April Meeting - "Show and Tell"

Despite the fact that our meeting was on Good Friday, we had a good turn out for our Show and Tell meeting, with lots to look at and talk about. 


Polly brought us a piece of weaving she has been working on for a while and has finally completed - a fabulous piece based on a weather-worn headstone, depicting the tree of life, and covered in lichen. She captured the colours brilliantly and we were amazed to find that she had woven a large part of it from newspaper pages - she found that the property pages of the Yorkshire Post were ideal to give the green tones she needed, as none of the paper has been coloured by Val but is all hot off the press! The newspaper had been difficult to work with because of its fragility, and she had given the back a coating of PVA "just in case" before cutting the piece free from the frame, but we all agreed that it was stunning and couldn't believe the lovely soft texture of the piece.

Christine, who produces a prodigious amount of beautifully neat cross-stitch and canvas work, brought a beautiful bell-pull which she has now got hanging in her home - unfortunately it does not summon a team of servants though...

Helen showed us a piece of needle-felt which she had recently completed and mounted. It was embellished with hand stitching and depicted bluebell woods The colours were lovely and the subtle highlights of pink and white really brought out the blue in the drifts of bluebells, against the green of the foliage. 

(Come back to the blog after you've taken a stroll through these woods!)

Next was Lesley, who produces more lovely stitching in a week than most of us manage in a year! She showed us some of her new works in progress, based on her recent travels to India, and they really captured the vibrancy of that country, bringing a new twist to traditional emblems and designs. We were all envious to hear that she will now be producing even more in her new work-room...

Lesley's next piece is the new header for the Halifax EG Facebook Page - if you are on Facebook, feel free to contribute! You can link your own photographs to the page and add text to tell others about what you are doing, where you've been and what other websites you recommend.

Jan showed us a beautiful white needlecase she had made which was embellished with tiny butterfly beads. 

Jan also showed us some fabulous fabric wallets that she had been making ready for the Embroiderers' Guild Stall at the next Totally Locally Market in Brighouse on 28th April - don't forget to go along, take your pennies, and if you can spare an hour to man the stall, all the better - you can take some of your own things to sell, too! 
Alexis brought her work in progress from the Maggie Smith workshop - see below for the photo of her piece, and Helen's too. 
Anne (with an e - the posh way...) brought two lovely pieces of bird-themed work. The first was inspired by a workshop she had done with Jenny Pepper, who has a studio in Scarborough and also does some workshops at the Dutch House Art Studio in York - hard luck though girls, unsurprisingly all of her own workshops are fully booked for the whole of 2012 - you may be lucky with the Dutch House though (you're behind me in the queue though, I've already sent my e-mail!) Anne's piece incorporated vintage lace which was added at the pre-felt stage, so that it became part of the fabric. It was then embellished with hand-stitching and some beads. 

She also showed us a piece she had made to sell on her Folksy page - why not check out Anne's "H-anne Made" page and while you're there have a look at all the other beautiful work for sale on Folksy and Etsy - maybe it will inspire you to have a go at making your own work pay its way!

Thank you to all the members who came and shared their work, for giving permission to have it photographed for this page.