Alice Fox workshop at Parbold Embroiderers Guild

Five members of the group did a workshop with Alice Fox on 18 March, where we were stitching with found objects. Here are a couple of pictures of the results.

I have a feeling we'll be doing something similar at the April meeting.

Thin strip insertions - February's meeting

I was sorry to miss last month's meeting, but Lis has sent me some photos to share with you. The session was lead by Lis and she was demonstrating how to make thin insertions into a piece of fabric. Here are some of the results.

Thanks to Lis for leading the session.

Dyeing a rainbow

Thanks to Lis for leading a fun session using Procion dyes to colour natural fabrics.

The main activity was dyeing a rainbow of 12 colours which form a colour wheel. Then we could try out other ways of mixing colours. I did some 'parfait' dyeing, where you alternate layers of fabric with different colour dyes.

Here are a couple of photos from the day, first adding the dye to fabric.

Four of the colours mixed and added to fabric.

Here are my rainbow fabrics (just got round to ironing them)

And results from the parfait dyeing

Don't forget to bring your fabric along to the next meeting.

Playing with threads at the November meeting

For the November meeting, Abigail set us the challenge to make a range of different types of cord and then to use them to decorate a frame. She brought along a whole load of bits and pieces that could be incorporated and Lis brought along a pile of frames she had been given.

We started off making cords, and here are some that we made:

Then, when we had made quite a few of these using different techniques, we turned our attention to the frames. Catherine was working on a 3-dimensional frame using an embroidery hoop:

Liz had constructed an irregular frame from stretcher bars and started to add cords and other bits and pieces:

Hilary used scarves to wrap her frame and some wooden rings, putting together the following piece:

An interesting and creative day was had by all who were there. Our next meeting will be on 22 January 2017, when Lis will be showing us how to dye a rainbow using fibre-reactive dyes (Procion). 

Meeting dates for the rest of the year can be found by clicking on the tab above labelled 'Meeting dates 2017'.

Follow-up to last month's meeting

Abigail sent me this picture of a purse she made with her free-machine quilting sample.

Our last meeting of the year will be on 27 November, and I will shortly be adding next year's meeting dates to the blog.

Free machine quilting in October

It was my turn to lead this month's session, which was all about trying out some free machine quilting exercises. We started off with trying to get our machines stitching nicely. Some were more cooperative than others!

The first exercise was to get the tension (approximately) right and then to do some doodling in thread. This one has some nice trees and also shows how difficult spirals can be.

These have some more doodling and practicing with July's printed designs.

In the afternoon we moved on to filling patterns either based on a grid of dots or freestyle. Here are some of these samples.

I hope you all enjoyed the day. See you next month!

Fabric stabilisers at the July meeting

I would like to thank Margaret for leading an interesting and informative session at last Sunday's meeting. It was all about stabilisers and Margaret shared with us her experience of using a range of products and showed us some examples. 

She started off by giving us a handout listing 19 different stabilisers (and this from just one company) - who would have thought there were so many? These included ones that stay in as a supporting layer, as well as those which wash or tear away after stitching.

Then we all started stitching a flower brooch where each petal had a different machine-stitched design. The design was printed onto Sulky Sticky Fabric-Solvy, which is a wash away with a sticky back. We each made a quilt sandwich using cotton fabric, thin wadding and couture interfacing (a very fine iron-on stabiliser), stuck on the design and then tried to stitch round the lines. Here is how far we got on the day.

In the afternoon we had a go at making a 'mug rug' with scraps of fabric and thread. We layered these between two sheets of a heavyweight soluble stabiliser, then stitched a grid on top. Here are some examples (several of us, including me, didn't get far with this one at the meeting). Of these three, only Catherine's star has had the stabiliser washed out.

I enjoyed the meeting, and I'm even starting to learn how to use my newish sewing machine.

The next meeting will be on Sunday 18 September, when the topic will be finishing edges, adding hanging sleeves etc.