February 2020

Our group had our first official meeting for 2020 last Saturday. There were ten of us attendance, and Susan joined us via Zoom.

Show and tell is a huge part of our group, so join us below to see what everyone has been working on.

Sheila has finally hoop-framed her woven picot work from a group activity last year.  The addition of the stitches wrapped around the edge of the frame was inspired by https://www.instagram.com/feathercobbler/.

With the group's May exhibition fast approaching, Sheila has completed another butterfly.  This one has lots of sparkle with added beads and sequins.

Lesley had been working on collages for the Surface Stitching Module of the C Sand D Course. She picked a photograph, abstracted a small part of it, drew it and then created a fabric and stitch collage. Collage 1. above was inspired by an aerial photo of a dry river system between mountains.

 Collage 2 was inspired by a photo taken at Machu Picchu.

The bricolage was also a classwork exercise for the same course. For this, Lesley had to make a stitched composition out of various bit and pieces that appealed to her. Lesley's  included a torn piece of a watercolour painting, a fleecy covered wire, dress linen, upholstery fabric and leaves and seeds from a gum tree.

Our creative exercise for the day was led by Robyn, where she taught us to do a Pulled Back Stitch eyelet filler. Below are some of our efforts.

Robyn 

Suganthi

Jenny

Lesley

Jo

 Annette

Sheila

Jenny had completed a baby quilt for a new member in the family due in April. It was a panel purchased from Lincraft, which Jenny sandwiched with wool batting and yellow homespun, then quilted by machine.

The Southern Highlands group, which Annette is a part of, started the February surprise class by making cloth Singleton buttons. Both Singleton and Dorset buttons are an old British craft. The industry started in the 1700 and provided a living for many cottage crafters. 

Above is a sample of Dorset buttons. Annette  used the making of Dorset buttons for the February surprise class with the Southern Highlands Group. It was a very successful afternoon.

Jenny had also started a new winter cardigan in Bendigo Woollen Mill "Bloom" . Bloom is an 8 ply pure wool yarn with colour transitions that change within the ply to give a unique look . The colour way is ' Blackberry Bliss' and Jenny is using 'Dot Stitch'  to create a subtle texture.

Sheila continues with a small daily practice.  For February, she is stitching an alphabet on plant dyed paper using her hand dyed threads.  The plan is to make a book with the completed papers. The papers were created in an Embroiderers' Guild summer school with Samantha Tannous from https://dwellstudios.artweb.com/

A great day was had by all, and we were all buzzing over the ' Duality' Exhibition by Crossing Threads' in Gallery 76 downstairs. For details go to https://www.embroiderersguildnsw.org.au/Gallery76.

We are getting closer to our exhibition which will be held in May at 76 Queen Street, Concord West. It would be great id you could all come to see it, but in the meantime, check out our blog next month for more of our creativity, and like our Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Stitchers-Plus-638409429660889/

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.

October 2019

Our meeting this month was held in conjunction with the Embroiderers Guild AGM, so we only got together after lunch. Four of us joined forces to chat, discuss the Margaret Oppen works which were on display downstairs, and show and tell in the Resource room at Guild HQ. The remainder of our group had other plans for the day.

The Embroiderers' Guild of NSW conducts a biennial competition for members called the Margaret Oppen.  The exhibition of submitted works was officially opened and prizes awarded in early October.  Six members of the group entered works into the competition which was the highest number of any group within the Guild.  We are proud of our achievement.  The theme of the competition was ' Sensations' which was addressed by all the entrants in a variety of ways.

Sheila's work for the competition was titled ' Ring-a-Ring' based on the sensation of dizziness.  The figures in the work were made of commercially available shapes which were covered in raised chain stitch using hand dyed threads.  The figures were joined into pairs and mounted on a covered base.  This was placed on a turntable so the work could be spun around.  The winning works and other entries can be found at:  https://www.instagram.com/gallery76_queenst/

Sheila also continues with a daily practice and in October, she is participating in Inktober.  Sheila's work can be found at: https://www.instagram.com/thingstitcher/

Annette's Margaret Oppen piece is titled 'AHhhhh!!! Time For A Cup Of Tea'. Annette believes  it should have been called 'Peace in the chaos of daily life".The piece consists of Pulled thread work, Applique and Surface Stitches. Annette used old fabrics, the surface stitch is on "Old Bleach" pure Irish linen. Nothing was purchased for the project, everything used was from her stash.

Robyn and Wendy's pieces for the Margaret Oppen Competition. Robyn's piece is on the left, titled 'Country'. Wendy's piece is on the right titled 'Sensations in Silk'

Robyn's  SENSATIONS journey started when stepping out of a car barefoot into the warn dry rust coloured soil of her mother’s country and finished with the cool soft blue/greens of her father’s, also many times barefoot.   

There were many sensations, both physical and emotional, created whilst coffee dying her Grandmothers cotton sheeting, collecting, drying and peeling apart the tea bags after many cups of tea with her Mother and then the feeling when the needle passing through all those beautiful textured layers with her favourite split stitch. 

Materials: Coffee and rust dyed cotton, tea bags, embroidery threads and felt backing. 

Techniques: Split stitch and Back stitching. 

Suganthi started with seahorses for her Margaret Oppen piece. Shades of blue on blue. Laid bars

She tried using crochet thread to create a base for pulled thread which  didn’t work.

She next tried linen with blanket stitch and  felted wool around the edges.

Withdrawn threads from the linen and blanket stitch to uncover the hidden seahorses.

A swirling sensation finished for the Margaret Oppen.

Artists Statement – Suganthi Singarayar

Margaret Oppen Competiton 2019

Theme: Sensations

Title: Hidden Depths

Something that you can touch, feel, see, smell, that creates a feeling (a sensation). Something that is wonderful. A swirling sensation, layers, depth, sea creatures, colour, swirls

Jenny had been playing with thread choices for a future piece of work. Her original choice of colour proved too dull for the chosen fabric so she added another fine cotton variegated thread into the mix.

The above is just a snippet of the major piece that is now happening.

These two crocheted butterflies are by Jenny. Using photographs off the internet, Jenny worked out the patterns herself using No 60 crochet thread and 0.6mm hook. There are more plans for these butterflies, including a change of colour and some added stitching.

Jenny had also finished trialing a new bobbin lace edge she wants to do. The edging  design is No 7 from the Pamela Nottingham book on Bedfordshire Lacemaking. This sample is worked in a King Tut quilting thread, and will be used at a later date to decorate something else.

Susan had been to Katoomba for a couple of exhibitions finishing this weekend. One was Wendy Tsai's "Drawing the Kedumba" (River), with some lovely big charcoal and mixed media drawings, and 6 'thread paintings' - she'd never done this before. 

There may only have been four of us present on the day, but the time went fast with all the chatting and show and tell. Next month will be our final meeting for the year, so please come back for another visit to see what we get up to.