April Meeting

Here we are at our April meeting. Welcome back to Pat...we have missed you

 Here we see our WIPs - we have begun our Multi-coloured Swop Shop pieces

 Di is stitching on Jude's printed fabric. It is a representational piece depicting a landscape gardener's drawing design

 Janet is working on Di's hand dyed background

Joy has covered the entire background of Lillian's bikini with the fabric from Ice. She has begun to weave through the open weave and the cross stitch has been worked beautifully

This is Pat's piece in running straight stitch. The background is marbled and a garden with fence and sunset, is emerging

 Sylvia's embroidery is a wonderful applique piece with glitz. So much texture!

Elaine is using chain stitch to perfection. I love the idea of reversing the Ice fabric for subtlety

This is already stunning Sue. It will be amazing when it's finished

How beautiful is Heather's printed fabric using running stitch? Well done Heather!

 Pat Paterson's applique is on a ready patterned fabric. The boldness of the shapes and the colours make this a great piece

Jude is very happy...her work is finished

 A close-up shows the use of Ice's fabric cut and appliqued with French knots. The originator of the fabric background is Dina who had begun to needle-weave a small section (top left). Some hand made paper has been woven into the needle-weaving and appliqued top right.  

We all worked very hard today...so much to do in preparation for the exhibition in September

 Di worked hard as always...loving the knitted mug cover Di

Welcome to our newest member of Connect in Threads, Debbie, who is working on a lovely hand embroidery of her own design; a lovely effect

 Lillian is working on her workshop piece using Lutrador and cable stitch on the machine. We hope to see this one in our "Looking Through" exhibition 

 Everyone worked hard today...head's down!

 Thanks to everyone who contributed to "Heather's craft table" by purchasing wool or bringing in candles/handmade goods for Heather. Keep it coming ladies

 

 



March Meeting

The work has begun on our Multi-coloured Swop-shop embroideries

Janet's in charge ... can you tell?

 Glad to see everyone is working hard in my absence

 

 

 

Lillian and Sylvia contemplating...looking very serious...

 

I spy lovely 3D felted bowls

 Hand embroidery for the Multi-colour Swop-shop work

 Stunning use of herringbone

 

Just lovely to see the adaptation of the fabrics for this project in hand embroidery

 

Here is a good example of the 'compulsory fabric' in use. This was provided by Ice and can be appliqued large or small, once or twice or as many times as is suitable for the design. The cut out work allows threads or fabrics to be woven through it

 It is so strange to see my block printed fabric being worked by someone- else...I love it!!

 So much to see - texture, tone and pattern everywhere

 Another use of the 'Ice' fabric

 ...and another

I have no doubt that this project is going to be totally unique and by far the best thing we have done as Connect in Threads. Keep up the good work ladies.

I will add my own work below soon to show you I did my piece on holiday.

 

 



February ''Multicolour Swop Shop''

Today we began our new venture in preparation for our exhibition later this year with Wolverhampton branch of the Embroiderers' Guild

The lucky dip process of choosing our background fabric began...

...'''such fun...!!''

 Our mission is to have a piece of fabric donated from one of our fellow members, and hand embroider it with variations of just one stitch. Ice donated this amazing fabric which we also have to incorporate into the piece. It can be cut up and appliqued, painted, printed over, woven with running/chain stitch or stitched into, but it must be apparent in the final piece

So we set off by printing onto our fabrics after a wonderful demonstration by Dina who whet our appetites - we couldn't wait to tuck in

Lillian printed her fabrics ... amongst other things! Look at the hand!

An example of a printing work base, with lots of hand made blocks

Elaine's beautiful colour scheme

Margaret has begun to compile her A5 piece for the exhibition using the compulsory 'Ice' fabric which has been divided into sections. Looking great already at this early stage Margaret

Margaret's second piece of fabric which had been donated by Dina. Everyone loved this fabric which Dina had printed over a shop printed fabric - such wonderful textures and patterns in such rich colours

Heather's printed fabric of the chickens - ready for her running stitch

...and here comes the running stitch

Margaret experiments on the gelli plate

Examples of stencil prints made on the gelli plate

Positive and negative prints from the same stencil

 Jude's positive and negative prints of a Paisley stencil, with some overprinting

More prints from Jude - stencil printing on the gelli plate over Janet Connock's block prints

Sylvia has used her 3 donated fabrics and the 'Ice' pieces with great effect. Can't wait to see the embellishment Sylvia

 

 Dinah working on one of her pieces and is thinking of a three dimensional effect

Janet is working on one of her three pieces - you can see all three here

During the afternoon the printing enthusiasm continued...

 ...but other project work continued or began too

Some of us wanted to continue with our Indian motif project

Pat has taken a section of an Indian motif and enlarged it. Colour has been sampled and now the next stage will be to experiment with layering different size motifs, or weaving strips of the design together. We shall have to wait and see

 Jude's sketch book on the left - also working on an Indian motif. The fabric on the right is a development from the sketches and has been printed using an eraser for the block and then hand embroidery is being worked.

Clare has used her papers printed in December with Colouricious to make a set of Valentine cards

Clare's indigo and paper embroidery- there is a lovely face on the paper house

This cushion square shows lovely texture and stitch variation - Ice is 'pretty in pink.'

Pat is working on a large panel begun at Amanda Clayton's workshop - all white and off-white - very delicate.

What a productive creative day. Well done ladies and thank you for your wonderful efforts and valued company. Good luck with your Multi Colour Swap fabric which you will bring with you again to the March meeting.