Pre-meeting on Friday 2nd May

This is a quick reminder to Members of the Leamington Branch about the very short Extraordinary Meeting at 6.45 pm on Friday 2nd May - just before the talk.  Please make every effort to attend.

Lynda Monk's talk will follow on at the usual start time of 7.00 for 7.15 pm.

"Creative Surfaces" - Talk and Workshop by Lynda Monk

Our talk on Friday 2nd May will be "Creative Surfaces" by Lynda Monk.  

Lynda is a mixed-media textile artist. She uses materials such as Kunin Felt, Tyvek and Lutradur to create textured and unusual surfaces.  Inspired mainly by rust and corrosion, Lynda stitches, burns and melts these materials before adding layers of acrylic mediums and colour. She loves to explore new techniques and has recently been using a combination of foil, tissue papers and polyester fabrics to create metallic effect surfaces.

Lynda is a regular contributor to Workshop on the Web and teaches workshops to groups, clubs and guilds around the UK including workshops at ArtVanGo and residential courses at Missenden Abbey. She has appeared at the major shows either with her own stand or demonstrating different techniques on the ArtVanGo stand.

Lynda has currently three books published by d4daisy:

•   ‘Stitching the Textured Surface’ – explores the use of gesso and moulding paste to create amazing surfaces

•   ‘Fabulous Surfaces’ – uses tissue papers combined with foils and acrylic mediums producing metallic effect surfaces and more

•   ‘Exploring Creative Surfaces’ – looks at creating more unique surfaces using scrim, polyester fabrics, and foils and mixed media products.

Examples of her work appear on the blog: www.purplemissus.blogspot.com

The talk will be followed by a Workshop for Members on Saturday 3rd May

In this workshop we will be creating metallic effect surfaces using a combination of foils, tissue papers, acrylic gels and mediums along with various other fabrics and media.

Each student will take home a variety of postcard size samples created in the class and all the necessary materials and instructions to create an A5 size book that may need to be completed at home. All the samples could be embellished further and could be used as pieces in their own right or incorporated into larger projects.

Ruby Squares for Young Embroiderers' 40th Anniversary 2014

Our Young Embroiderers are hard at work producing ruby-coloured squares to celebrate the national 40th Anniversary of Young Embroiderers.  The ruby squares are designed along similar lines to the very successful rainbow squares made by many of the Guild's Branches a couple of years ago.  The completed squares will be on display at the West Midlands Regional Day, which this year will be held at Stafford in June.

The samples shown below are works in progress - by young stitchers who range in age from 6 to 14.  The YEs dyed their material first of all, and then had free range to decide the stitches and techniques they wanted to use.  The photos show works at different stages of completion.

  

For details of when and where Leamington & District Young Embroiderers meet, please look at our Young Embroiderers page.

Mothers' Day gifts from Young Embroiderers

We're sharing pictures of some of the felted and stitched gifts made by our Young Embroiders for their Mums on Mothers' Day ...

Lucky Mums!

For details of when and where Leamington & District Young Embroiderers meet, please look at our Young Embroiderers page.

April Members' Day

Besides the opportunity for a good gossip, a bit of shopping from the bring-and-buy table and from our own shop, and a very enjoyable shared lunch, our Members' Day meeting on Saturday 5th gave us the opportunity to try out something 'completely different'.

Once we'd fathomed some interesting instructions for Chinese folded wallets - with the help and guidance of two members who had made them before - we produced some decent results, both paper versions and fabric ones.  See the photos below for our output.

These would make ideal small gifts in their own right (could be used to keep credit/store cards safe in a handbag) or as a novel way to present a gift of money, say.  We did make some mini stitched books to go in the pockets, and with more time both the wallets and the books could be further decorated and embellished.