Corinne Young: A Stitched Garden

 This afternoon we had Corinne Young visit us (click on the link for her website) to give us a talk about her textile journey and what fascinating journey it has been. There are lots of interesting articles on her website from various magazines and some fabulous pictures, but here's a quick summary of our afternoon.

Corinne started with studies at the RHS Lindley library and the Economic Botany collection at Kew producing work based on seed heads and botanical specimens using flax fibre to make paper for a background.

Following an exhibition at the Society of Designer Craftsmen she was approached by one of the producers of the Lord of the Rings theatre production and was commissioned to make sixteen panels. These were first exhibited in Toronto and then moved to the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Photo from Corinne's website

A commission for Burton Constable Hall was based on the theme of the passage of time where art work was displayed amongst existing antique pieces.

Photo from Corinne's website

Corinne now works on 3D pieces - machine embroidered flat, cut out and stiffened to turn onto amazingly realistic flowers and plants. 

Photo from Corinne's website

Corinne has exhibited at the Chelsea Flower Show numerous times and I'm sure people must think her plants are real!

We had a lovely afternoon looking at Corinne's work and listening to her journey in stitch.

I snapped some photos of the work she brought but I'm afraid they don't do it justice.

We had a stitch morning before Corinne's talk and as usual there was a lot of lovely varied work by our members. We were particularly taken with Clare's pasty - a needle case in fact, which was a really clever idea.

Not a Cornish pasty

Cute!

Bee-utiful (apologies!)

Can you spot Serena's hidden message?

Casalguidi, lace and calorie free macarons!

 What a great day we had yesterday with Wyn Ingham; Wyn has visited us several times before and it's always a great pleasure and fun. This time she came to give us her talk on Casalguidi and lace in the morning and the in the afternoon we did a mini workshop creating some cute macarons.

Wyn has been collecting textiles for a long time and has some gorgeous pieces of lace, some she has bought as little samples and other pieces are family heirlooms she has gathered and saved. Her family have long been connected with textiles, craftsmanship (cabinet makers, confectioners, weavers) and teaching; as a young girl she stitched and embroidered with her tailoress grandma. This was particularly interesting for me as my grandma was also from a  family of tailors and we have a history of weavers and confectioners too - spooky! 

She took us through family stories involving pieces of embroidery and told us fascinating tales of visiting Rachael Kay Shuttleworth at Gawthorpe Hall with an aunt and carrying biscuits round in a casalguidi bag. Holidays have inevitably got visits to fabric stores and textile collections woven into them.

Wyn's earliest piece is a 5th century coptic Christian embroidery - beautiful little birds.

She then took us on a journey through Elizabethan sumptuary laws, dyeing and bleaching fabrics, Schiffli lace (chemical lace) and of course Casalguidi which was produced in a short window of time.

Here are just a few of the lovely pieces of lace from her collection.

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In the afternoon we made macaron - not all finished but everyone loved them! Wyn has a dishful, and here are three completed ones - speedy stitchers!

Seascapes with Laura Edgar

 A few of us had a wonderful day on Saturday creating seascapes with Laura Edgar. She made it down from lovely Whitley Bay and while her husband disappeared for a couple of alcohol free Guinnesses and the football we all got stuck in to creating textile seascapes.

Laura brought us some gorgeous samples of her work (click on the link above), a small sample shown here: 

We started with our reference image and then laid out some basic areas - sky, sea, sand etc and tacked the fabric down. Laura came and spoke to each of us individually to help with decisions. Then it was time to start adding details with scraps of fabric, sheers and chiffons. Laura had bag fulls of bits for us to use ranging from lace to dyed bits and experiments involving synthetics and the gas hob! We went over the hand embroidery stitches to use to help blend our fabrics together and ways to add depth and movement to our creations.

It was a fantastic workshop and our thanks go to Laura for making it such an enjoyable day. We didn't get finished so watch this space for further updates. in the meantime here are our efforts in various stages.