March 2018

Our own work was the order of the morning and everyone was busy with a host of projects

After the continuing success of the Colour Books I want to introduce a new idea...watch this space!

Elise continues with her hand embroidered circles

One of many discussions of the day, while looking at the new project work of Gillian

Dawn's lovely felted piece with delicate hand embroidery

Crazy patchwork enhanced with kantha stitching

 A lot of time this afternoon was devoted to a discussion regarding the wonderful Colour Books

 So many ideas and achievements have come from the pages of these books

Without worrying about design, design has happened

Colours have been experimented with and explored

Techniques have been experimented with and practised

My personal favourite - the humble circle - in fabric and on paper

Great use of colour and texture

More circles - Suffolk puffs following the black and white themed project

Wonderful use of colour with contrasting blue with the hot orange and bright yellows

So it is time to explore something new, something needed, involving no cost just enjoyment and personal development for a group project

What will it be.....?

 

Thank you girls

Jude

Happy New Year - 2018

Here we are again...a new day...a new year full of challenges. So much to do,

 ...where do we start??

 Today Janet chose to finish off UFO's, so a gentle hand needle felting

 Margaret has stitched into her muslin and teabag piece from December, and it is to become the lining of a book cover

 Dina's love of drawing continues

 Di too worked in her colour book using snippets of magazine arranged before beginning to paint in monochrome using the colours from the magazine pictures

 Annie's "Stars in a vase" is a triumph - using the waxed papers she made in November with Lillian

 Debbie set herself the task to make her Colour book more of a "happy" colour palette as it had become rather "brown"

 The task of Lillian's mammoth quilt continued. I could say she was enjoying it, together with Pat and Elaine who are using the same "difficult" pattern...but it wouldn't be the truth!

 This beautiful hand stitched box belongs to Joy who is in the process of making a surprise to go inside

 The lid of Joy's box

 Annie's amazing hand stitched patchwork

 Close-up

 Even closer-up - see the tiny hand stitches

 Elise's fabric print - "Shape and Structure" - hand embroidery has begun

 Dawn's hand embroidery - pistol stitch to follow

 Here is one of Lillian's blocks for her mammoth quilt

 Following on from the tea-bag dyeing, Pat produced this amazing large piece of fabric which was  dyed and baked in the oven after astonishingly using only 3 teabags

 When hung, this fabric is a piece of art in it's own right - it needs nothing other than an iron, a backing and a hem.

 By far the best serendipity moment I can remember!

 Pat P continued with her tea-bag work with hand embroidery

 Margaret Biggs applying fabrics in strips because of the sheer enjoyment it gives to her

 Joy is hand embroidering the surprise for the inside of her box

 Di worked on many things today including this applique piece

 Poppy seed heads to be pages of Margaret Boswell's book

Thank you ladies for sharing your wide repertoire of work and skills today

Jude

December - ''Anyone for Tea?''

Snow and ice could not stop us meeting today for our Teabags discovery day

 All the requirements needed were dried, ironed teabags, bondaweb and paints/inks/printing stamps for embellishment (to begin with)

 The calm before the storm...

 Teabag paper is pretty in its own right but it can be enhanced with muslin, baby wipes (left over from previous projects and coloured), and hand or machine embroidery

Margaret prepares her base and includes block printed teabags

 Dina has painted her bondaweb in a stunning clourscheme

 Alma's Raspberry teabags

Block printed teabags on a baby wipe background

 Lorraine's teabag panel is making great progress

 Lovely textures and torn edges

Really strong work on both circular and square teabags

A Forest Floor by Elise, is making great progress

 

 Di's block printed her assortment of teabags with lovely results

Margaret has made great progress by the end of the day

A lovely balance of pastel colours. Can't wait to see the finished result

As usual, other work continued

Lillian's gifts of cushions (Note the eye catching Christmas tree brooch - with batteries!)

 
Dawn's stitch diary is growing beautifully. A work of Art Dawn!

Clare is stitching into a felted piece

Today went by so quickly. We celebrated our friendship and love of the arts for another year

Margaret provided a wonderful soup kitchen corner (why haven't we thought of this before?)

 While we provided the rest. Non-alcoholic wine was the order of the day...Waitrose have now officially sold out of Sauvignon Blanc

Janet sums up our party mood



I cannot believe that another year of successful work has been accomplished. I am so lucky to have such an inspiring, creative and talented group of artists for company every month.

Here's a toast to a successful and happy 2018 where we will be exhibiting once again at the Cone

Thank you ladies

Jude xx