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.

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:

The Finished Piece

 Well, here it is! The Skipton Castle project is finished and ready for display. We will have it with us at Yarndale and then it will be at the Castle. Come along and have a look next weekend 23rd/24th September. All the squares came together without too much of an argument. All contributors are named on the back and the construction team was Gail, Claire, Carolyn, Sally, Sue and Jill. Well done everyone!

Claire will be giving a talk on Sunday at Yarndale about our big projects - come along around 12.30 I believe.

Return of the Secret Stash

 Those of us not on holiday somewhere (hopefully) nice and sunny had a lovely meeting today AND it was the return of the Secret Stash - back by popular demand. Same format as last time - a bundle of fabric and a button, two hours to create something with it - anything at all, any technique. Oooh the pressure! Anyway, as usual there was a wide variety of ideas, some of us weren't brilliant at time management (Saima!) but we had fun anyway and it was nice to see what everyone came up with. Pictures below.

We also unveiled the finished Skipton Castle project. No pictures to share just yet - we will be doing a reveal shortly before Yarndale and the finished piece will be on display there so come and see us! We'll have a bargain sales table and a mini workshop running too. Claire K will be giving a talk on Sunday about our community outreach work, and I have volunteered to be her "glamorous" assistant - though I'm not quite sure what I'll be assisting with or that I will be glamorous! 

We have gained new members from some of our Yarndale visitors so do come and find us and listen to Claire's talk.

The Great Tapestry of Scotland

 Today we were joined by Susie Finlayson who gave us an absolutely fascinating talk about the Great Tapestry of Scotland. What a wonderful project it is and a couple of members who have actually been to visit it in Galashiels can testify to how brilliant it is. I say tapestry, but as we know it's an embroidery but has been called a tapestry in the tradition of the Bayeux, Stamford and Quaker pieces. 

The idea for the tapestry came from Alexander McCall Smith after he visited the Prestonpans tapestry (there seems to be a lot of embroidery-tapestries about!); he asked Andrew Crummy to design it and Alistair Moffat had the task of deciding which events in Scotland's history to include. The resulting tapestry is a very impressive 140m long x 1m wide and consists of 165 panels - that's four times the size of the Bayeux. The tapestry reflects not just the lives of the rich and famous, the kings and queens, but the ordinary people of Scotland too.

Stitchers from all over Scotland took part in embroidering the panels, all coordinated by Dorie Wilkie who led the stitching on the Prestonpans tapestry. Susie became involved at the beginning of the project and was initially not a stitcher but has become a very accomplished one! The original designs for panels were traced onto linen union fabric and then with minimal instructions or rules sent off to various groups round Scotland to be completed. Stitches and colours were pretty much left to the groups and they all added in their own personal stories and tags resulting in a rich and varied collection of panels. Officially the panels cover from the ice age to 1999 with the reformation of the Scottish Parliament, although extra bits have been incorporated in the Welcome Panel. The Welcome Panel is the first to greet you as you enter the purpose built centre where the tapestry is displayed. Galashiels was chosen as the permanent home for its accessibility while not being Edinburgh or Glasgow. A further panel - the Interchange Panel was commissioned by the Borders Railway Community Partnership and is being worked on at the moment; in fact this is the piece that Susie brought to our meeting and that we had the privilege of stitching parts of. Even Queen Camilla has added stitches to it, so we are in good company! Those of us who added to the panel signed Susie's record book - again including HRH!

We had a really great day with Susie and her anecdotes about the project were wonderful. We just need a trip north of the border to see the whole thing now.

The Interchange Panel

Our contribution in progress!