We had fun at our pre-Christmas meeting making these charming fabric Christmas trees.
We had been focusing on creating tree themed decorations in our last meeting as preparation for the showcase tree we are exhibiting in a local Church celebrations.
Continuing our exploration of different embroidery styles we put our hands to the Japanese art of sashiko.
Much more involved than we all thought it required a great deal of concentration in the pattern preparation.
Clear simple stitching creates beautiful patterns.
Here are some of our first efforts and I look forward to sharing more as they become available.
Last Summer to celebrate our groups 20th birthday we were each given a trimmed embroidery hoop.
In true lucky dip-style we didn’t get to choose the colour and therefore it was a real challenge when we were asked to create something to showcase within these rings.
The final results displayed various styles and techniques that reflect our members.
A group project earlier this year had been to create a printed panel using found objects. Items like bottle tops, erasers, brushes or lollipop sticks made marks with fabric dyes. We chose a limited range of colours and attempted to produce a stronger and lighter panel.
The surprise was that these were then cut apart and reassembled to provide a further design that was secured and embellished with contrast stitching.
A pattern and instructions were provided to make a journal cover.
Showing here are just two of the covers made illustrating both sides of the project.
Following on from making our felt we now begin to work into it.
Some pieces were embellished with additional stitching and needle felting to create these colourful works.
Some became charming little art pieces for cards with careful stitching.
Yvonne’s piece changed considerably with some rethinking, creating this evocative landscape.
We started this year with learning the technique of wet felting.
Getting to grips with the process and laying on colour produced some joyous results.
We shall add stitching and embellishment next month.
A recent silk painting tutorial with Elitta Fell was a chance to learn a new technique and produced colourful results. These are some of our efforts.
Our Christmas social is always a relaxed and fun event particularly this year as we can meet again and get to know newer members.
We exchanged gifts in the form of the Christmas Tree pockets we had started two months before. Intriguing to see how they had been completed and also some surprise little items in the pocket – not always chocolate.
Teas and mince pies were consumed along with the ceremonial opening of a huge Chocolat Cracker from Teresa. Silly jokes were shared and correct answers gained an extra chocolate Brussel sprout. (Quite unlike the real thing).
Continuing a trend from previous years we held our Christmas card exchange. One hand made card to one other member to represent the whole group.
Again various skills were demonstrated, some being very complex but equally the simplicity of others gained our appreciation.
We concluded with an open discussion about our plans for 2022, the opportunity to select a few speakers and arrange a couple of workshops.
We departed looking forward to our activities for the year ahead.
We have logged all HCE’s books using a specialist piece of book cataloguing software called Book Connect by Collectorz. It works by uploading all the data about a book from the ISBN number obtained by scanning the book’s bar code using a dedicated App called CLZ Barry.
The link to the Read Only version is available through the Members’ Page. Do have a look at the site and explore the Library. You can organise the display by list, book cover etc. You can also search in a variety of ways – author, title and, of particular use for us, on technique.
The Library includes details of Sarah’s and Teresa’s embroidery and sewing books which are also available for borrowing.
More information on the software and its capabilities can be found at https://www.collectorz.com/book/book-connect
Borrowing a book
If you would like to borrow any of the books listed, send an email to Sarah. In normal times, Sarah will bring the book to the next meeting for you but at the moment it’s our own version of ‘Click and Collect’.
Adding your books to the Library
If you have books that you are willing to loan out to HCE members, let Sarah know and she will set you up a separate page. You will then need to get the ISBN numbers to Sarah. The easiest way to do this is by using the free CLZ Barry Wireless Barcode Scanner available from your App Store. From there you can email the scanned numbers to Sarah.
If the book is old – pre bar code – you will need to provide the ISBN number manually.
If you have a lot of books, it may be easier to upload them directly into our Library. Have a word with Sarah if that’s the case.
As Sarah has been leading us through exploring one stitch at a time she has been acquiring more books about modern embroidery.
At our last meeting she mentioned Creative Stitches for Contemporary Embroidery by Sharon Boggon and Modern Hand Stitching by Ruth Chandler.
Both are clear bright reference books about a series of stitches, how to work them and then combine them for a modern interpretation.
Whilst these are her own books she will be placing them on the group library app and they may be borrowed by members of this group.
Anna also told us about The Fabric of Civilisation – how textiles made the world by Virginia Postrel . A surprising history of the world covering trade, politics, dyes, agriculture & microbiology.
All are available from good book shops or online sources.
Horsham Creative Embroiderers 