Teabags aren't just for a cuppa.

 Today Jackie led us in a mini workshop on teabag landscapes. Jackie is a real whizz with her left over teabags and has shown us her beautiful work using them many times. Well, we got to join in today. She has been saving Yorkshire teabags (what else?!) for a while, drying and preparing them for us to use. She brought inlets of little bits and pieces to create our miniature landscapes - bits of scrim, plumbers scrim(?!), evenweave fabrics and florist's ribbon; we got to delve into her ort tin of lacy scraps. Once we had selected pieces for out background, middle and foreground we stitched them down and then added embroidery. Everyone loved the results and they were all different. Don't throw you teabags away, turn them into mini works of art!

Some of Jackie's lovely work: 

And our mini art works:

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.

Experimenting with Jennifer Collier

 Today we were joined by Jennifer Collier who brought us her workshop Experimental Textile techniques. We've had a lovely day playing!

There was lots to try out and all our samples are being made into beautiful books with laminated covers. We haven't quite finished them yet so there will be an update next month with the finished books and samples.

There was a lot of ironing involved - not the usual boring kind but with wax and plastics. We started with plastic bag samples, ironing bits together to create a new textile to stitch into. Next was trapping 3D items in a small waxed box and encasing them in paraffin wax. Third item of the morning was emptying teabags and trapping small bits of ephemeral in them then dripping melted wax on and ironing to seal them. We had plenty of time playing and making our samples.

Next up was ironing items in sandwich bags, turning them into lacy parcels followed by sellotape transfers and more teabags plus items with latex instead of wax.

The last three techniques were: making tissue paper and ephemera sandwiched and waxing them again producing lovely translucent goodies; trapping objects between two pieces of sheet fabric using bondaweb and finally paper roses.

So lots and lots to do and we all had a lovely pile of experiments to stick to pages of recycled papers which were turned into a book. We all found something we really loved and I'm sure some of our favourites will reappear in other pieces of work.

Our thanks to Jennifer who brought an enormous amount of stuff for us to use, it was a fabulous workshop.

Here's a flavour of what we got up to. I have to confess to forgetting to keep taking photos - too busy waxing stuff!

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.