The Festival of Quilts has moved online this year

The annual Festival of Quilts has had to be postponed to 2021, and so the activities and events have been moved online.  You can find out what's on at:

More lovely work

Shay's beautiful lampshade is the second one she has completed following Zara's workshop.  Her inspiration came from the lamp itself, and Shay sampled a number of ideas before deciding on the final design.

The fabric is linen, with machine embroidery (outlines stitched twice), 

and French knots added by hand.

Taster exhibition, Leamington, 1st - 2nd August

Regrettably, the Art in the Park festival, which was due to be held over the week-end of Saturday 1st - Sunday 2nd August, is one of those events that have had to be cancelled this year.

This prompted Fiona, one of our members, to get together with two other artists to hold a mini taster exhibition in her garden - observing social distancing and weather permitting.

Do take a look if you can.

... Inspired by Ceramics

Janet started this piece at our last Zoom session, which focused on ceramic items as inspiration. It was inspired by the quirky gardening designs on a mug and the text was taken from a National Trust magazine. She says:

"It is not often I finish a piece so quickly but it just took off. After adding the shapes and stitching I bonded a piece of sheer fabric over the whole piece and then added some oddments of machine stitched cords I found from previous projects, added some more flowers in velvet and stitched tendrils to the stems and grass at the base. I stitched over the text, two flowerpots and the front wellington boot before burning away some of the sheer fabric. The work was then stitched onto a piece of brown hessian and will be attached to a canvas frame."

Well worth the effort, Janet ...

Creative uses for found and re-used items

While we are probably using our stash a bit more cautiously at the moment until it gets easier to replace fabric and threads, as well as trying to reduce our consumption of resources generally, we have been looking around at home for things we can re-use or repurpose in our embroidery work.

Once we started delving into the subject, we found that there is actually a huge range of items that can be pressed into use, and so there will be more on the subject coming up in a while.  

Part 1: Fabrics

·      Don’t discard the selvedges cut off fabrics.  

Here they have been sewn together to make into a useful sewing organiser with pockets. Plastic tablecloth fabric has been used to make the inside pockets, which are transparent, so the contents are easily visible.

Wasting nothing, this panel is constructed out of the offcuts from a die-cutting machine:

Similarly, using leftover scraps of fabric is a technique which has been promoted to an art form by Fay Maxwell, who ran our summer school about three years ago. Scraps are layered between two pieces of fabric, machine stitched and then cut back to reveal the colours beneath.

Old cross stich pictures or tapestries

While we may no longer want to hang some of our cross stitch pictures or tapestries, we probably still treasure them. A way to preserve them is to take them out of their frames and re-make them into book covers, pages within keepsake books or needle cases, for example.

Tapestries can be transformed into various styles of bag, from pouches and clutches to really strong shopping bags.  Depending on size, they can be combined with additional upholstery fabric (see below) and further embellishments.

Fay Maxwell also updates old tapestries into gorgeous tiny cushions by adding extra stitching, using wools, ribbons, and cords.

·       Embroideries which are no longer pristine

If you have a family embroidery or have been given someone‘s old work that has become grubby, you can try washing them carefully.  If they still don't clean up, however, and can’t be restored to an acceptable state, then try painting them with gesso. Once the gesso is dry, colour them with e.g. acrylic inks, which have been applied in a blob and then scattered by blowing through a straw. 

·        Jeans 

Jeans that have been discarded (see last month’s article on ‘Upcycling your clothes’ for ideas on extending their life) make a good firm base for all kinds of stitching.

Here they have been cut into strips, and made into a book cover as a gift, with a pocket added on the front for pens.

Jeans are ideal to cut up for ‘boro’ stitching, a traditional Japanese form of mending/patching that extended the life of working garments, and is now very much in line with current ideas about ‘visible mending’

Men’s ties

These are often made out of some super fabrics, which are perfect for appliqué techniques - as shown by the birds on this cushion.

·        Lace or old net curtaining

Add to vintage and delicate pieces of work

or

use as a resist:

If you pin it to a piece of fabric such as an old sheet you can pass moulding paste though it and then pull it off to reveal the pattern. Lace can also be used in the same way. Paint both the lace and the background fabric when they are completely dry.

·     

·        Bandages

If the contents of your first aid box have gone out of date, don't bin the bandages and non-woven dressings, but use them in place of scrim - they can be dyed and provide a good, textured surface. 

·        Old Sheets 

A really valuable resource!  They make great backing fabrics in place of purchased commercial stabilisers, and they take dye or paint very readily for use in many projects.

