A Journey Through Book Making

 We had a wonderful talk today by one of our members - Jackie M who makes stunning fabric books. She brought lots of her wonderful pieces to show us. She has been asked before 'why do you do it?' to which she always replies 'because I want to'. Making the books gives her pleasure and we were privileged to have a look into her book making world today.

She started following a challenge from her good friend Pauline when a member of Bolton EG; the challenge was around inches and Jackie ended up with a huge pile - some hers, some foremother people and she wanted a good way to store and display them and so her book making journey began. Many of her books have been produced following further Pauline challenges and Jackie likes to have a theme for the books. They vary in size and cover a wide range of themes - some given and some personal to Jackie such as family birthdays.

She has developed her method by trial and error and generously shared her process with us and construction tips. The books are predominantly based on pelmet vilene with a backing fabric, then appliqué and stitch forms the theme. Jackie acquired an old typewriter and loves to add text to her pieces with it - it was a birthday present. She also collects little bits and bobs - old bits of broken watches, silicone rings, charms - anything that can be added to her pages.

Here's just a small sample of her work. Enjoy!

Also today, Serena brought some prints of her contribution to the Toni Buckby project at Sheffield University.

The project was part of Toni's PhD on the blackwork embroidery collection at the V&A. The work Serena did was based on a coif.

Beyond Repair with Shelley Rhodes

 We had a lovely day with Shelley Rhodes today and a workshop called Beyond Repair. We were inspired by her gorgeous pieces of work and then we made a start. We gathered our bits of fabric and papers and attacked them... hole punched, awls, wire brushes , sandpaper, ripping and tearing; we were brave and set about previous pieces of work we weren't too impressed with and made holes and distressed everything. Next was adding paint and ink to hide and mask bits.

Here's our distressing in progress:

    

Then we arranged our distressed pieces, pinned bits, bonded and glued bits to hold them in place and then started adding stitch. We may then cut these pieces and continue the process. We had a great time and everyone went away with work to finish but also with ideas about how we might continue to fragment and repair those pieces until we finally have something we might consider finished. Everyone thought it was a really freeing process - highly recommended. Thanks Shelley.

Work in progress:

 

Bobbin Along

 Sue C led a fabulous mini workshop called Bobbin Along - embroideries round bobbins. Sue brought some examples of the ones she has made and is currently working on Autumn as part of a four seasons set. We tackled Christmas - it's not that far off... We transferred words and sketched out designs on our fabric strips ready to embroider. What a lovely, therapeutic day of stitching; we've not quite finished but will bring our bobbins back at the December meeting to show everyone. Sue also brought a box of goodies so we could decorate the tops of the bobbins. Can't wait to see what everyone has done.

Sue's completed bobbins and our works in progress: