Flower Festival 2018 - St Andrew's

We were asked by St Andrew's to produce a display to complement their flower displays on the theme "The Manx Year". Below are pictures of the display created by members of your hard-working Committee! The Flower Festival is on for the whole of Tynwald Week.

Weekend of 18th-20th May. Sue Stone

                               "Appliqué and Hand-stitched Portraits with Sue Stone

Sue's self-potrait

The weekend got off to an inauspicious start with Sue Stone's not being able to get to the Island in time to give her talk “Woman with Fish” on the Friday evening. Because a maintenance van had run into the Flybe plane at Manchester, poor Sue was transferred to Liverpool and did not arrive on the Island until gone 9 p.m.!  This meant that we had to come up with something at short notice, so, for those who attended, we had a relaxed and sociable ‘social stitching’ evening.  However, without Sue, the evening ended early. 

From then on things improved spectacularly and the two-day workshop and the rest of the weekend were a huge success.

Eleven members had booked on Sue’s two-day workshop “Appliqué and Hand Stitched Portraits” which was held at the Braaid Hall and everybody turned up nice and early, which was a sign of things to come, as 4 o’clock came and there was hardly a stir from anyone to put down our stitching and go home. The next morning everybody once again came early and we were still busy stitching at 3.45 and only stopped in order to display the results of our weekend!  Normally by 3 o’clock people are tired and starting to put work away – even for a one-day workshop!

Impossible to stop!

 

Sue began by explaining her technique and then how we should transfer our image to the fabric using tissue paper and stitch.  She then spoke to each of us individually to advise about our image choices and how to tackle our piece so by lunchtime we were all well underway with our stitching and even reluctant to stop for the lovely contributory buffet lunch! 

The workshop continued in the same industrious fashion the next day.  The photographs show how the participants each tackled very different portraits and worked them in very different ways.  All of us came away having learnt such a lot and enthused with a determination to actually finish the portraits – no UFO’s from this workshop!

   

                                        The same image can be treated differently.

                                         

And this is what ladies took home!

VISITORS WELCOME - OPEN MEETING- MAY

                        Friday 18th May - Talk by visiting tutor,
                                     SUE STONE
                               "Woman with Fish"
                        at St Andrew's Hall,  Douglas.


                                           (There are still 3 places on the workshop at the
                                          Braaid, Saturday and Sunday 19th and 20th May.)

Penny Nutall's talk and Zentangle Workshop 20th & 21st April

(Thank you to Maureen Kennaugh for her report and pictures)

On Friday evening Penny Nuttall gave the Guild an "informal reminiscence, with bits and bobs." This was her story of embroidery and textiles.  Penny's "bits and bobs" consisted of a wonderful array of embroidered projects, which included her exquisite Chinese vase. This married metal thread and silk shading over a lined 3D vase - with the embroidery amazingly going over the nearly invisible  seams  - which Penny made for the Embroiderers' Guild's "Riches of Stitches" competition some years ago. Penny also had some examples of her garments, which included both screen printed children's dresses and two examples of adult historical garments.
 Penny supplemented her talk and with a digital presentation, which explained the complicated nature of working with Manx National Heritage to produce replica historical garments for their various museums.  One example was the reproduction of Quayle's Manx Militia coat for the Nautical Museum which meant sourcing £100 per metre red cloth, gold epaulettes - and making a garment with no pattern to go by. Producing garments, which can be worn by today's adults and children, who vary so much from the shapes and sizes of the historical originals, is a real challenge! 
There was so much more to Penny's talk and "bits and bobs" included designing and making ball gowns for her daughter at university as well as parchment work, corsetery, and screen printed clasp purses  - and more besides.

In contrast to many of Penny's "bits and bobs", her workshop on Zentangle free machine embroidery, which she described as "doodling with free-machine embroidery", illustrated another of Penny's skills ie. free machining and quilting.

Penny explained that Zentangle is a meditative process (although I think everyone queried this with the amount of concentration required in the working  the pieces during the workshop!) and we should aim at its being a relaxing process!
 Zentangle has many set patterns, one of which we all tried and were quite amazed by. This is  Rick's Paradox .

   We started off the workshop by doodling with a pen in order to get into the flow of the freedom of doodling, then Penny set us working on fabric, free machining various doodling patterns, ideas for which she had provided.   After lunch Penny set the group working on our own patterns and zentangling "doodling"

  One of the major advantages to this workshop was that Penny was also very helpful in giving advice for those who were new to free machine stitching, or required a refresher - and even the more experienced stitchers learned something new!  All in all, it was a most enjoyable workshop.

Expert help on hand

A "posh" machine wasn't really necessary.  

Finished examples to take home.

Places on April workshop still available.

  Contact Janet Williams, the Workshop Secretary, on 675727, if interested.

24th March - Our Creative Stitch Day

It was hard work but worth it, thanks to all the demonstrators and helpers. Here are some photos which capture the essence of the day.

Our Patroness, Lady Gosney and our
indefatigable, Stella.

                                 

EG IoM's Millennium Project
seen in it's full glory -
Manannan's Cloak

                                    
                           
                                   

Pat K and Caroline before the rush, all set and ready to demostrate

Sheila demonstrated paper-piecing patchwork and Janet, her redwork

                                                                                                                                       
                                                                                   

Theresa, with a rapt lady, absorbed in
her layering technique

Linda, ready to "fascinate"

Helen drew a crowd with her colourful work.

And things got busy and the noise level rose....!!

24th February - Redwork - untutored workshop

The meeting opened with "business" - discussion of preparations for our Creative Stitch Day and the future of the Library.

After this our acquired projector had its first outing and we viewed part of a Jan Beanie DVD, which was extremely interesting, showing how to link dominant motifs and thus create a unity in an abstract design.

Those booked in to the workshop then moved on to preparation and stitching of the pieces, that will later form the basis of a project workshop later in the year.

We had a wonderful display of
pieces, already created by Sheila, Janet and Mo, to give us inspiration and show how effective and varied the technique can be.

As can be seen, REDwork isn't necessarily red!!