Mary Sleigh

In between workshops we had some free time to do some sight seeing and visited some of the Mennonite communities around the area near Cambridge. There wasn’t nearly enough time to see enough of their distinctive way of life. Niagara Falls was another great place to see on a cold crisp day. So much more to see and enjoy…… we’ll have to go back!

Edges and Embellishment – the second workshop

Laura Dobrindt

Everyone worked to their own theme with the emphasis on innovation, using hand stitching techniques to create a constructed fabric.

Judy Eckhardt

Marlene Good

Catherine Schuler

All the work had an individual ‘feel’ to it and these are just a few examples of the work in progress. There was a great variety of colour, materials and decoration, so I felt it was a very successful workshop. It’s always wonderful to see everyone following their own path with a little help from the tutor! Hopefully everyone went home full of ideas and good intentions to carry on stitching.

November brought an exciting opportunity to visit Canada; my first visit to this spacious country and just in time to see some of the gorgeous Autumn colours too. I had a great time teaching three different groups, all highly motivated and enthusiastic.

The first workshop took its inspiration from traditional needlework techniques, all very familiar and now disappearing.

Diana combined fabric, papers and stitch.

Ruth was using darning and patching ideas.

Here’s a patch in progress

Donna experimented with a ‘vintage’ series of patches.

Alison was working with a collection of old needlework samples reminding her of her childhood days at school.

Ideas from the second workshop will be in the next post.

I’ve just returned from a week at a Burnbrae, near Kelso and stayed in a cottage just next door to the studio. It’s always fun to teach there as the studio and support is great for students and tutor. Pat & Sam’s daughter, Yvette, has now taken over running the show and did a great job looking after us all, with coffee, tea and home-made biscuits when needed, and soup and rolls, cheese, fruit and more cake at lunch time.

The Borders is peaceful and full of inspiration with lovely rolling hills, agricultural landscapes and lots of historic places to visit. We discovered an interesting gallery at Dunbar called The Found Gallery. It is full of high quality works of art and well worth a visit. Nearby at St Boswell’s is a marvellous bookshop with lots of individual books, not usually available  in ordinary book shops, and space to browse and enjoy coffee and cake too!

I had a very friendly and hard working group exploring possible ways of ‘constructing a fabric’ during the 2 day workshop. Here are some pieces started during the workshop.

Val’s work in progress; design work and cloth paper ready to be worked further.

Some people worked with fabric, thread and cloth paper which they had prepared.

Celtic symbols and rocks were Jean’s inspiration

Ali started to combine ideas for a book structure

Combining elements with stitch and seams was an important part of the workshop too.

Jenni started to put elements together

Pat started to prepare some units based on skyscrapers

The two days passed too quickly and there was lots that we didn’t have time to do. I have been invited back next year, so shall have another opportunity to enjoy creative time at Burnbrae.

Here’s a link to see the gull at the Mini Maker Faire

‘At the end of the Maker Faire the giant seagull went to the barbecue in the park. A little girl and her Mum asked if they could have it so we gave it to them. They got inside and walked off.’

You must watch this short video to see what happens. I wish I’d been there.

After it’s all over the seagull leaves..………..

The Pearse Museum in Rathfarnham was the venue for two workshops with members of the Irish Guild of Embroiderers. This 18th century house, formerly a school founded by Patrick Pearse, is a great place to visit. There are many original features to see and it’s set in a beautiful park and gardens.

What an enthusiastic bunch of embroiderers! We had a great four days and the sun shone for us. Here are some of the things they made.

Folded books

We concentrated on making book structures that would be useful for embroiderers as methods of displaying , presenting or just keeping stitched textiles and samples.

Folded book with a Japanese theme

Making a giant gull

Here’s the skeleton of the giant seagull being made and here is the almost completed bird!

Not quite complete!

Have a look at this link to find out more about what happened.

http:// makerfairebrighton.com/about/

Before my teaching assignment we spent a few days exploring Sweden and were amazed at the textile collection in the cathedral in Uppsala. The Treasury shows a superb collection of wonderful  church textiles from the 13th century onwards. There are also some exquisite crowns, sceptres and gold and silver artefacts.

