It's a Small World - Branch Challenge 2014-15

While we had Sally Darlington at our disposal (see previous post) we made her judge our Branch Challenge. 
There were even prizes - £30 for the winner, £20 for the runner-up, and £10 for third place. 
The title was "It's a Small World", and it had to fit (widthways at least!) into a standard petri dish. If you weren't aware, a petri dish is only 9cm in diameter, so it is amazing to see what some of our members have managed to cram in there! 

As our winner, Sally chose the entry by the ridiculously talented Anne Brooke, 

who made a pixie house out of felt, 

embellished with hand-embroidery, and with tiny pin trees. 

What's even more annoying is that Anne made this within about a week of the challenge being announced last September, while the rest of us were still finishing them off about an hour before the meeting! 

In second place Sally chose this piece by Jane Clayton, whose small world was a personal reflection of the difficulties sometimes caused for her by her own skin. 

The lid of Jane's dish is printed and embroidered, and the inside is a felted epidermis. You can feel Jane's pain, looking at this piece of work. 

In third place Sally chose this piece by Jo Sykes; a typically Pennine scene of a mill and hills, appliqued and painted and then decorated with hand embroidery. 

Now have a look at the other entries and see if you agree with Sally's decisions!

Val filled her dish with rings embroidered in variegated cotton, 

all stitched together and laid on a translucent background.

Hilary made an underwater scene complete with a treasure chest,

 overflowing with beaded treasures! 

Maureen stitched this intricate peacock with a great use of perspective. 

His "eyes" are highlighted with metallic threads.

The title of Jenny's dish is "Walk on Haworth Moor", 

the background is painted with acrylics 

and details are added with hand-stitching. 

Joan's amazingly detailed cross-stitch scene depicts the small 

world of horse racing. Look at the tiny horses! 

Sue set the scene for "Mary, Mary" with a garland of paper flowers! 

Mary is a little hand-made doll in her hand-embroidered flower garden. 

Janice's tree, mainly stitched in French knots, 

shows the passing of the seasons from Spring to Winter.

Mandy's dish, also in French knots, is literally a depiction of a small world. 

The other countries are on the reverse side. 

Sue's knot garden is just that - the whole surface of her piece is 

covered with tiny exquisite French knots. 

Davina's dish contains a trip around the world with lots of pieces of art, decorated with embroidery and symbols typical of the country in question.  

This is just to show you that it did in fact all fit in ingeniously into the dish! 

Margaret's piece was a poignant reminder of the fragility of life, 

with her evocation of the sea of poppies outside the Tower of London. 

Irene's enchanting under sea scene is embellished with all sorts! 

Shells, beads, stitch, net, sequins, all in shimmery light-catching colours. 

Rona's was another symphony in French knots, evoked by the verse, 

"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows", which she had stitched on the top side of her piece. 

This is the under side of the lid and the bottom of Rona's piece - so much work! 

Hilary has depicted a microscopic small world in her piece, "Bacillus Anthracis Embroderous". I think we've all caught it! 

Rachael's wind-swept tree on the banks of a river 

is couched onto a subtly shaded painted background 

with a hand-embroidered reed-bed in the foreground. 

Jackie demonstrated some of her beautiful needle-lace in her dish 

with this fantastic butterfly 

on a background embellished with herringbone stitch and French knots.

Wyn's was a small circular world, with tiny hand-made felt houses and trees

attached to the background with blanket stitch and decorated with French knots. 

Liz's design would certainly have won the prize for how much you could feasibly fit into a petri dish with this brilliant merry-go-round! 

Another great use of perspective - Sarah's houses are machine stitched and she has even sewn some onto the narrow ribbon around the inside of the rim! 

Catherine's manipulated fabric  bacteria look a bit too realistic for my liking! 

So there you are! Another really diverse collection of work 

by our talented members. 

If you're a visitor to our blog, 

why not leave us a comment with your own "Judge's Decision"?

June Meeting - Sally Darlington (and some Mug Rugs)

Our June speaker was Sally Darlington, who comes from the nearby town of Todmorden. She told us all about her varied career in textiles. 

She graduated in design from the prestigious Glasgow School of Art where she discovered a passion for machine embroidery, however her first job was for a firm in Kilmarnock, designing contract floor coverings (big carpets!) which she says she still gets a thrill from seeing on floors now and again - including at Tiffany's in New York(!) and airports all over the world. After four years, Sally left the company, finding that having to always work within someone's corporate requirements was too restrictive for her. 

Making a huge change in her life, she contacted Voluntary Services Overseas (VSO) and they asked Sally to go and teach her skills to people in Africa. She taught initially in Zimbabwe and described to us how important education was to the students there, many of whom had to save for years to go to school and were there in their 20s, some of her students walking up to 18km a day for their lessons. 

