Christmas Party 2011

What a lovely festive atmosphere greeted us at the Horse and Farrier in Threlkeld when we arrived for our Christmas lunch. It was a return visit, as we were all so impressed last year that we had very little discussion about where to go this time, This traditional Lakeland inn had been beautifully decorated, as you will see from the pictures.

The food was delicious, too, with a varied menu, and very good service.  

We altered the proceedings a little this year; instead of each making a gift to exchange, we made a card instead, and each received one of those. Lovely they were, too! The aim is to keep them all safe until our exhibition in July, and have them on show, then.I didn't photograph them; they'll have their first showing at the Moot Hall. 

Our lunch was a lovely, relaxed and comfortable occasion, though we were missing some of of our members through illness.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Knitting and Stitching Show 2011 Harrogate

It amuses me to think of all the stitchers in the North of England heading for Harrogate last week, from every guild and group. Lots of our members were there, mainly on the Thursday, I think, and as ever, there was almost too much to see. It's a bit overwhelming, and takes great determination to get round everything, even over the two days that some of us had. Two of our group did a box-weaving workshop, and I was allowed to see the results over dinner on Thursday evening. A photo may appear here , who knows? I did Hilary Hollingsworth's Bayeux Stitch workshop, which I found very interesting, and although I only managed to get a tiny bit of the cartoon image finished, I do intend to work on this more. Again, I'll post a picture when there's something to see!
The weather got worse over the course of the show. I went in to the  Hall on Friday, while it was a crisp, dry day, and emerged a few hours later to horrible wind and rain, managing to get thoroughly wet, twice, on the way to the station. I know it got even worse on the Saturday. And people think we do this for pleasure!

I particularly liked the work by Ten-Plus Textiles,

Linda Young

Caroline Turner

 The Prestonpans Tapestry, two panels here,

 Seven men, and Highland charge,

MA work by a student from The University of Cumbria, whose name I will add shortly,

and the stunning exhibition of work by Beryl Dean.

An exhausting but rewarding trip, and there may be thoughts from other members added soon.

Lutradur Books....Some inspiring work on felt...and Newsletter.....

Making Books with Lutradur

For our November meeting, we dabbled with Lutradur, the very versatile spun-bond 'fabric' and experimented with the soldering iron.

The Lutradur had already been dyed with silk paints, and we used the sheets to construct a book with folded pocket pages and a cover. A soldering iron was used to cut out shapes, either free-hand or drawing round a metal shape.   

The front covers were decorated  with a mixture hand of machine embroidery, beads, copper sheeting, fine wires, and some of them were soldered round the edges.

The techniques used to construct and decorate the books were  some of those developed by Lynda Monk, and by Margaret Beal. Most of the creations weren't quite finished at the end of the day, but hopefully they will be, soon.

This weekend, I visited the Country Living Christmas Fair in Glasgow. It's always a good start to Christmas shopping, and as usual there lots of inspiring hand-made goods, many of them textiles. But my very favourite work was that by Moy Mackay, who usually shows her work in galleries, and not in shows. She creates astonishing landscapes using machine embroidery on hand-made felt. Her pictures are truly beautiful. I thought i'd seen her work somewhere, and in fact, she has exhibited at Percy House in Cockermouth. If you get the chance to see any of her pictures, do go along. Here are some images from her 2012 calendar.

November Newsletter from Zena;

Keg newsletter

                                                                      Nov 2011

Our next formal meeting will be at the Horse & Farrier Inn at Threlkeld for Christmas lunch, on December 8th. It’s at 12.00 for 12.30 and if you have not already done so you need to decide if you would like 2 courses for £11.95 0r 3 courses for £14.95. Meals will be ordered on the day, but we need to know definite numbers by 1 Dec. They also need to be paid for by that date, so we can just give the pub one cheque on the day of the meal

The embroidered cards that we are making to exchange as pressies, could you put a greeting and date on them as we would like to display them at our exhibition on 6 July 2012 at the Moot Hall in Keswick.

Our next informal meeting is on 1 Dec at Pat’s house, Corvus at Trelkeld. The colour for the raffle is yellow/gold or orange, if you could bring some buttons, fabric, ribbon or threads, to give you some ideas.

Bring your sewing or embroidery to do whilst chatting and something to share for lunch,

The informals for next year, weather permitting, will be 5 Jan, 2 Feb and 1 Mar, again

at Pat’s house.

There is a North West Region Summer School at Alston Hall, Longridge, Preston from 19 to 22 July 2012. Tutors are Janet Browne –Stitching Journeys, Sheila Smith-Surface Texture in Stitch with Felt and Katie Pirson – Wonderful  Whitework

You need to decide by the start of next year.

Any queries Zena Smedley 016973 71023

November Informal Meeting

Meeting as we do in the heart of the Lake District, we all travel through spectacular countryside to get together.Sometimes the weather conspires to make life difficult for us, but there are also beautiful Autumn days when we can really appreciate where we live. This was the view from Pat's sitting-room, where we met for our November informal . 

Lots of chatting, and planning .........some people are off to the exhibition at Barton Grange, and lots of us are looking forward to the Knitting and Stitching Show this month.And we perused the menu  for the Horse and Farrier, in Threlkeld where we will be having our Christmas Lunch.  

