Cveg enews 08 (may 2015)

Cherwell Valley branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild

MAY 2015

Stitching Matters …….!

Online newsletter of the Cherwell Valley branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild!

Issue number eight - May 2015!

Delegates at the Embroiderers’ Guild AGM in the New Library, Birmingham on 11th April, 2015. A significant day.

Our latest online ‘e-news’ : Similar in style to recent issues, your electronic magazine is gradually changing to present you with a VISUAL record of our activities and other items of current and future potential interest. The internet is perfect for this. ‘Text’ emails from other members of the Committee will keep you updated on future meetings and other important matters.

PLEASE check your inbox regularly!

Forthcoming dates:

Editorial Comment:

Thursday 21st May: Debbie Lyddon ‘Combining the Senses: Sight & Sounds’.

I don’t know whether it is the burgeoning blossom after a cold wet Spring, but CVEG seems to be blooming, too.

And, although - according to the Embroiderers’ Guild AGM which I was privileged to attend - our Branch is ‘at risk’ due to low membership numbers, we are actually “ticking all the boxes”. It’s a factor that your Committee is actively discussing, and we have some exciting plans in the pipeline to keep us all motivated and participating. The AGM was a revelation, as are the Guild’s plans for revitalisation. Do take time to login to the Guild’s website and familiarise yourself with what is pending. There’s an Extraordinary General Meeting - again in Birmingham - on Saturday 2oth June, which Anne Lowe and I will be attending. Voting is vital. Togetherness, spreading the word, new initiatives will h e l p t o ke e p o u r Branch alive. We do not - or should not create in isolation.

Ann Somerset Miles, Editor.!

Thursday 18th June: Anne Walden-Mills ‘The Story of the Guild Collection’.

Thursday 16th July: Ann Lowe ‘A l l i n a D a y ’s Wo r k ’ Contemporary Quilt Suitcase Collection.

ADDITIONAL half-day WORKSHOP: Saturday 18th July, 2015. Irene Bradbury ‘Tips to Aid Your Drawing Skills’. (This replaces the January event which had to be cancelled due to Irene’s ill-health.) ( To b o o k , c o n t a c t Ca ro l y n Walker, 01608 685842.)

(At the AGM - very well organised with excellent presentations.)!

VENUE FOR ALL MEETINGS St Mary’s House, Broughton, Banbury, OX15 5DT. 7.30pm.

Visitors are always welcome.

Ann Somerset Miles (Editor)

annsomersetmiles@me.com

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Share Your Work:

Cherwell Valley branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild

MAY 2015

Enjoyable Meetings & Workshops:

Sampler created by Dorothy Beckett at the May workshop tutored by Anne Kelly (image copyright Anne Kelly Textiles).

Calling all stitchers: Our aim is to share what we do amongst each other, and hopefully more widely throughout the SEW Region.

We need to SHOWCASE ourselves in our bid to attract more members. We need to move beyond the notion that we just sit around stitching lazy-daisy tablecloths! Let’s demonstrate the variety of our work: show that ‘embroidery’ is about more than just handstitching, and now can encompass so many genres c o l l a g e , p a p e r, m a c h i n e stitching, felting, quilting, etc; all in a joyous mix of creativity.

So please take pictures of any of your work that you will be happy to share. Details are on the next page as to how to submit them to our Editor.

‘Repurposing the month of Dying’: paper, collage and stitch Ann Somerset Miles, commissioned for an exhibition in Todmorden West Yorkshire.

Our March meeting included the biggest collection of large canvases the branch has seen! Caroline Kirton works on a large scale, producing textile art which provides a thoughtful and often humorous documentary of everyday life, capturing the highs and lows of teenage life based on her experiences with her own three children and their friends. Inspired by the 1970s feminist Mary Kelly, Caroline likes to highlight the positive side of teenagers’ personalities whilst still trying to capture their changing moods and developing characters. She aims to make a contemporary social study of time through stitch, and her most recent body of work has expanded from teenagers to encompass all people and situations that capture her imagination.!

Working initial l y f rom photos, Caroline progresses to a series of d r a w i n g s . He r f a b r i c i s o f t e n handpainted and then background detail including text is screen printed. Free machine embroidery, appliqué and mixed media are then used to complete the (usually very large) canvases which form her work.

The appliqué, often using vintage or recycled fabrics sourced online, worked in harmony with machinestitched black lines for a highly contemporar y look – there were some unusual features such as a pink flowery park bench! (Clare Boomer)!

“A riot of colour” might be the best description for the workshop led by Judith Gussin in March. Judith brought with her not only a wide range of space-dyed felts, cottons, velvets and threads for our delectation, but also part of her collection of ethnic embroideries. The focus of the workshop was how to use some of the motifs from these mostly In d i a n p i e c e s – b e t h e y intricate purses given to a groom by his bride, or a hanging to go over a door to bring good luck – in our own textile work. Judith encouraged us to think in different scales – to upsize some of the intricate small-scale embroideries on display and pick out a key motif to reproduce as the centrepiece of a larger work, for instance. She gave us the example of a characterful little bird who appears in a fair bit of her work, and showed us the original ethnic piece which had inspired this.!