After a year Sally got tick bite fever (sounds fun!) and came home to recover. The political situation in Zimbabwe was too unstable for her to return there so she was redeployed to Ghana, where despite inherent corruption which often meant that funds were diverted for the benefit of individuals, she managed to gain funding for three classrooms for the school she where she was working. 

She explained to us about the different cloths and dyeing techniques used in the different areas of Africa she had visited. 

There was Kenti cloth, which was usually woven, although sometimes printed like this example, and which was worn as ceremonial clothing. 

In Mali, women gather lake mud from different depths of the lake which gives different colouring and levels of resist. They paint the mud onto cloth and leave it in the sun to develop. This example has a different design on each side of the cloth. 

On her way to Mali (a three day trip overland), the vehicle Sally was travelling in broke down. The driver went for help but by the time he returned, Sally was so thirsty that  she drank some water he had brought without it being sterilised - this resulted in her being infected with worms which later had to be surgically removed leaving her with scars on her back and arms. (Now crossing Mali off list of places to visit...) 

Another method commonly used in this area of Africa is indigo dyeing, a technique which Sally also likes to use. This involves either tying or stitching the fabric before immersing it in indigo dye. 

You can see that smaller pieces of cloth have been stitched together before dyeing, to create larger pieces of fabric. 

Sally kindly donated an indigo dyed cloth to our raffle which I am delighted to say I won! Thank you Sally! 

On her return to the UK, Sally got a job teaching at a secondary school in Bradford, however the attitude of the students was so different from that of her African pupils, who had been so keen and willing to learn, that she became disheartened so left formal teaching an started out on her own. She has since taught arts and crafts for Age Concern, had a Gallery in Todmorden, and now has a studio space at Northlight Art Studio on Valley Road in Hebden Bridge. 

Sally's own work features one-off pieces of fine textile art, using natural materials - cotton, wool, industrial felt and silk, including lots of silk cocoons.

Sally will be displaying pieces of her work at the forthcoming Open Studios in Hebden Bridge which takes place over the weekend of 3-5 July 2015. 

Full details of artists and where they can be found are on the Hebden Bridge Open Studios website

http://hebdenbridgeopenstudios.org

Members also brought some of the work they had done at the Playday on the previous weekend, where Davina had been teaching how to make a patchwork quilted "Mug Rug".

As usual, they were all really varied.

Making an Exhibition of Ourselves

Yesterday was the grand opening of our current Branch Exhibition "Leading you Up the Garden Path", at Bankfield Museum, Boothtown Road, Halifax. 
Wyn, our Chair, gave a short welcoming speech to the assembled visitors, who included Regional Chair Pauline Heywood and National Chair Christine Poole. Refreshments were kindly provided by the museum and the wide range of pieces on display received many compliments from those present. There were also many positive comments in the visitors' book. 

The exhibition runs until 11th July, the museum is closed on Sundays and Mondays, and is open from 10-4 from Tuesday to Saturday. 

Here is just a small selection of the pieces on display. 

May Meeting - The Start of a Collaboration - and some Finished Pieces

The theme for our May Meeting was "A Collaborative Herbaceous Border".
Our Chairman Wyn brought along lots of identical squares of damask which had been dyed blue at the top and green at the bottom, along with lots of paints and floral-themed stamps. 
After an unseemly scrap to get to the printing materials, we printed our pieces of fabric and then started to stitch onto them. The end result will be an "endless" embroidery - they will be stitched together to make a long flower bed. 
No photos of the piece to show you yet, but here is a photo of the printing in progress : 

A couple of members brought along some finished pieces to show us. 

Sue B has made a beautiful fully hand-stitched quilt. She has been attending classes for this at Patchwork Chicks at Barrowford (near Colne, Lancashire - the Dark Side!); we called there on our Branch Outing last year and she was inspired! 

This is the front of the quilt

This is the reverse, which is just as lovely as the front! 

Jane B brought her silk Hearts Hanging, which she started at the Hearts Playday in February. The hearts are all embroidered and padded which gives the piece a lovely 3D appearance - hard to photograph it without wanting to squash all the hearts though! 

The whole piece

This heart is embroidered with fly stitch

This velvet heart is embellished with gold glass beads

This heart is embellished with beads which reflect the pattern of the fabric

This heart is decorated with one of those raised embroidered ring thingies 

that looks like a barnacle (I missed that meeting!) 

The hearts are stuffed with two layers of wadding surrounding synthetic stuffing.  They have a very smooth and neat finish. 

Finally - don't forget to visit our Branch Exhibition at Bankfield Museum, Boothtown Road, Halifax, which is on from now until 11th July. 

It features some of our recent work including Regional competition entries, along with other pieces encompassing the theme of Homes and Gardens. 

There will be a Grand Opening on Saturday 23rd May 

when refreshments will be available and you can find out all about our Branch.

Thank you to Davina for organising this exhibition!