It was wonderful to have 3 new interested people come to visit, who hopefully were inspired to go and do some natural dyeing and also come back next year.

Shirley and Pauleen had fabrics to show from our dyeing day at Anglesea last month:

Pauleen's basket of beauty

Shirley's rainbow of colours

As it was our last meeting before the long summer break we had a lucky dip where those who wanted to participate brought a colour coordinated bundle of goodies based on the ’12 days of Christmas’. Hopefully everyone will make some exciting things from the surprise bundle they received in return.

This is the bundle I received:

12 days of Christmas surprise bundle

Our next meeting will be February 11th 2012. You will receive an email around the end of January with a proposed schedule for 2012 and details for the first meeting.

Wishing everyone a happy, stitchery xmas.

Her workshop was called “Pickling Pieces of Colour”, very apt for the 24-30 jam jars of dyed fabric, threads and other what nots which resulted.

We developed colour gradations, with some of the ‘dyehards’ concocting some new variations!

Here is a collage of the fun we had; photos of the results will have to wait for a fortnight until the dyes have cured.

Next meeting Saturday November 12th will be a “Show & Tell” and “Sit & Stitch”. Anyone who would like to demo a technique contact Pauleen.

December will be natural dyeing techniques. Details will be emailed out shortly so you can start collecting materials ready to go.

Above and below, all the girls engrossed in the construction:

And some of the beautiful results:

Sorry, that last one is a little blurry.

Several of our group went off for a whole week of creating to the TAFTA Geelong Forum.

Shirley came back with some gorgeous felted pieces:

Gillian extended her design skills and thoroughly enjoyed her masterclass:

And Pauline has been beavering away on her Traveller’s rug with Dijanne Cevaal:

More to come from this amazingly diversely talented group after next weekend’s exhibition.

I have a few photos of a recent meeting of the group where Shirley demonstrated how she made her lovely painted, stitched and textured pieces with Angie Hughes at last year’s Geelong textiles forum. Shirley brought along her wonderful pressurised spray bottles and we all had great fun spray painting our pieces of white cotton velvet. Then we removed some paint, then we stamped some more paint and added foil. Then we covered in sheer, stitched and distressed/cut away. All of this took two sessions over two months. Below are some progress shots:

These are both Pauline’s's I believe. I have taken photos of my two but haven’t worked out how to get the photos off my new Nikon SLR and into the computer!!! I’m sure there should be a lead somewhere but will have to wait for 16 year old son to come home and show me!!!

Our next get together will be the Geelong Branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild exhibition next weekend where I should be able to take lots of photos of the groups work, nothing like a deadline to get you motivated!

Another post is following shortly showing the fun some of our members had at the recent TAFTA Geelong Forum and also a great workshop with Alice Clague on Tyvek.

These are the lino cuts I made (they are back and front on one piece of lino):

And the prints they made:

I used one of my prints, embellished with stitch and beads as an ATC for a swap with Anne from France:

Each person was then given a copy of Pauline’s lino print on cotton to embellish as a challenge.

Next month’s meeting will be spent working on embellishing these blocks. It will be interesting to see what everyone comes up with on their block. Don’t forget to bring all the threads and beads you wish to use. See you all on August 13th.

Pauleen used some of her favourite colours:

Don’t forget to email through photos when you finish your cuff.

The brief was very open ended and based on one of Wendy Lees projects from her book ‘Inspired to Stitch’. Lots of fabric bits and pieces are adhered to the backing fabric with fusible webbing and then machine and hand stitched. Other items such as cords, buttons or found objects can also be added. The results from the group were amazingly varied.

I will update with photos as they are sent through.

And here is the result:

Yummy!!

Next meeting will be March 12th (Labour Day Weekend here in Victoria).

Pauleen has emailed around the requirements for creating a fabric collage. See you all there.

October was a month for a breather, sharing items we were currently working on or had finished and sharing tips, ideas and books.

In November we brought along all sorts of bits and pieces to make into postcards for swapping.

Here is one of Pauleen’s, hope you can see the gorgeous shimmer!

For December we investigated various methods of image transfer, especially old photos. We found the Gel medium worked quite well. Pauline has had great results using Dylon Image Maker on her family book page here below.

We are having a break over January for the summer holidays (so no meeting tomorrow) and will resume the second weekend of February. Pauleen will email out shortly with details of our first 2011 meeting. At our first meeting we will discuss our program for the year so bring any ideas/suggestions along. On January 20th we will be getting together for lunch/coffee; email me if you would like to join us.

There are so many places we could have/should have gone but there is only so much that can fit into one day.

We began with a fun train trip from Geelong aboard the 8.16am. We all managed to find each other despite getting on at three different stations (great things those SMS’s).

After a tram trip up Collins Street it was a short stroll across through Manchester Lane to the historic Nicholas Building.

There we shopped in bliss at Maria George Beads, Buttonmania (first day of their sale) and l‘uccello, who opened especially for us. Unfortunately the owner of Kimono House was away in Japan.

Next stop was coffee in Swanston St before we headed up Flinders Lane to Tessuti and Craft Vic. Many gorgeous fabrics in Tessuti were purchased before we headed along Spring St to Collins St for the 112 Tram to Brunswick St, Fitzroy. The shopping bags became much heavier after visiting The Fabric Store.

Next stop was lunch at Little Creatures where the Cider was sparkling and refreshing and the food was delicious.

Just a short trek up Brunswick St was Beautiful Silks, where Marion and friends looked after us beautifully. Our last port of call was Precious Purl (Lara Downs retail outlet) for some gorgeous fibres.

Thank you to all the retailers who gave us great service on a fantastic day out.

Perhaps it could become an annual event!!