December meeting Catch up

Hi all! A little late, I know, but a quick catch up for those of you who couldn’t make the December meeting at Becca’s.

We had a chance to explore Becca’s University textile work, featuring her glorious sketchbooks of costume, sample books of techniques and pieces she had worked on. Becca has boxes full of costumes and fabrics, including a collection of textiles she has bought, begged and been donated. The detail of the Chinese textile,pictured below,  is one of them.

None of us had made much progress on our artist theme discussed last time, but in the meantime, we are going to play with rings!

On a theme of Wheels within Wheels (based on the song, Round like a circle in a spiral-full lyrics here), use the ring (available from Becca) to interpret the idea of wheels within wheels. Use white, off-white, ecru, cream and silver to add something either inside the ring or suspended from the ring or added to the ring. You might think about using threads, beads, sheers, wire, layers or any combination to work your interpretation. Becca’s theme was to use threads to create a snowflake type design, but she was also thinking about giant Dorset buttons.- I found a reference here . We have a time scale of 4 months but agreed to take whatever we had made to the next meeting. Plenty of time for this piece.
Our Next meeting will be at Anna’s  to discuss how to develop design ideas, and in the meantime, I wish you all a happy and peaceful Christmas, a restful holiday and an optimistic and productive New Year.

december meeting

It’s difficult to believe November is almost gone and Christmas looms large. I feel I have achieved very little since our last meeting but looking forward to seeing you all for a pre-Christmas get together at Becca’s. I will send directions to all our regular contacts and if anyone else is interested, please leave me a comment on the blog and I will get back to you.

The intention for part of this month’s meeting is make a Christmas card or decoration, so bring along anything you feel might lend itself to festive decorations. I am  in a pencil and  paper phase at the moment so will bring various items of stationery for the cards I am making, but please bring whatever you fancy to be working with.

Becca is going to share some of the bodices and  costumes she made for her university work, together with the associated notes and folders. We meet at 10.30 as usual at Becca’s new house.

Look forward to catching up with all of you then.

launched

Saturday’s meeting was very successful, and it feels now as if we are truly “launched” as a group. We have a core membership and, what’s more, a plan!

We started by discussing how we had got on with a theme of grids, and our new members in particular came up trumps. Yvonne  brought some black and white photographic images of grids she had found when she had been out walking, and had transferred them onto fabric where they are now waiting to be embellished. Carol  brought two of her beautifully worked wall hanging quilts, one of which was a great twist on a  nine patch.I was  so excited at looking at these I forgot to photograph them. Anna’s grid samples  were of work featured in  Maggie Grey and Jane Wild’s book Paper,Metal and Stitch and Maggie’s new book Stitches,Straps and Layers . She had created a lace like fabric from grid stitching on paper, coffee colouring it and then rubbing to remove some of the paper. The resulting “fabric” was applied to a coffee dyed backcloth and stitched and beaded to embed it into the background. I came home and stitched a piece as soon as I could and intend to dunk it in my morning coffee later.

Over cups of tea and coffee, we had lengthy and enthusiastic  discussions about the direction we want to take our group. We  decided to work towards an exhibition, exploring a theme of “An item for an artist”.  This can be loosely interpreted as a piece or pieces inspired by an artist, the end form of which might be anything  but will include a wall hanging (or more  than one).

Throughout the discussions Claire quietly worked on a teaching piece, see above, making a series of studies of a Kandinsky picture. She variously painted elements, cut them out , found new patterns, re-drew, layered tissue paper and brown paper over parts of the drawing and coloured those too. It was fascinating to observe and I hope she will bring sketchbook so we can see the continuing process to the next meeting.

We also thought about making a series of collaborative pieces, with each of us to suggest a theme and this will be discussed again at the next meeting. Essentially we will complete 2 x 2 inch squares to form part of  larger pieces. There is no need to start anything yet unless you have an idea burning in your head.

Our next meeting will not be at BrickRed but at Becca’s, where we will explore her graduate work and indulge in some pre-Christmas decorative work. I will remind everyone nearer the time and will e-mail details to members of the group.

Dates are booked for the new year and are posted in the sidebar. I left the meeting with my head singing with ideas and colours and thoughts, wondering where the time had gone. I hope everyone else was as inspired as I was.

