. 

Jo had been playing with machine stitching on silk and tulle to produce this 7cm x 7cm sculptural object which looks remarkably like a flower.

Jenny had pulled out another UFO of Ukranian Whitework to finish. The piece is being worked on denim coloured linen in a variety of coloured threads.

Suganthi's work in progress is sampling for the metal threads module of the Contemporary Stitch and Design course that she is doing with Sharyn Hutchens at the Embroiderers Guild NSW.

The last two months has seen Sheila working on a queen sized bed quilt.  The design is a variation of the Wild Goose Chase block which came from 'Enduring Grace, Quilts from the Shelburne Museum Collection'.  Sheila converted the pattern into a foundation pieced block.  She used fabrics from the Thimbleberry range which she won in 2002.

Sheila's on-going covid19 project is growing larger.  Every day, she marks each death on the graph printed in the daily newspaper.  The paper is trapped between the base fabric and the organza and then the french knots are stitched.  The blocks are sewn together into weeks and then joined with the previous weeks.  She started this project as a way to make sense of the growing numbers by comparing one day to the next or one week to the next.  Sadly, the numbers continue to rise.

Sheila's daily practice for July has been to continue creating an Index Card A Day, ICAD. Her structured card designs have used limitations on concepts and mark making but yet have allowed for a wide variety of creations.  It has been a challenging yet fun process.  Sheila's further work can be found at:  https://www.instagram.com/thingstitcher/

Lesley's 15+ year old jacket that has been deconstructed and re-knitted. The Jacket had been washed in a washing machine after a camping trip, instead of being washed by hand. It shrunk, and the wool looked very matted. Lesley was about to donate it to the charity shop, but decided to pull it apart and re-knit it, using the same pattern, and is very happy with the outcome. The wool has regained its texture and elasticity and looks smart enough to wear around town.

Rhonda has been knitting for family and friends using Bendigo Woollen Mill yarn

Jenny has also been knitting squares form her scrap yarn. At present there are 64 squares of varying yarn. Some wool, some acrylic, some textured, some plain. When joined together it should make an interesting knee rug. 

As Australia watches and waits to see how this pandemic will play out, our group continues to create at home. Please come back for another visit next moth to see what we have been up to. 

November 2019

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.

September 2018

 For our September meeting, Robyn led us through a creative stitching exercise. There were three categories that we drew out of a hat, then used as inspiration to stitch onto fabric that we had brought. The categories included shape, two stitches, and either a positive or negative approach.

Above are  our works that we began creating on the day.

There may have only been  four of us on the day, but show and tell as always is worth a look see.

Sheila had made this book cover using last moth's activity presented by Wendy. The final stitched piece was inserted into another piece of fabric, which was then turned into the book cover.

The Embroiderer's Guild is displaying poppies for the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day. The display will be in the Gallery window in November. Sheila made one sheer fabric poppy using a stencil cutter to create the petals and beaded the center. The brighter red poppy was created using four Suffolk puffs, felt and french knots.

On an impulse buy, Jenny succumbed to  purchasing three yarn cakes from Lincraft while they were on sale. The crocheted squares above are from the Shepherd Baby Shawl Collection 1 book, and are being sewn together to form either a knee rug or baby blanket.

Quilt NSW is collaborating with Arterie Lifehouse to create a patchwork wall hanging for the State of the art building. Sheila has completed blocks from kits that were distributed by Quilt NSW.

Sheila's daily practice for August was to create a fun foam stamp every day. This flower shape was created with a single stamp printed multiple times. 

Our little group had another fun day, with a creative exercise, some oohing and arhing over pieces in the collection room, to stitching an chatting to visitors in the the Gallery. I wonder what we will get up to next month?