April 2013

This month saw eight  members attending, &  Donna reporting on the Fine Devonshire Tea & Talk. Donna's hard work in organizing the event resulted in over $700 being donated to the building fund.

Last month Robyn issued a challenge to us all to find & work "Afghanistan Reverse Stitch". The above pic is Robyn's sample showing both sides of the working.

Robyn had finished her bag for the Post Box Challenge. Crazy pieced using her own hand dyed fabrics with commercial ones, the bag features surface stitching, including fly, buttonhole, running and couching stitches.

Donna had been seduced by a bargain transfer of vintage stitchery patterns. The patterns included an apple, a mushroom, and the above pears.

Sheila had been to a course with Kirsten Ingemar, producing the above beautiful hand dyed pieces of silk.
From the top:-
1. Pinoak dyed in iron water.
2. Green silk clamped & dyed in Sydney red gum & copper.
3. Gum leaves dyed in iron water
4. Orange colour is air moss dyed in iron & water
5 & 6. Stringy gum bark calligraphic marks dyed in iron & water.

I wonder what exciting things will happen over the next month. Please come backin May to see what we have been up to.

March 2013

Our second meeting for the year brought seven members attending plus one visitor. There was a message from one member who has become too busy with other pursuits to continue with us, and another regular member who had recently lost a close member of her family . Our thoughts are with her at this sad time.

Pieces were starting to come in for our "Going Postal" challenge, but there will be more on that later. There was also mention of the Margaret Oppen Competition, encouraging us all to enter, as well as Concord Library's challenge of "Say It With Words".

Show & tell is always present in our group, being one of the most anticipated parts of the day.

 Dianne had been working on a band of cross stitch, inspired by a piece of pattern darning held in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England.

Gerri's local group in the Southern Highlands had a task this month to make a Biscornu. Foolishly she chose a pattern for a small one............so..............she had to double the pattern. Finally finishing the patterns for both sides, the edges were joined together by by off-setting the corners to to the halfway point of each square.

hand

Jenny had finished knitting her baby shawl. Made with Shepherd 3ply Merino Baby Wool, in a pattern from the Shepherd Baby Shawls Collection 1, the shawl is Jenny's greatest knitting challenge. Jenny had knitted with circular needles,  with fine baby yarn, and many a lace pattern before, but never all together, especially with over 2,300 stitches on the needle.The shawl is to be a gift.

Jenny had also been making another quilt. This one is for another family member due to have a baby any day. It is made from a panel of Disney fabric featuring characters from Winnie-the-Pooh. It has been machine quilted on the diagonal, going around the printed patterned squares on the front, giving an interesting pattern on the back.

Robyn had used her own vegetable dyed fabrics to piece together the background for her new shoulder bag. It is seen here with her chosen thread colours.

Our next meeting is a month away, so please come back then to see what fun we will get up to.

February 2013

Welcome to another year of creativity with our group. We had our first official meeting of 2013 last weekend with seven members attending. It had been some months since we had met as a group so there was plenty of chat with much show & tell.

 Sheila had been making brooches with left over pieces of canvas. Stitched wit her own hand dyed threads & commercial buttons.

 Donna is participating with three other embroiderers in a Round Robin. This is her stitching, and the other participants will stitch the same pattern  in colours of their own choosing.

A small section of Sheila's quilt "Grasses", using iron stained fabric, running stitch & whip stitch.

Jenny was busy knitting a circular shawl, using Shepherd 3ply Merino Baby Wool in a pattern from the Shepherd Baby Shawls Collection 1. Many thanks must go to the girls at Morris & Sons, Sydney, who helped her obtain a  circular needle large enough to take the 1,800 stitches required for this shawl.

Dianne was working on a black cockatoo from a Gary Clark workshop. Worked from the back in simple surface stitching.

Sheila had made a zipper bag, copied from one purchased from a Blue Mountains group.

 Gerri had been on a recent trip to Venice & purchased these exquisite treasures.

