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?

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.

Dear Emma Designs

 Some of us had a fabulous day with Cathy from Dear Emma Designs today. We were making fabric bowls. Cathy brought in some of her stunning work as inspiration:

We had a bit of a practise at free machining first - fiddling with tension and speed!

I have to say the tables in the hall weren't great - bit too bouncy which made accuracy a challenge. Once we'd got our eye in we then cut our pieces for the main outer and lining of the bowl and then set to work with our designs:

Then it was bond-a-web to anchor our shapes followed by machining. We didn't manage to complete our bowls in the session but left with instructions and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. 

Photos of our efforts in various stages of completion.

Members not participating in the workshop were busy with their own projects: