April Meeting and Workshop - Judy Tadman - 3D Crochet

One of our members, Judy Tadman, is an internationally acclaimed artist who works with rope and rope-type materials, sculpting them into organic shapes and forms with the use of crochet-type techniques. 

On Friday she gave a talk to the group about her work, telling how she developed the technique herself whilst studying art at what is now the Batley School of Art and Design at Kirklees College, following a career in nursing. Her pieces range from the small and intricate, to huge and robust outdoor sculptures. 

This was followed up on Saturday by a workshop for enthusiastic members 

armed only with a crochet hook! 

Judy supplied a wonderful array of differently textured base materials (rope, string, twigs, hose; anything tubular and linear) and different wools, twines, cords and threads which act as both an anchor and a decoration for the base material. 

Here are the partly completed pieces from our workshop - it will be followed up with the finished "objects" after our next meeting!

Davina raced ahead (she does lots of crochet so had an advantage but those of us who couldn't crochet at all soon picked it up), completing a bowl and continuing with a free-form sculpture.

Margaret H's work

Sue T's work

A close-up of the same piece

Sue later embellished her sculpture with stitching and beads

Polly at work, and her piece along with her super scissors! 

Anita's chic black number

Margaret W's lovely neat work, with added double crochet 

Janice's piece which she is embellishing as she goes along

Irene's red piece. 

Judy explained that when you use natural fibres, 

they always revert to natural forms. 

Wyn's closely stitched piece

Jane had an idea for a loopy piece and is working towards it

Paper twine stitched round a twig, showing the basic technique

Mandy's piece with floral embellishment 

kindly and unintentionally donated by Wyn

It will be interesting to see how they all turn out! 

Judy has a brilliant DVD in which she very clearly demonstrates the techniques she showed us yesterday, a shortened version of it is also on YouTube at this location : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pSsLdfud3I

You can contact her at judytadman@gmail.com or via Facebook