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.

Collage Boxes with Anne Brooke

We've had a great day today making collage boxes with Anne Brooke!               Anne brought loads of examples to inspire us and her stash of wallpaper and bit and pieces.

First job was laying out our collages and then stitching the sides together to make the box net. Then some free machine embroidery; Carolyn did a brilliant job at her first attempt - her darning foot was still in the plastic bag! I think we have a convert.

Then Some had stitch and finally turning it into a box with a handmade cord. We didn't all get finished but everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves. 

Here's todays efforts in various stages of completeness. Thanks Anne.

Deb Cooper Workshop

Wow, what a day we've had! Deb Cooper came and ran a workshop for us: Lines and Edges with some dyeing with rust and tea thrown in for good measure. Deb brought us some really lovely samples to inspire us and lots of bits and bobs to include in our strips. Scraps of fabric were applied to a backing strip and stitched with various fabrics and papers with a selection of stitches. We used neutral colours ready to dye later. As we were stitching Deb produced a lucky dip of little pieces of paper each with an instruction of something to include as we stitched - a new stitch, a named stitch, lace, a different fabric etc - just to keep us on our toes! We also used lolly sticks and bobbins. 

Deb's work:

And ours in progress:

Some of our strips or bundles of scraps were tea and rust dyed - tightly rolled to make 'spring rolls' and 'dimsum' - now their official name. We are waiting for our chinese starters to sit for a week and then dry before we see the results.