Yesterday we had the lovely Tina Francis talking to us about her stitching project. She was full of passion and excitement for her stitching and sharing it with care and love in the community.
She calls herself a stitch innovator and is working on creating connections in community through stitching. She says it started when she bid on ebay for a box of patterns. When she received it she saw that it was the life of one person shown through her collection of patterns from childhood to old age. She is working on a Masters Degree and has developed this project as part of it. She has written a book, likes tapestry and tiny stitches. She also likes.... noticing small things needles working with her hands people in art (especially on the ground!) Showing love through making things for people Listening to people's stories Stitching together ..... She is a community artist and has commissioned the Connect More screen - see picture above. She explained to some university students what she wanted it to do and they produced the Connect More and she loved it! It had to be easily transportable, familiar not scary and facilitate listening and talking and sharing. She showed us how it works with 2 people sitting opposite each other and stitching together, passing the needle through the net and touching fingers as they pass the needle. They can talk and tell stories, keeping their hand busy without necessarily needing to make eye contact. The finished art work is displayed in community areas. Any mistakes are mine! https://tina-francis-tapestry.co.uk/
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Here are 4 of our entries to the National Exhibition at Hay on Wye. We talked about them before the AGM and explained how they were made.
The jacket was made by me and was inspired by the pieces I made at Jane Callender's workshop in 2021. I saw a jacket at the Quilting Show in in 2022 and put the ideas together with help from Susan Briscoe's 'Book of Boro' The bag was made by Rachel using some yarn she had from an advent calendar last Christmas. The colours didn't inspire her to make an item of clothing so she borrowed the guild loom and wove a long narrow piece (Its a small loom). Rachel explained that she has done very little weaving but it looked pretty good to me although she said she had to hide the edges in the seams as they were a bit wonky! Sarah wove this hanging for her bathroom to go around a mirror when her husband asked her to make something. It was woven on her scarf loom and inkle loom with lots of adjustments and additions until she was happy with the trees and sky. She explained in great detail how it was made and showed pictures of it as it progressed. We were all in awe at the skill and intricate work that it involved. The beautiful Estonian mittems were also made by Rachel on very fine needles. This is the custom in Estonian knitting and they are very warm to wear. All these items were selected for the juried exhibition. There were 2 others made by members who were not able to attend this month. December was our Christmas lunch and 20 of us sat down to enjoy a bring and share feast. Before the lunch a group of us made up 20 'bags of bits' These were on sale at the end of the meeting for the sum of 50p. The idea is to use what is in the bag to make something using one or more of our skills (weaving, spinning and dyeing) and then bringing it to the annual competition at our June meeting. In the afternoon we had a show and tell session where everyone brought in something they had made and talked about it. It was incredible as we admired the range of skills shown by our members. This was enjoyed by everyone and I wish I had remembered to take photos at the time and not after everyone had finished! However I did take photos of our members enjoying the Christmas Party.
Here is Jo from Second City Yarns. She talked to our guild yesterday about her business which has only been going for 2 years here in Birmingham. She was a very inspiring speaker and her enthusiasm for yarns and dyeing was apparent all the time. She began by telling us how her business came to be... She was visiting a yarn shop with a friend and wanted to be able to knit socks like the ones she saw there. She also wanted to leave the company she worked for and set out in a new direction. So she learnt to knit socks and dye and decided to start a yarn business. She went to a workshop to learn the first steps in dyeing. It was going to be an environmentally friendly business, so all yarns and fibre would come from British suppliers. She would have no plastic packaging and no superwash wool which uses chemicals in the process. Her colours and names would be inspired by Birmingham. Her inspiration has come from The Botanical Gardens, Bartley Reservoir, Woodgate Valley, Moseley Bog, Hurst Street, Kimichi School, The Custard Factory, St. Peter's Church-Harborne, the 11 bus route, the Brummie Beanie and The Jewellery Quarter. She showed us how she keeps meticulous records of everything she does and all her dye recipes in journals. She had 3 books full and maybe more she didn't bring. She talked about how hard she has worked and how she found outlets to sell her yarn. She learnt many new skills in the process. She uses her own house, kitchen and utility room to dye and wind her yarns and we saw pictures of her rooms with yarn taking over! I was super impressed by her organisational skills. Also she told us she plays a cello (I think it was a cello) in an orchestra as well as running the business. Any details that are incorrect are because I have a terrible memory and I apologise for any mistakes. Thank you Jo for such an inspiring talk and we wish you good luck in continuing to grow your business. I will definitely be one of your customers. (I love the peacock yarn I bought to knit myself a pair of socks, knowing that it is 100% Blue Faced Leicester.) Here is the Brummie Beanie with all the images Jo used to create it.
Averil Otiv came to lead a workshop with 10 of our guild members on Saturday. Although I didn't take part I was at guild and every time I popped in the room to see how they were getting on it was silent! Everyone was concentrating on weaving and counting - no time for chat. The baskets looked good and each one was very different. Here are a few photos of the baskets being made and some finished at the end.
Instead of our usual guild meeting this month, some of our members volunteered to attend 2 venues and demonstrate some of our crafts. Sarah, Charlotte, Kate and Gemma were at Selly Manor outside in the gazebo. It was a mostly sunny day and there were crowds of people at the Manor and our members were happy to demonstrate spinning and weaving to many of them. Gillian, Janice, Rachel, Kate and Lizard and I were at Yardley Trust School for a rather quieter day but nonetheless enjoyable.
Everyone enjoyed this workshop with Shirlyn. First we chose a design to trace onto fabric. Then we stretched it tight into an embroidery hoop. The hardest part was drawing over our traced design with hot wax from a tjanting. It was much more difficult than it looked. There were different sized tjantings to choose from, the wax had to be hot enough and you had to be careful not to touch the fabric with the bowl of the tjanting otherwise you would get blobs (many of us did!) Then the dye was painted in after Shirlyn checked that our lines had no gaps to let the dye escape into a different area. We mixed our own colours and this was the most fun part of the workshop.
As you can see everyone had a finished piece of artwork to take home. https://batikying.com/ June 8th 2024
Textile Tasters At the last WSD Guild meeting there was an opportunity for members to have a go at a variety of textile crafts which were demonstrated by other guild members. Rachel had a hackle and diss and huge variety of coloured tops to demonstrate colour blending. Jane had a couple of inkle looms ready warped and Janet had a rigid heddle loom ready for warping . Sarah was using a soldering iron and organza and beads to make some very pretty flowers. Kate demonstrated hooking and rag rug making with yarns, fabric scraps and hessian. Members were encouraged to try out the various crafts which made for a very pleasant and easy going day - once we got into the building that was! I think our photos say it all this month. We had over 40 visitors to Open Day. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had demos of spinning flax, spinning wool, spindle spinning, weaving on rigid heddle looms, peg looms and inkle looms and flower pounding which was very popular. Of course we had scrumptious cakes too! A big thank you to Sarah for doing most of the organising work. Here is some of the fabulous weaving on display
What can I say except it was great to meet up with our friends and have a good long chat! There were more than 25 of us at our meeting on Saturday and we had a new member too. Welcome to our guild Ell and we hope you enjoy coming to our guild.
We also met Jutta from the Print Works in Moseley who talked to us about making use of looms there. Notices included arrangements and planning for our Open Day next month. Also we have 2 demonstrations coming up at Bordesley Green Allotments and Kings Norton Nature Reserve. |
AuthorWendy Simpson , guild member since 2014. Started as a spinner, then got hooked on natural dyes and now I'm learning to weave. Categories |