This is a pencil case given to Annette by her daughter on a recent trip to Laos. It has been hand stitched in vibrant colours.

This book was purchased by Annette on a recent trip to the NGV. A beautiful book covering the social history of Paris, and the fashions and the artists of the time. It gives an insight into the Impressionist time and movement.

Jenny had used the digitized butterfly design that she was playing with in November, to jazz up a baby quilt   for a new family member. The quilt & all the back story can be seen on Jenny's personal blog as well as here.

Some of the finished pieces for our "Going Postal "  Challenge were revealed, while others are still works in progress. All of these will be revealed in good time, so please keep visiting to maybe catch a glimpse and  see what we get up to next.

November 2012

Last Saturday was our last meeting for the year, that ment Christmas Lunch with an amazing array of  food. Everything from crackers and cheese, dips, cold meats and salads, fruit and pavlova, fruit mince slice and biscotti, not to mention the coffe and mints. Yummo! Of course, that also meant that there were 10 members present.

Show and tell as always provided some goodies to excite us.

Gerri had nearly finished a quilt for her son. Made from a class in 2009/2010, the quilt features a 3D colour arrangement of blocksbased on "Y" seams.



Donna had been making postcards based on drawings that she had done on holidays to the Cook Islands. The postcards will be for the "Going Postal" challenge due next year.

These block prints are by Donna, using Easy Carve and block printing ink, acrylic paint and lots of enthusiasm.

Jenny had been playing with some digitizing, changing a butterfly design to something more suited to it's end result. This one still needs some tweaking and will eventually be stitched out in white on pink fabric.

This is part of Jenny's Byzantine Lefkara Lace piece that she started in September with Chrishine P. Bishop.

"Jack's Chessbord" by Gerri is a story board of things about Jack, his big trips, his likes, sports and heratige with Granny.

During the day there was much talk about the Capital Campaign and ways to raise money for out new Center of Excellence, also how to raise awaeness to our cause. Anyone wishing to contribute a donation towards our new Center of Excellence can do so here. Donations over $2 are tax detuctable and well worth the investement to ensure the future of embroidery lives on.

There were also discussions about our "Going Postal" challenge for 2013, but you will all have to come back next year to see what that challenge may produce. Until then, Seasons Greetings to all.

October 2012

The Guild AGM was on at the same time as our meeting this month so many of our members chose to go to the AGM instead. Consequently, there were only two of us present for the morning and  four for the afternoon. Robyn was de-cluttering and had bags of goodies for donating. These included books, magazines, and packages of fabric, braids and lace. There were also many members coming and going, so lots of people to chat, say hello to, and catch up with. So there was plenty to entertain us as well as any stitching we chose to do.

The following day, Sunday, saw the announcement of the winners to our "Changing Of The Seasons" challenge, with an award presentation & morning tea. Wendy & Donna had been working hard for some time to get this challenge underway, resulting  in numerous entries being contributed from all over NSW, as well as Queensland and Victoria. All the entries are currently on display at the Concord Library until next week, when they will go on display at the Five Dock library until 26th November.

Wendy had the pleasure of announcing the following winners:-

First Place                - Margaret Smith

Second Place           - Marie Laurie

Third Place               - Jenny Bargh

Highly Commended  - Judith Langdon

Below are photographs of our own members entries.

Jenny's 3rd place winning entry "Seasons of Sneezes".

Gerri's beautiful handmade box.

Wendy's "Grevillia Poorinda"

Susan's "Memory Of Trees"

Donna's "What Spring Means To Me"

Sheila's "Seasons of Age"

The dispaly in the library.

Show and tell for our meeting day provided the following:-

Sheila's quilt, "Life On Mars" using her own rust stained silk with hand embroidery and machine quilting.

Jenny was playing with some more teneriffe lace.



An update on Susan's "Spring Walk" project, where the stitching has been finished and decisions are being made as to how to finish it. 

We have one more meeting for the year, so come back in November to check up on our progress.