Requirements List Gold work Brooch - Jane Walton March Meeting 2026

 

February Meeting Show and Tell

 Shelagh has finished her forest floor piece displaying it beautifully on a slice of wood. She has built up wonderful textures using her stitches in blocks. By varying the height of her stitches she has created other areas of interest together with the natural twig.

Thank you Shelagh it is delightful.

Wendy B. has used her stitches playfully gradually building up areas of texture and interest to create a very pretty embroidery. The more the embroidery is looked at the more different stitches and techniques appear adding interest to the piece.

Thank you Wendy for such a fun piece.

The beautiful circles above have also been embroidered by Wendy B and they look wonderful on their own or could be used to add interest to books or bags.

Thank you Wendy. 

Book in a Box and Diorama - Rachael Margeson February meeting 2026

 Rachael, one of our own members, brought some delightful samples [see below]  to inspire us into having a go at making a book in a box followed by a diorama.

Rachael started by demonstrating how to make the box. She demonstrated the folding of a sheet of paper 22 cms square encouraging us to be as accurate with the folds as possible so that it would fold together neatly on completion.

First we folded the white square for the bottom and then folded the coloured paper for the top.

After a little jiggling of the folding delightful little boxes began to appear.

Rachael then showed us how to fold a sheet of A4 paper, making a cut about 3/4 up the centre of the sheet. This allowed a little concertina book complete with pockets to fit in the box.

Some members became addicted to making little boxes and made more than one or started thinking about making boxes of different sizes.

Rachael then talked us through making a diorama and the possibility of using different containers.

It was an enjoyable day and members took home their little books to finish at home and also make a diorama if they wanted to.

A big thank you to Rachael for inspiring us, talking us through the folding, which can seem very complex, sharing her ideas with us and making it a fun day.

Requirements list Diorama - Rachael Margeson February meeting 2026

 

Finished Pieces of work

 Wendy has just finished her Forest Floor which she has stitched intensely building up the surface texture. She has varied the stitches and colour used therefore building up visual interest as well as textural.

The texture makes you want to touch it to get the feel of the stitching.

Thank you Wendy for sharing your lovely textural piece with us.

Forest floor - Sandra Kendall January Meeting 2026

Sandra reminded everyone what they could find on the forest floor - moss, stones, rock, mud, ferns, grass, twigs, berries,  seeds  - and we were going to turn them into items of beauty using embroidery.

 

Sandra had brought samples [see above] to show us ways of using stitches to represent moss etc., building up texture by dense stitching and varying ways of doing a stitch to add interest.

She brought a sample piece of useful stitches and techniques.

Sandra demonstrated some of the stitches and if anyone wanted to know how to do a stitch she would demonstrate it.

She suggested ways to alter the appearance of a stitch by:

• colour
• type of thread
• thickness of thread
• varying ways of working the stitch
• working stitches over the top of each other

Member started by putting their background in their frame and then adding a few features or marking areas where they would go so the basic structure was there.

They then began their stitching slowly adding stitches until patches of texture emerged.

Because the embroidery was to be heavily stitched, members took their pieces to finish at home.

The day started with snow having fallen through the night so quite a few members sent apologies but slowly some members arrived having battled snow, ice and diversions.

The small group enjoyed what they did and we look forward to seeing the finished items.

Thank you Sandra

Requirements list for Forest Floor - Sandra Kendall January Meeting 2026