Requirements List - Embroidered Landscape - Mary Taylor November Meeting

 

Show and Tell

 Gill has embroidered this delicately stitched squirrel blending differing colours of thread to produce the illusion of fur.  As you look at him, you can almost feel his bushy tail.

He is delicately stitched and you almost think you are disturbing him eating his hazel nut.

Thank you Gill he is beautiful.

Sandra has finished her star sign of Aries started at the September meeting. He does not look much like a Cumbrian sheep but he is a celestial ram!

His wool coat has been embroidered in straight stitch and bullion stitch, which has not been tightened so it looks like curls. To add to his stellar body he has been highlighted with gold stitching.

Thank you Sandra

Needle Felting - Gillian Ferguson October Meeting 2026

Gillian arrived with an armful of delightful, characterful felted creatures which she set out for us to view [see below]. As soon as members saw them they wanted to know how they were made so they could have a go themselves.

 

We would all start by making a fox and if there was time some fruit or toadstools.

Gillian had prepared little bags of fibres, a mat, instructions and two felting needles for each of us.

Gillian demonstrated how to make the body and gave us safety advise about the sharp needles. We then started pricking our fibre sausage until the fibres knitted together becoming firmer.

We were then shown how to make the head and the ears.

 

How to attach the eyes and nose were demonstrated and the foxes began to develop character.

As we were shown how to attach the head, then make and attach the limbs, the foxes began to take shape.

The foxes were then finished off with a tail and white hair on their chest , tail tips and in the ears.

We then viewed our  skulk* of foxes and some members had managed to make some beautiful fungi and fruit.

They were delightful, full of charm and members were pleased with what they had made and that it was completed!

It was a good, fun day and all thanks go to Gillian for her teaching, organisation and demonstration skills.

*I looked up the collective noun for foxes

Collective nouns for foxes:

skulk - group of foxes

earth - usually a family of foxes

leash - hunting term usually applied to a group of 3 foxes

Requirements List Needle Felting - Gillian Ferguson October meeting

Gillian Ferguson will bring along all the materials required. However, if you do have a felting mat and/or needles, please bring them along, just in case the number exceeds her work resources. Wool will be in plenty supply. As usual bring your basic sewing kit.

We will create a small scene to include a fox, fruit and fungi.

Finished Pieces of Work

 Christiana has been very productive and has finished two pieces of embroidery one of which was made up of two separate embroideries.

The first piece of work is a colourful  folded hold-all, like a book, for crayons pens pencils etc. with the embroidery above on the front and the embroidery below on the back.

The felt and the use of a variety of stitches has made a very colourful and useful hold-all.

The second piece was the sashiko white stitching on a deep blue background which produced that beautiful clean effect which makes sashiko so attractive.

Thank You Christiana for your delightful stitching.

Sandra has finished using her sun printed fabric. It took her three goes to get a print of grass heads that she wanted for these reeds.

The grasses blew away at the meeting and she got a poor print but third time lucky at home.

The reeds are silk fibres overstitched with single chain stitches.

The birds are bearded tits now known as bearded reedlings. They have been stitched in straight stitch.

The birds can be seen in the Autumn at Leighton Moss where they put trays of food out for them.

Thank you Sandra

A.G.M. followed by a short stitching task of your Zodiac sign - Fran Walker

 Our A.G.M. was held at the beginning of the morning and a new committee was voted into place which is comprised of new committee members and committee members whose time has not been completed.

After the AGM Fran introduced us to our stitching task where we would be embroidering our Zodiac sign from the choice below.

Members began by tracing their sign using a lightbox, tracing through the material or taping the design to the window to trace.

Once the design had been transferred to their background, members began stitching the outline using running, backstitch or stem stitch.

Some members decided their embroidery would be kept simple with just an outline, others decided they were going to fill in the whole design with embroidery.

We had only a short time for embroidery so that was as far as most members got. The embroideries were taken home to finish.

A big thank you to Fran for organising the session.

AGM followed by Stitching around the Zodiac - Fran Walker Tuesday 1st September 2026

 The first part of the morning will be taken up with the AGM.

Once the AGM has finished we will hold a shorter than usual stitching session focusing on your horoscope sign led by Fran Walker.