As always, we enjoyed our shared lunch, and had our raffle.(This month's colour was red.)  Most people did some sewing, too, getting on with various 'works in progress'.

Pat's disappearing nine-patch........

Val's crewel work..........

Gloria.........

Lena's long-term bag project...........

Our next meeting is 17th November, when we will be making a small book from Lutradur.

Costumes at Rheged ....... Marilyn's report

Rheged Visit

On 11th Oct a small group from KEG enjoyed a visit to the Costume Exhibition at Rheged

On display were 15 costumes worn by the leading actors in such films as Death on the Nile (1978) through to The Kings Speech (2010).  All the costumes were well displayed with large photographs of the actors along side. We were all very interested in being able to study at close quarters the costume detail, especially the embroidery.

I was particularly interested in the design boards produced for the costumes, which were very impressive, being works of art in themselves. I think they gave us all an insight into the minds of the designers.

The photographs below give a flavour of the exhibition, but it is well worth a visit and is on until 30th October 2011.

Other Exhibitions coming up are -

Lake Artists Winter Exhibition - 5th Nov’11 – 8th Jan’12  

WOW (World of Wool) on 14th Jan - 15th April 2012.  I shall look forward to seeing the seat covered in knitting for real!

This Year's Programme

I have posted the list of planned meetings for this year. The committee have tried to achieve a good balance here, of the traditional and  the contemporary, with workshops by our own members and outside tutors. They hope you will approve, and support the workshops each month. Also, you are welcome at the informal meetings, which are a lovely way to get to know other members, and spend some time just working on an ongoing project, enjoying a shared lunch, and trying your luck in the colour raffle.Bring a friend!

September Meeting

September's meeting began with The AGM. Pat Knifton stood down as Secretary after two busy terms and Zena Smedley was elected to replace her. Melanie Vincent is leaving the area, and so resigned from the committee, and Janet Earle was elected. The rest of the committee remains in place. 

The squares we made during last year are completed  and are hanging in the room where we meet. Val received a lovely letter of thanks from Michael Evans on behalf of the Friends, which I have copied below.

'When Friends met on Sunday, they were all struck by the beautiful wall-hanging which Keswick Embroiderers have presented to the meeting. We feel that the beauty of the workmanship contributes an element of Spirituality to a room that is normally used for prosaic and mundane purposes. We are delighted that you use our premises for your meetings and are grateful for your contribution to their appearance.
Please thank your members for all the skilled and thoughtful work which was entailed.'

We spent some time discussing the 'other' postcards. Our designated country is Lesotho.

The meeting continued into the afternoon. Unfortunately, I had to leave at lunchtime, but Val was all set to deliver a talk and Powerpoint presentation. Someone may write a report on this ...........

More Festival of Quilts

I must have walked miles at the FOQ recently, and looked at hundreds of quilts.Yet, when I read blogs written by others who were there, I see things I never glimpsed, or I can't remember. It just shows how big the whole show was. Here are just a few more of the things I photographed, and then I'm going to look forward to posting news and pictures of our workshops and meetings at The Friends'Meeting House in Keswick. Starting in September, with the AGM.

FESTIVAL

This was the winner of the Quilters'Guild Challenge, and was by Alison Bramley

I posted details of this before, but not the whole thing. The texture of the machine quilting really caught my eye.

Another of the garments from the Fashion show.

This was a variation on a traditional theme..... machine stitch patterns in the style of Victorian samplers

Festival of Quilts 2011

I have just had two wonderful days at the Festival of Quilts.Well worth the long trek, and the feeling of complete exhaustion from trying to get round everything, and take it all in. Nearly 1200 exhibits. I'm sure there are things I missed. What inspirational work!  From exquisite work using traditional skills, through fabulous and amazing art quilts, to group projects, contemporary quilts which explore new boundaries, work by children and young people. Some with a message, others just invoking the joy of working in fabric and thread. Magic.

Here are some photographs...... firstly some I was interested in because of their local (Cumbria) connections.

 Autumn Fairy      Rosalind Pollock , Cockermouth    (Look at her blog, Down by the River)

Passion(flowers) for Patchwork       Gill Reid   Workington

The Fun of the Fair        Eve Westwood, of Cockermouth won first prize in the Young Quilter/Young Embroiderer 9-11 years for this........ well done!

Now, some of the other quilts that made an impression on me.... Not all expertly photographed, and not always the winners. 

Tiny hexagons and applique flowers

Click on the two above, to see the detailed stitching better.

Thursday Evening was the fashion show, which was great fun, and designers competed for the audience's vote for their patchwork and quilted creations. they were superb, witty, clever. The photos of them, static, the next day, don't have quite the same power, but they still look impressive.

And some 'quilt creations'  ......

Sweet undoing    Greta Fitchett

There are lots more, which I will post another time. Last for now, though, the 'Bell Quilt', a group project to commemorate the victims of the earthquake in New Zealand, symbolised by the bells of Christchurch Cathedral. Pippa Moss, of Welsh Quilts, designed this quilt  and put it together with the contributions of readers of her blog. One of the blocks is mine!

A wonderful show.