·        Old tablecloths and linens

Those which have existing embroidery add an extra dimension to projects.  Use the whole piece as the basis for new work, or if it's too worn, cut out elements to add to your piece.

Anne Kelly and Cas Holmes, among other textile artists, incorporate these old linens into their work, as demonstrated by this piece created at Anne Kelly's workshop last year. 

If you have any fabric that sits in your stash year in year out and doesn't inspire you .... why not change its colour?

The soft blue toned fabric on the left had been sitting around for a long time.  Needing green fabrics, Gill changed its colour with a tiny amount of acrylic ink in water (in a recycled food pot). Soak the fabric and let it dry.  This is a quick and easy technique, but you could alternatively use thinned down acrylic paint.  Worth experimenting, but not all types of paint are colourfast.

 Hessian 

You may be lucky enough to have old hessian sacks in the shed, for instance, which can be repurposed, although hessian is also very cheap to buy new. It looks good alongside vintage fabrics, such as faded cottons or with tonally different pale coloured fabrics.  It has been used here to create the outer cover of a concertina book, inspired by Helen Hallows' recent 'Draw to Stitch' workshop:

Finally, if you can get hold of discarded sample books from curtain/upholstery shops, they are another great source of fabrics, especially the silk and velvet ones.  Cotton upholstery fabric is great as a backing if your main fabric needs to be strengthened.

We hope these ideas have given you food for thought.  Part 2 will look at a range of items that can be used as ‘threads’, embellishments or dyestuffs.  In the meantime, if this sparks memories of any items you have found and used in your work, please email: leamingtondistrictitrep@embroiderersguild.co.uk and we will include them next time.

Finishing those UFOs

Some members have decided to make use of lockdown time to work on unfinished projects - what a lovely feeling it is to complete those pieces that have been languishing for a while!  As you will see, cushions are a popular theme ...

Julia's elegant cushion was inspired by Zara Day's workshop, using appliqué and reverse appliqué on wool fabric. The motifs are Maori designs seen in new Zealand.

Likewise, Mary started her cushion on Zara's course, and now it's beautifully finished with embroidery both sides and contrast piping:

Janet's cushion was started last year at Anne Kelly's Folk Art workshop. She added motifs from 1960s curtain fabric to an old hand embroidered cushion front, together with printed motifs from Anne’s collection of wood blocks and pieces of dyed lace. Janet added a large central motif in the same style, hand embroidered some of the applied motifs and then free machined further outlines. The border trim and backing were made using the 1960s fabric.  The end result is this very vibrant cushion (and a great upcycling piece).

The following pieces were completed following Jayne Emerson's Zoom workshop in June:

Judi created this beautiful decorative piece with lots of embellishment:

  

Janet had torn fabric into strips, and made them up into nine squares, which were stitched to form a larger square, then lots more stitching added, and a motif cut from the floral fabric.  The square has now become a fabulous cushion cover with piping and a toning plain green on the back.

  

We're so looking forward to seeing more completed pieces, whether lockdown UFOs or inspired by the Zoom sessions, or blog projects. Email photos to: leamingtondistrictitrep@embroiderersguild.co.uk

"Inspired by Ceramics"

Our latest Zoom co-create session was another great success, and brought together a substantial number of members. The brief was to find a ceramic item at home to use as inspiration for stitching, and to have ready small pieces of fabric and threads in appropriate colours.

Gill's very professional introduction gave us some ideas and examples: 

Plate interpreted in appliqué  

 

Simplify the design

 

Use the shape, and create a background of fabric and paper overlaid with organza

The inspiration for Lucy's delightful appliquéd sample was a pair of Christening mugs:
 

 

 

So, this is how some of the pieces were interpreted in the session ...

Ruth based hers on a patterned cup:

 

Judi's stylish Biba urn:

 

Diane's hippy chicks come from a 70s mug:

Beth's subtle plate design:

 

Margaret stitched onto a fabric/paper background:

Margherita's vase with further details to be added:

Mary's 'Christmas trees in the snow' is from a special plate:

Wendy's vibrant flowers:

 

  

Carol based her design on this colourful china bull:

Lucys delicate flower design:

 

We had a 'show-and-tell' at the end, and everyone agreed it had been a really enjoyable and stimulating session - plenty of food for thought and further pieces.  It's fabulous to be able to have a look at people's creations again, and see the very different interpretations of such a variety of ceramics.

Many thanks to Gill for organising it all, and we will definitely be having another workshop like this one.