We then began designing our own pieces, some using cut-out scraps of paper which we could then reposition until we were happy; some designing only in our heads! ! Continued overleaf ….!

Ann Somerset Miles (Editor)

annsomersetmiles@me.com

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Cherwell Valley branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild

MAY 2015

This and That: Submitting images of your work: Please save as JPEGs at maximum resolution and either bring them to each meeting on a USB stick for our Editor to download., or email them to her. A text explanation really is essential, please. annsomersetmiles@me.com

Learning New Skills: The latest issues of two useful magazines, published bimonthly in the USA, are a v a i l a b l e t o U K re a d e r s through Rainbow Silks. Both ‘Quilting Arts’ (April/May) and ‘Cloth, Paper, Scissors’ (May/ June) have articles relevant to stitched work. From creating a fragment fabric book to thread sketching and transferring images(QA) to two features on incorporating stitched text in your work (CPS), there’s plenty to enjoy and inspire. www.rainbowsilks.co.uk!

Keeping in Touch: Don't forget that we are a part of ‘SEW REGION’ of the Embroiderers’ Guild (the South East and South West) with activities in which our members can often participate. (Image illustrates t h e 2 0 1 5 R e g i o n a l D a y, courtesy Anne Walden-Mills).

We ourselves will be welcoming Anne to speak at our June meeting. The region champions social media, so click this link to take a look at the SEW Facebook page: h t t p s : / / w w w. f a c e b o o k . c o m / p r o fi l e . p h p ? id=100008210268065&fref=ts

At Judith Gussin’s Workshop - continued from previous page: !

We considered different backgrounds, whether pieced with handstitching or whole-cloth and embellished with running stitch. Some of Judith’s hand-dyed pieces were perfect as they were, in that the random nature of the dyeing process provided all the interest for the background. We learnt how to fuse silk satin to felt using bonding powder which gives a softer ‘handle’ than Bondaweb. We began to create slips in various shapes, which could then be appliquéd onto the background once completed. Judith gave us various mini-tutorials on applying shisha mirrors, different types of herringbone and using triangles to add interest to borders – all of which could be used to enhance our work. Now all we need to do is finish our pieces! !

The talk by Ruth Smith in April, ‘The Story of Folded Secrets’, left many of us mentally folding and unfolding pieces of paper! Ruth shared with us some of her amazing collection of ‘Zhen Xian Bao’, folded paper pockets made and used by the women of some minority peoples in China to store their embroidery threads and work in progress. Some were as large as A3, and contained as many as 30 compartments. Folds created double pages, where embroidery work could be kept flat and safe. They are traditionally made from mulberry bark paper and the fibres give support and structure to these utilitarian objects. Amazingly, the women achieve perfect-looking cubes and folds without the benefit of rulers, set-squares or even glue, instead using a starchy rhizome to create a bond. All were highly decorated, either using a woodblock print, calligraphy, painting or paper cuts, or nowadays even felt tip pen.

Ru t h s h o w e d u s m a n y adaptations of the basic twisted cube, demonstrating how they can hold seeds or CDs, for example, or be used as gift boxes. She also showed us some examples of the many boxes she has collected from people all around the world – it has become a real obsession!

Both items on this page written

by Clare Boomer.!

Ann Somerset Miles (Editor)

annsomersetmiles@me.com

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An EGM (Extraordinary General Meeting) of the Embroiderers’ Guild will be held on Saturday 20th June 2015, again in the magnificent building (opened in 2013) of the Library of Birmingham.

This is to consider and vote upon the resolutions put forward at the AGM in April.

Delegates at the National AGM

CVEG May workshop group

Cherwell Valley branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild

MAY 2015

Our most recent event was the workshop on May 9th entitled ‘Floral Inspired Prints’ tutored by Anne Kelly. Based almost on a folk-art approach and using repurposed oddments and s craps of fabric, Anne Anne demonstrates a useful technique quickly had us cutting our own stencils out of paper, from sketches made from illustrative material that we had gathered for reference. We dabbed paint through the stencils onto fabric or paper - whatever took our fancy and whilst these dried, tried our hand at thread-sketching further plant material. Two methods were explored: either stitching a tracing made on almost-transparent tissue paper laid over fabric, or direct onto fabric itself (free-machining).!

Anne encouraged us in the most kindly manner to go beyond our usual ‘comfort zone’ whilst preparing far more ‘samples’ than we would need so we had a selection when it came to assembling what we had created. We were to think in ‘layers’ - cutting out and applying our stitched samples to a base fabric (four small panels in fact), marrying colour and texture with whatever else we had brought along. Some of us stitched the panels into a composite piece, others have yet to decide what their pieces will become (note-book covers, perhaps?) A challenging day that had me personally r ushing home to photograph close-ups of individual flowers for future reference and experimentation.

Ann Somerset Miles. (Images below courtesy Anne Kelly, Collage by asm)

Beavering away at the workshop

Copy for next issue by Friday 31st July, please. (And thank you to Julia Swift who has already submitted material and images, which are awaiting publication in issue-09 in August.)

Ann Somerset Miles (Editor)

annsomersetmiles@me.com

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