The Virgin Mary chasuble is just one of the stunning pieces to be seen.

Virgin Mary chasuble

This is believed to be the work of the workshop of Albertus Pictor about 1480.

Swedish handicrafts at Liljevalchs, Stockholm

In contrast to these medieval textiles we saw an exhibition of leaves showing contemporary craft skills. They represented the work submitted by makers from all parts of Sweden. This picture shows only part of the exhibition. The gigantic collective work ‘Can you see the leaves on the trees?’is composed of 2,000 leaves. Everyone who applied to be a leaf maker decorated and designed their own leaves on a wooden frame all of the same size.The oldest participant is 88 and the youngest is six years old.

Can you see the leaves on the trees?

This exhibition celebrates the 100th anniversary of Swedish handicrafts Societies and it was great to see how handicrafts are blossoming in Sweden.

The Symposium was a wonderful opportunity for me to visit Sweden for the first time. It was held at Bergby Gard in a very peaceful country setting, so very conducive to learning and sharing ideas and plenty of conversation!
There were three other  tutors, all equally passionate about textiles, hand stitching and embroidery in particular.
My course was called Inspirations from African Textiles, so we worked from a selection of African textiles from my own collection. Developing ideas is so much more exciting and inspirational when there is the opportunity to handle and examine authentic examples. I discover more about them each time, even though I’ve written books and studied the subject so often with students.
I worked with two groups and we concentrated on learning and experimenting with traditional African needlework techniques. First we learnt the joining techniques and then experimented with some innovative ideas.

Mary working with Hanna

I was introduced to wrist warmers, a necessary fashion accessory in cold climates. What a wonderful idea they are and why don’t we have them in England?

I learnt a new technique for creating interesting seams. Here is Berit showing me the seam,  skarvsöm,  in Swedish.

Berit showing me the method of sewing the seam

Here are some of the students’ samples showing ideas in progress during the workshop.

Group 1

Some more samples of seams and joining stitches from Group 2.

Group 2 samples in progress

Here are some links to blogposts about the workshop:
The Swedish Embroiderers Guild:
http://www.broderiakademin.nu/post/2012/stygn-fran-afrika-till-kina-pa-broderisymposium-2012/

Elisabet’s blog:
http://textilainslag.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/broderisymposium-del-1/
http://textilainslag.wordpress.com/2012/08/15/broderisymposium-del-2/

Renee’s blog:
http://rudebrantdesign.blogspot.se/2012/08/inspiration-fran-afrikanska-tyger.html

Madde’s blog:
http://bloggen.designmadde.se/2012/08/stygn-inspiration-nr-16/
http://bloggen.designmadde.se/2012/08/min-afrikanska-pase/

Ann’s collection and some work in progress

Hilary’s collection and first experiments

Lesley’s collection & work in progress

Pat’s design work

Design work in progress from Sue’s collection

You can see Sue’s collection in the previous post.

Family memories and memorabilia were used by several students. Here are some ideas.

Melanie’s work in progress

Helen’s work in progress

Jan became more minimal

Natural materials inspired lots of people.

Some design work from Chris’ pebbles

Ruth trying out ideas

Some of Wendy’s experiments & drawings

Chris’ collection, drawings & some experiments

July was a busy month with the summer school taking place during the last week with hot sunny weather at last – sometimes too hot!
There’s always an air of anticipation as everyone arrives and tutors set out their work rooms ready to go. There was a choice of three courses.

Magic in Making started from students’ own collections of items of no intrinsic value but treasured for all sorts of personal reasons.
Some quotations set us all thinking each day and we took inspiration from other artists, trying techniques and finding our own ways of working.

Ruth’s collection

Jan’s collection

Myra’s collection

Rosemary’s collection

The collections were all fascinating. Here are just some, brought by Ruth Collins, Rosemary McCarthy, Jan Dowson and  Myra Cheeseman.

We all worked hard over the four days and had a lot of laughs along the way. They were a very happy group and I loved working with them all.

Avis working

Chris working in the studio

I’ll be showing some of their work in the next blog.