One of the benefits of seeing members work as photographs is the ability to see the detail. Here we can take a close look at The Grape Picker by Teresa.
Teresa has kindly supplied an explanation of the many techniques involved.
The head and body were stump work – stuffed and moulded shapes.
The cotton on the face was dyed in cold tea and the hair embroidered in various shades of brown stranded cotton.
The cap was made from felt.
The hands were florists wire covered in flesh toned stranded cotton.
The Clothes were needle lace and this is them under construction.
The boots were made of leather cloth.
The basket was woven with gimp.
Stumpwork grapes covered in beads.
The branches are wire covered in stranded cotton with blanket stitch.
The leaves are stumpwork covered wire.
The tree trunks and the ground are all surface stitched in random chain stitch seeding etc.
But all of this was constructed on a background of calico. Here seen badly stretched but it shows the underlying structure of the background before the edging was applied.
The background was calico covered in:
Blue organza for the sky – overseen with seeding when the organza had split!
The landscape and border was made from silk rods. The autumn coloured silk rods were split apart, soaked in lukewarm water then ironed flat. They still retained some gum when cut out and ironed onto the background but some decorative herringbone held the pieces in place.
My thanks to Teresa for sharing this content and images.
© 2021 All content contained within this website is copyright
We wait to see the more complex designs next meeting.
Last term our Young Embroiderers got creative and working to their individual abilities made shoulder bags from denim jeans. Besides recycling this covered many facets of design and selection; the techniques included creating their unique applique motifs, applying & hand stitching their design, machine stitching their bag and liner to create this draw string bag. These two bags illustrated drew from the night sky for their inspiration.
Braving the unreliable summer weather six of us met at the Sussex Prairie Gardens on 27th July. The 8 acres of gardens are planted in bold swathes of colour & texture and amongst the planting can be found a variety of interesting sculptures. 
A crocodile and giraffe were seen but not captured on camera. Further inspiration was also found from the resident textile and mixed media artists Emma Taylor and Amanda Duke. Their work prompted discussion of the workshop sessions we have organised this past year.
The garden is currently exhibiting the longest strip of decorated denim which was draped along the fences, wrapped around a shed and entwined around a tree. 
Over 1 km long the decorated panels explain the ugly facts about the process of denim production.
Horsham Creative Embroiderers 