News ...

We still have lots going on, in spite of continued lockdown, starting with:

One Fabric: Ten Ideas with tutor Jayne Emerson 

via Zoom on Friday 5^th June, 7.15pm

This will take the form of a demonstration by Jayne, followed by a creative stitch session.

The idea is to take one fabric and make new fabrics and interesting backgrounds on which you can machine or hand stitch.

The session will start promptly at 7.15 and will finish at 9.00 pm.

There is still just time to register, please email Anne at anneprior@btinternet.com without delay.

If you need more information, please contact: leamingtondistrictdaysch@gmail.com

www.jayneemerson.co.uk

www.facebook.com/JayneEmersonTextileDesign

www.instagram.com/jayneemersontextiles/

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The Branch has started a group swapping Artist Trading Cards as an additional means of keeping in touch with each other and spreading a little joy!  

The first swap is next week, and we're hoping to see photos of some lovely little pieces of work ....

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Prism Textiles

Videos, interviews, glimpses into sketchbooks, and even some puppet shows! 

Prism members will also be running some online workshops.

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Leamington & District Branch is now on 

 @leam.embroiderers.guild

and

Leamington Embroiderers Guild Group

Do pay us a visit there, too.

... Something blue - Part 2

As promised, this is the second part of our "Something blue" post.  We hope you enjoy viewing more pieces of beautiful work produced by our Travelling Book group.

Margherita made this blue piece by hand stitching on a firm fabric background, before mounting it in her travelling book.

Here she shares with us a stitched picture of vases, inspired by an old drawing.

Margherita’s latest work in blue is this beautiful gold work bird.

Beth is sharing pictures of very successful and intricate shibori she made a little while ago.

 

This textile art piece was made by Beth as a member of the exhibiting group, Bolt. 

For this, she was given an old tea towel as the starting point and asked to use it in her work. Lovely and soft to touch, as it has velvet embellished into it.

More recently Beth has been very busy making multiple pairs of scrubs (some of which were blue).

Blue, as it happens, is one of Tessa’s favourite colours.

Here is a close-up of a recent piece, which has a very textured background - embellished with handstitching and lots of detail.

Tessa has also been making blue knitted hearts (not shown). 

Gill made this piece by laying down blue organza ribbon on soluble film in a lattice design. She then layered it over turquoise organza before using a decorative machine stitch to hold it all in place. This was burnt back with a textile heat gun (outside, due to toxic fumes) and she is thinking about laying it over this paper napkin, which was coloured with inks when ironing a wet piece of work to speed up the drying time.

Gill also shares a large book/folder made over a three-week period. It is inspired by Karen Nicol’s massive sample book. Gill’s pages are all removable and she uses it to store and display her samples. It is also useful at exhibitions, since the work is secured in place with safety pins and can be changed around very easily.  The cover was made using an embellishing machine, combining scrim and velvets, etc.

Wendy made this blue piece on our branch’s Textured Landscape workshop with tutor, Catherine Lawes,

and she was inspired by a thoroughly enjoyable workshop with Zara Day in 2018, to go on to cover a chair in this lovely floral design.

Colour is Diane's passion, and she made these two pieces for travelling books:

and this folk style whale piece after being inspired on a super Anne Kelly workshop at the branch in 2019.

Caroline has been following a YouTube series of videos called sew4thesoul, by H-anne-MADE, and is really enjoying making this bobbin reel. It has Suffolk puffs on it, lots of straight stitch, French knots, lace and as you can see - masses of gorgeous detail. 

Caroline has also been making scrubs and has taken some of the offcuts and woven them. It is still work in progress, but when finished it will be embroidered with forget-me-nots.

What stunning pieces everyone has made, and what a wide range of different styles and items! We hope this inspires you. 

Do please send pictures to Janet: leamingtondistrictitrep@embroiderersguild.co.uk 
of items made in blue or any other items inspired by previous articles.  We would love to share them with other members.

Somthing old, something new .... something blue (Part 1)

We aren't blue, but we have been sewing in blue.  The twelve members of our branch's travelling book group have taken 'blue' as their theme for this article, which means lots of lovely work for you to look at.

Sue was inspired by the Austrian artist, Hundertwasser.  The background is handmade paper, with some fabric 'patches', though most are cut from the baby wipes she used to clean her Gelliplate. The top 'onion' shapes are made from a paper serviette. A recent Stitch Challenge gave her the idea to use couching to make all the stitched patterns. She said she was surprised she had found so much 'blue', as it is not her go-to colour.

Dorothy's sewing machine cover makes great use of lots of blue scraps:

and she also made this tiny blue landscape for a travelling book entry:

Jenny has done a lot of stitching with blue ....

This small bag was created at an EG workshop many years ago:

The design for this bag was taken from a project in Ineke Berlyn's book, Landscapes in Contemporary Quilts.

A sample piece, called Blue Diamonds, uses fabric strips and threads machined in straight lines onto an A3 piece of fabric. Using a ruler, squares were marked out at 45 degrees to the stitched lines, and were then cut out and repositioned on another piece of fabric to create diamonds; finally, zig-zagged in place.

This seaside piece hangs in her brother's Spanish villa belonging to her brother. Made of pieced strips of hand-dyed threads and fabrics, it has stencilled fish jumping in and out of the waves. The boat and umbrella are appliqued, and large beads between layers of fabric create pebbles on the beach, surrounded by French knots.

Jenny's final piece is this heart wall hanging. The fabric for the hearts was created at an indigo dyeing summer school with Jane Callender some fifteen years ago.  She still has lots of treasured samples from that summer school. (Jenny says she was quite a novice at embroidery then and eager to try anything and everything. She has been a member now for 21 years.) The base is calico and the frame is made from old denim jeans.

Anna's rag-rugged seat cover was made by recycling old pillowcases and other fabrics.  It now makes the garden seat much more comfortable to sit on.

Fiona has been using the recent sunshine to do some cyanotype printing (she now has some blue plants, too).

Her collage-style blue picture with a vase is scattered with beautifully proportioned flowers and leaves.

We hope you have enjoyed seeing what members have been making. Travelling Book members have been so prolific, in fact, that this is just the first instalment of the work they have been producing.  Look out for Part 2 very soon ...

'Fabric: Touch & Identity' at Compton Verney

Fabric: Touch & Identity 
"A cliche-busting project, which pushes past easy assumptions about gender and sexuality"

There's no need to miss out on this exhibition - you can explore the exhibition digitally, and hear more from the artists and curators on the Compton Verney website ...