Skipton Castle update

 Here's an update on our Skipton Castle Conduit Court piece. Sebastian Fattorini of SKipton Castle has had our large embroidery framed and it's now on display in the castle shop. It looks great! We'd like to thank Sebastian for his enthusiasm about the project and we're really pleased that the embroidery has a permanent home. If you're ever visiting the castle (highly recommended) then do go and have a look.

Merry Christmas!

🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 🎄🎄🎄 

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Today we had our annual Jacob's Join lunch - lovely as usual; of particular note was Sue's fruit cake with no eggs, sugar or butter! It was delicious especially with some cheese. 

We had our Christmas card swap and a round up of things to come next year: our raffle will be monthly prompts based on famous paintings and we will also be launching a new round of Travelling Pages, the monthly prompt will be the raffle painting, so that should prove interesting. Also on the cards is a little series of posts on here and our other social media featuring members' favourite stitches or techniques. We have a packed programme for 2024, so if you fancy joining us, drop us an email.

We had a display of items made on workshops this last 12 months, all of which have featured on the blog and in addition there were sketch books of techniques from Gail's sessions introducing those fairly new to stitching to various stitches and traditions, and also a couple of mini quilted hangings from Anne Brooke's stitching hour. Lots of photos below in no particular order. I'm off to make Sue's cake!

    

                                                 

...and last but not least, Serena's hat!

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.