Secret Santa - December Meeting

 Please bring a wrapped present [value £5] for Secret Santa, Thank you.

Make a Book -December Meeting

 

Finished pieces of Work

Sandra has now completed her box and she took a slightly different approach using hand painted collage papers and turned it into a Pandora's Box. The collage on the six faces is based on Minoan wall frescos, Minoan A script and the earthy colours used to decorate the Minoan Palaces.

The collage has been machine and hand stitched, trimmed with gold stitching and beads.

The inside has all the ills of the world which escaped when the box was opened and has been updated to include COVID.

After all the ills had escaped there was just one thing left at the bottom - "HOPE".

Sandra said she enjoyed making the box and thinking through all the design options.

Thank you Sandra.

 Shelagh has finished her box started with Anne Brooke. It looks super and I love the contrast between the dark earth colours and the bright blue. Additional texture has been added by the paper collage,  machine and hand embroidery.

Well done! Shelagh.

Another fantastic finished box, this time by Anita. I love the warm colours of red, yellow and orange collaged and embroidered against the pale background. There are some very interesting stitches providing additional texture and interest.

Thanks Anita for a fantastic box.

Christina has finished her wonderful box full of pops of colour from collage, stitch and "buttons". There is also a lovely hand made twisted cord with a neat tassel on the end to secure the opening.

Thanks for your wonderful box Christina.

Christmas Kawandi - Joanna Henson November Meeting 2023

This month's workshop was led by Joanna one of our own members. She arrived with ideas, fabrics and enthusiasm ready to lead our members through making a Christmas Kawandi. [See above.]
 

A close-up photo of the stitching above shows that it can be either hand or machine.

Joanna demonstrated the technique of arranging the small pieces of fabric from the outer borders, gradually basting them, and covering the background fabric.

She showed different samples of her work, following the style of the Siddi women.

Members began working on their pieces and all the bright, cheerful colours of Christmas began to emerge.

Once the background fabric was covered members began to hand stitch with a neutral perle thread, working running stitch to hold the fabric pieces in place.

The stitching was running stitch, similar to kantha, but with Kawandi the running stitches work from the outer edges into the middle.

It was a very enjoyable workshop and members took home their Kawandi quilts to complete the stitching at home and then bring them to the Christmas meeting in December for the Competition.

A big thank you goes to Joanna for introducing us to Kawandi quilting, telling us a little of its history and making it topical by using Christmas fabrics.

We all look forward to seeing the completed mats in December.

A thank you to Janet for the photographs.

Raffle - Over Hill and Dale Tuesday 7th November

 

Requirements list to make a Christmas Kawandi - Tuesday 7th November

 

Embroidered Boxes - Anne Brooke October meeting 2023

 I have just returned from a wonderful workshop making embroidered boxes with Anne Brooke. Anne arrived with a diverse array of embroidered boxes to inspire us in our own work and she stressed that whatever we did would belong to us artistically. She also brought a lot of "stuff "for us to use.

She demonstrated how to start the box by cutting out six 10cm. squares of paper and attaching them to iron on interfacing in the shape of a cube net [" a Jesus cross"] The cross was then trimmed and she zig-zagged around the edges.

We all set to work making our nets with enthusiasm and zigzagging the edges in our chosen colours.

Anne then demonstrated how to decorate  the faces of the box with paper, especially wall paper, thinking about colour and shape. She then suggested ways of machine stitching the paper pieces so that the faces had an affinity.

As members started to glue their papers each one was different in colour, texture and stitch and each member used their own artistic talents.

Anne then demonstrated how to attach the lining and stiffen it with pelmet vilene and zig-zag the sides together to make a box including the tie for the closing mechanism.

We all took our flat boxes home to complete by adding hand stitching, beads, buttons and then zig-zagging the sides together. The boxes, still flat, looked fantastic spread out on the table and they will be a joy to see when finished.

A big thank you goes to Anne for her enthusiasm, encouragement, explanations and ideas.

We all went home full of ideas on how we were going to finish our boxes.