Amazing Machine Embroidery workshop

Many of the GeeTAG group were lucky enough to attend Alison Holt machine embroidery workshops during the past week or weekend. We also met some wonderful stitchers from Melbourne, Ballarat, Warrnambool, South Australia and Canberra who all travelled to participate. I can definitely say, from my experience this weekend, the workshop was ‘fabulous’! Alison was an engaging, expert tutor and passed on her knowledge in very easy to manage steps so that everyone produced an amazing piece of work. Thank you to Alison for a wonderfully inspiring weekend and Gillian for all your work in organising such an experienced tutor.

The weekend group did Alison’s landscape workshop and the weekday group did the seascapes. (Seascapes please email me through some photos.)

Here are some shots of Alison in action:

and here are some of the variety of works produced, using either Alison’s or individual’s stimulus photos. Most are unfinished but still show the great techniques Alison taught:

 

Apologies for the shadows on some of the photos.

I would thoroughly recommend Alison’s workshop to anyone with an interest in machine embroidery.

 

 

 

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April and May plays

This post is looking back to our April & May workshops. We began and continued embellishing ATC cards based on the theme for our biannual exhibition: Alice in Threadland. Details for the exhibition can be found on the Embroiderers Guild website. (Photos to come).

 

At the May meeting one of our members, Shirley, showed her wonderful memorial book on her Great Uncle based on her research into his life and experiences in WW1. More info is in these articles here and here.

 

She also attended a workshop on the “Confetti Landscape” process.

Before netting:

 

 

After netting and stitching:

Thanks for sharing your inspiring work Shirley

 

 

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Dyeing at Anglesea

Some members of the GeeTAG group ventured down to the Anglesea Art House (Australia) on a very warm 30C spring day to do some dyeing with the lovely Val.

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.

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Talented GeeTAGgers!

Firstly a recent creative workshop with Alice Clague which was enjoyed greatly by many members of the guild including a few of our GeeTAG group. The results were amazingly individual given the commonalities of the project.

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 sampler:

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

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Show and Tell

At our April and May meetings there was quite a bit of Show and Tell from the members. It is great to get inspiration from other members in this way and also to get positive feedback on our pieces.

In April Jacqui had done some wonderful cloth dyeing based on the February swing tag technique with dyes and salt. Here is her description of her technique:

The cards and the light parts of the calico I gessoed, the dark parts of the fabric are ungessoed. After the gesso was dry I flooded the card/fabric with blue quink ink, then sprinkled on rock salt, when I was happy with the look of the piece I dried
them with a hair dryer to stop the process. Bits of inky rock salt tend to be blown around so make sure you do this
where damp blue rock salt won’t mark anything you don’t want blued.
The card with the yellow lines on were made by drawing with crayon onto the dried gesso before adding the ink.

Gillian did a fantastic piece combining some earlier techniques:

Yesterday Gillian and I showed the results of the weekend workshop at the Melbourne branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild of Victoria. The Guild had invited Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn over for their 50th Anniversary celebrations and they held two two day workshops in Malvern. Jan and Jean were inspiring, funny and generous.  I will do a post on my blog and I’m sure Gillian will also so pop over to have a look in more detail.

Jill showed us her fantastic bag made of ties from the Op Shop:

Shirley showed us her amazing family quilt dedicated to memories of wartime:

And some close ups; Shirley also used regimental ties in her quilt.

Jill brought her Book in progress, an ongoing project for us all to showcase the techniques investigated in 2009:

Front Cover:

And the Back cover:

Inspired by our wacky wild women last month, Pauleen has made another which was perfectly matched to her purple jumper:

Our Geelong branch of the Guild have a couple of exhibitions this month in conjunction with the Embroiderer’s Guild of Victoria 50th Anniversary celebrations. At the end of May selected items from our Christmas exhibition at the Johnston Collection will be on display at the National Wool Museum here in Geelong (the Johnston Collection is  holding some great talks on embroidery for the Guild celebrations also). Also beginning this month, our members have  contributed to an exhibition of Oriental Embroidery at the Geelong Art Gallery. This is sure to be a visual feast, not to be missed.

Finally, here is a link to the Reflections Scarf Festival 2010. This is a fantastic festival for all ages. It caters for  local, Melbourne, state wide and interstate entries, including  students and younger children. The workshops are great and also continue throughout the mid year school holidays, with many catering to students and children as well as adults. A membership to the Museum is good value, giving free entry throughout the year.

Happy arting and I’ll be back next month with a rundown of June’s workshop on silk paper.

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April Workshop

The title for this post is a bit boring, but I thought we might get some unsavoury emails if I called it “Wild Women of Geelong”!!!!

I am a bit late in loading these pics of our fun workshop in April which was ‘Wild Women’ a la Sarah Lawrence’s book.

Everyone had a fantastic time adding their own creative touches to these beautiful little pieces and a big thankyou to Gillian for leading the workshop and clearing out the Thread Studio of all their arms and legs when she purchased the bits to use in the construction.

First some piccies of everyone very hard at work:

And some of the gorgeous and varied ‘wild women’:

(Click on this picture to get a better view of all the details)

Tomorrow we are scrumbling with Pauleen, so bring along your knitting needles and crochet hooks for some more wild and wacky fun.

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A multitude of creative activity

This post of our March Creative textile arts group day is a little delayed. My computer and phone refuse to communicate via bluetooth, so I will have to physically connect the phone via a lead (which I haven’t yet purchased). Update: No lead available. Son no 2 has bluetoothed photos from my phone to his mobile then to computer. It seems that samsung and apple do not get along.

Our March get together was a little down on numbers from the enthusiasm of the inaugural meeting however there was no shortage of beautiful work to inspire us.

Firstly there was Pauline’s amazing tactile piece entitled ‘the seven deadly sins’ completely made from cotton and destined for entry in an exhibition (so no photo). 

There was a wonderfully diverse range of lovely pieces to see, but unfortunately I forgot to take a camera. The photos following are taken afterwards.

Glen brought along her Janome embellisher for us to play with as well as a variety of fibres and fabrics to embellish. Claudia (and others) had a wonderful time on this machine.

 

Claudia's felting

 

 

As quite a few of us are wishing to purchase an embellisher, we are looking at getting a discounted price for a group order. Any members wishing to join in please email me for details or let us know at the April meeting.

Our meeting this month was to continue working on atc’s to swap with the group. This is Pauleen’s work in progress, with her favourite colours:

Glen brought along her machine embroidery sample book, which she began at the Embroiderer’s guild conference workshops last year. Glen accidently left this behind when she left the meeting so I took it home and photographed before returning it to her. As a bonus I got to see her beautiful heritage home overlooking the bay and her wonderful playroom. I have asked if I can go back and take photographs of her room so hopefully they will be on the blog for April.

Next get together will be Easter Saturday for ATC swaps.

Don’t forget to bring some of your stitching to show and tell (and I’ll try to remember the camera!).

Last weekend some of us attended a workshop organised by the Guild with Jan Preston, a multi-talented textile artist from Torquay. The workshop was entitled Free Stitch with Nature and we had a wonderful time stitching over natural materials collected from the bush or gardens.

Some still need to have the solvy washed off (excuse the photos, most were taken with my mobile):

 

This final one, I stomped on a dried agapantha flower head before stitching and also stitched over some bamboo wool fibres. Great fun!!

Cheers till April.

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