Saturday 7th November

Meeting tomorrow-Saturday 7th-at BrickRed. Looking forward to seeing you all. See last post for details.

November meeting reminder

Hello all-a little update to remind you that we will be meeting at BrickRed studios again on Saturday for the monthly meeting. This meeting is open to anyone with an interest in textiles who lives within strike of Devizes/Chippenham-please leave a comment here if you are interested and I will  e-mail  any extra information you might want. Instructions for finding BrickRed are to be found in the sidebar on the right. We are still a very new group and would love to see anyone else with an interest in stitching, mixed media, corsets etc!

We have a theme of Grids for this month-I am making a postcard sized piece -but anything you interpret as a grid would be welcome. We also agreed to bring  the piece/pieces of work we are currently working on, so bring along whatever you need to continue  it, including your own sewing machine if you are using one.  It’s good to have some uninterrupted and dedicated  stitching time. Some  more inspirational books would be good too.

We can offer as much tea, coffee and  biscuits as you can consume, but there will be a charge for hire of the venue divided between the total number of us that attend. The more the merrier!  ( And cheaper) Please check this blog again on Friday afternoon/evening for confirmation.

The meeting starts at 10.30 and if you want to stay for the full four hours, you can either bring lunch or buy sandwiches from a local shop.

October workshop

Tyvek was the theme for our first workshop held last Saturday. It was led by Anna, who showed us some of the decorative possibilities through a series of  short demonstrations. She attacked paper  Tyvek with an assortment of  tools-irons,heat guns and soldering irons, demonstrated the effects of cutting into it, showed some of  the possibilities of paint and then set us free to experiment.

We each took a different approach. Becca cut leaf shapes from plain white Tyvek and experimented with bonding to muslin and then adding threads and a top layer of plastic.

Anna cut strips of painted Tyvek, wrapped them around a metal knitting needle and heated them in various ways to make beads.

Claire added wool and Angelina fibres before heating the Tyvek and then embellished the resulting fabric.

I painted with acrylic and silk paints and experimented with heating the painted and unpainted sides.

If you click on the pictures below they will enlarge so you can see more detail.

We  each brought books and sketchbooks and spent inspiring time sharing our work with each other and beginning to see where we draw our influences. Soon I hope to post a  listing of our group library.

We are a very small group at present and would love to welcome new members. If you live within range of Devizes or Chippenham and would like to join in, please contact us-leave a comment here and we will get back to you with more information.

Next meeting will be on November 7th. On a theme of grids,we are aiming to make a small piece-postcard, ATC or other to be completed by then, just to help keep the momentum going.

October meeting at RedBrick studio

This Saturday’s meeting will be the first in our new venue-I for one am looking forward to it with great excitement . Anna is going to take the lead this time with a demonstration using Tyvek, and whilst she will bring some supplies, it would be helpful if you could bring the following, if you have any of them, to use during the morning:-

tyvek if you have any
Scissors (paper scissors are good)
Usual sewing stuff  – if you think you might try stitching on the tyvek
Sewing machine – if you want to use it
Iron
Hot gun
Soldering Iron
Paints -  acrylic, silk, other fabric paints
other colouring media

If everyone brings something we will have plenty to share.

I was also thinking that if you have any ongoing projects, pieces you want to share, books you have that you adore/swear by or find inspirational that would be good too. Specialist books can be really expensive and we might consider compiling a master list so we could build ourselves a reference library or at least have the chance to see before we buy.

Hello world!

Following our visit to BrickRed Studios in Devizes on Saturday 19th September , we decided that it would be an excellent venue for our proposed regular monthly meetings.

We will have use of the meeting area, a teaching space with tables and chairs, tea and coffee making facilities and access to a sink, ironing boards etc. This is adjacent to the studio space where there are large scale textile painting, printing  and silk screening facilities. In the future we may be able to hire this space for specific, large scale projects.

We have agreed on the first three dates for the group, now named Moonrakers Textile Group and for the modest sum of £5 per head, per meeting, can enjoy a great venue. Our first “proper” meeting will be on Saturday October 3rd at 10.30 am. when Anna will be showing how  Tyvek can be used.

Please leave a comment .