Charity Day Presentation

Presentation of cheque following on from the Jean O’Neil Memorial Charity Day to the Breast Cancer Unit – Friday 29th July

The July meeting of the Embroiderers’ Guild started with a presentation of a cheque for just over £325.00 to the Breast Cancer Unit raised through the Guild’s June charity day in memory of Janet William’s sister, Jean O’Neil.  The charity’s  representative, Barbara Thorne, explained about how progress had been made in the research and improvement in breast cancer treatment and survival, an illness which can and has touched so many members and how much all contributions were welcomed and valuable.

 

 

The handover of the fund raising cheque was followed by a most interesting and stimulating talk by professional weaver, Louise Martin, who contrasted her work at Stirling Castle, weaving the replica medieval tapestries, with her on-going travels and exploration of more contemporary weaving techniques based on her travels to countries as far a field as Mongolia and Turkey.  Louise’s talk followed a series of weaving workshops which she had given on the island over the previous few weeks and thus had subsequently  attracted many visitors to her talk.

Charity Day Presentation

Presentation of cheque following on from the Jean O’Neil Memorial Charity Day to the Breast Cancer Unit – Friday 29th July

The July meeting of the Embroiderers’ Guild started with a presentation of a cheque for just over £350.00 to the Breast Cancer Unit raised through the Guild’s June charity day in memory of Janet William’s sister, Jean O’Neil.  The charity’s  representative, Barbara Thorne, explained about how progress had been made in the research and improvement in breast cancer treatment and survival, an illness which can and has touched so many members and how much all contributions were welcomed and valuable.

 

 

The handover of the fund raising cheque was followed by a most interesting and stimulating talk by professional weaver, Louise Martin, who contrasted her work at Stirling Castle, weaving the replica medieval tapestries, with her on-going travels and exploration of more contemporary weaving techniques based on her travels to countries as far a field as Mongolia and Turkey.  Louise’s talk followed a series of weaving workshops which she had given on the island over the previous few weeks and thus had subsequently  attracted many visitors to her talk.

Paper Mania Workshop

Mary McIntosh, visiting City & Guilds tutor from Sudbury, Suffolk followed her Friday May talk to the Guild entitled “Adventures in Textiles” with an inspirational workshop on the Saturday with the theme of  “Paper Mania”. 

 

Mary brought a great variety of her work to show on Friday, and explained, not only her sources of inspiration, but  her working methods.  Members were thoroughly impressed with Mary’s work and agreed that her work was “truly different”.

 

This set the precedent for the Saturday workshop, where, after Mary’s instruction, members went to work interpreting Mary’s designs and instructions with such concentration that for the most part the workshop was quiet!  Throughout the workshop, Mary was attentive, and, so, at the end of the workshop there were many completed pieces of work to show!

 

The workshop consisted of mixing pre-painted newspaper, layered with three to four layers of lustrous chiffon which was then stitched and the layers of chiffon removed to varying degrees using heat tools and additional stitching added as required.

 

As you can see, there was an overwhelming degree of success with this workshop and we were all very appreciative of Mary’s expertise.

 

Charity Day

This years Jean O’Neil memorial charity was the Breast Cancer Unit at Nobles Hospital and the day was once again organised by Janet Williams in memory of her sister and is now in  its sixth year.

 

There was an extensive raffle prize table as well as a sales table with lots of threads etc. and a lovely sharing table of food. 

 

Members could either make a name badge as this years charity project or bring their own sewing. It was very good to see that some were industriously working on their pieces for the forthcoming Milntown “Landscapes and Garden” exhibition beginning later in the year in mid September!

 

 

 

Haldane Fisher very generously donated the cost of hiring the hall so all proceeds will go toward the Breast Unit.

Free Machine Embroidery Workshop

Nine members took part in the April workshop which aimed to experiment with the technique on both traditional fabrics and soluble fabrics.  The following images show how hard everybody was concentrating!

Experience of members ranged from complete beginners to very knowledgeable but the major conclusion at the end of the day was just how very different each sewing machine was when it came to setting tension up for free machine embroidery - this took some time for some machines!  Experiment is the key because every machine is different.

Jean worked steadily throughout the day and has kindly shared her finished workshop piece on soluble fabric.

Other pictures included samples of Maureen Kennaugh's (the tutor for the day) own work so that construction could be seen.

This was an exciting and successful workshop which was much enjoyed and the participants were very grateful to Maureen for sharing her knowledge and enthusiasm.

March Workshop - Shibori Dyeing

Julie Fayle gave a very informative demonstration of two Shibori techniques -Itajime (folded Shibori) and Arashi (winding technique) and Guild members, as you can see, produced some very colourful and experimental pieces, some of which will form the basis for work inspired by Milntown Garden and Landscapes exhibition from mid September to mid October 2016.

The Itajime technique required more precise ironing and folding than the Arashi technique which produced a much more sophisticated result.

This shows work in the process of dying after the silk had been folded and ironed and then 'scrunched' tightly around a wooden pole and then dye added - the is the Arashi technique.

Complete work

 

 

Young Embroiderers January Workshop

This was a 'Valentine' themed workshop based on counted stitch work.  The main stitch being cross stitch but Hardanger was also chosen by some of the girls whose ages ranged for 8-18 years.

Here is a photograph of  a  piece of  Hardanger that was completed at home - well done!.