Regional Day

Six of us once again had a very enjoyable day at the Regan Centre although the weather wasn't it's usual sunny self.  We had two very entertaining and informative talks one by George Hook, who is the last man in Birmingham to make mother of pearl buttons, and one by Lucy Adlington on the Great War Fashions.  The standard of the competition entries was as high as ever and there were some really lovely pieces on display.  Next years topic for the two competitions will be 'Maps' and the flower for the Maggie Judges competition will start with the letter 'E'.

I had a very good day as I won one of the raffle bags.  Kindly put together by the Sheffield Branch, I don't think they could have got another item in it.  It is now my challenge to produce a piece of work using as many of the items as possible.

This is a photograph of the bag I won with all the items that were in it.  Thank you very much Sheffield Branch.

May Meeting

Jackie has a friend, Heather Hasthorpe, who lives in Norfolk who she persuaded to visit her when we had a meeting day so she could give us a talk about her quilts and workshops.  It was lovely to see her quilts but also her embroideries, samples and postcards that she makes as well.  It is always interesting to hear what is going on in other areas of the country.

Our contribution to the Regional AGM challenge is coming along well and starting to take shape.

As a Branch we have decided not to do anything specific for National Stitch Day this year.  It is not a good time of year to do this in this part of the country and so many people have other commitments during the school holidays.  However, we did say that if anyone was stitching anywhere on that day then they would get someone to photograph them, especially if it was in an unusual place. 

April Meeting

Today we had Isobel, one of our members speak to us about the Royal School of Needlework Certificate and Diploma.  Isobel has been doing this for a few years now and has produced some really lovely work for it.  She explained how she had travelled to Durham to classes with Tracy Franklin, going by train each time.  We also saw the original Robin that she stitched which graced the cover of the RSN christmas cards for two years.  Everyone enjoyed the talk and were very impressed with her dedication to the task of learning to stitch to perfection.

A reminder to everyone, our Rose Bowl competition this year is a 'Stitched Book Cover'.  It can be hand or machine stitched in any technique.  Hopefully it is a small enough project to encourage a large number of entries.
The Rose Bowl was donated by a past chairman as a prize for an annual competition and it has been going for some years now.  The number of entries varies, depending on the topic chosen.  In the past we had more entries for a technique than a subject, now it seems to be going the other way.  The topic is chosen by the committee.

Ann and Jackie have organised a beginners patchwork day on the 14th June at Wrelton, 10am to 4pm.  Price is £5 plus £3.50 if you want the prepared pack of fabrics.  If you are interested can you let Anita know and I will pass on it on to Ann to send you the requirements.

We have volunteered to provide the hostess services at the Regional AGM on the 11th October at Scarcroft Village Hall, Leeds.  We need about two car loads of helpers so if anyone would like to go, please let Anita know.

We have a Challenge to do from last years AGM which consists of a bag of assorted fabrics and threads and we have to make something up from that.  I won't announce here what we are making but we could do with a fairly large piece of plain cotton fabric if anyone has any to spare.  Any colour will do at the moment and we will choose the most appropriate from what members bring to the May meeting.

You still have time to make a piece of work for the Regional Day competition 'Waterways' or the Coates/Anchor prize 'Anchors Away'.  If you are not going to the actual meeting, we can arrange for someone to take your work for you.

Exhibition

Well, the weather did us proud, particularly on Friday, it was lovely and sunny and we had lots of visitors.  A special thank you to all the members from other branches of the Guild who came out specially to see us, it is lovely to have such support.

Another big thank you to all those members who helped over the two days and also to all the members who submitted such a wide range of lovely work for us to display.

Here are a few of the photographs I took.  Some I can't print because the light was reflecting off the glass in the pictures but here are the best.

This was our very successful bag tombola.  Every prize was a bag made by a member of the Branch.  It could be a tiny one with a sweetie in it or a large shopping bag but everyone who won was pleased with their prize.  No more bath salts that have been round every fundraiser in the district!

Down the centre of the room we had a display with a theme of 'A Summer Garden'

 

These six little pieces were all purchased from a speaker we had and are all the same design but they have turned out so different from each other.

 

 

Pieces worked with Kathleen Laurel Sage on her workshop

The daffodils were at their best this year and really put on a good show.

March Meeting

I can't believe I haven't done a blog for February, I am sure I did it.  I will have to check my other blog, see if I have posted it there.

Unfortunately our speaker for March was unable to come due to unforseen circumstances, so we continued our Make and Take session into the afternoon.  We then did a short Show and Tell as we had lots of work on hand ready for the exhibition and we just selected pieces out of the bags and asked people to talk about them.

We had more new members today, that's ten this year.  It hasn't boosted our numbers a lot because we lost five at the end of last year but it is a step in the right direction.

Everyone enjoys the Make and Take sessions that Jackie and Ann organise, it really gets people together and talking. 

Everything is coming together for the exhibition, just got to hope that the weather will be kind to us.  The daffodils at Farndale will hopefully still be out that weekend.  Details of the exhibition are below.  Hope you can read it.

 

These are some of the Make and Take work that was done.  Some people were making sheep with wool and french knots, others were doing flowers over chiffons.

 

 

Photographs from the January Meeting

 

These are Jane's flowers being made into a wreath

 

Here we are doing suffolk puffs

The 'Fly Stitchers' as apposed to 'Tippers'

 

 

 

Some of the finished flowers from Jane's workshop

January Meeting

Another good attendance today with 5 visitors, all of whom are going to join next month.  One of our members had visited a local patchwork group and got a few people interested in coming to our meetings, so that is one way of recruiting new members.

We had a Member's day today, just in case the weather was bad.  Three members of the Branch, Christina, Jane and Anita each ran mini workshops on suffolk puffs, fly stitch and patchwork flowers.  Members were free to move around between each workshop or stay where they were which made for a very enjoyable day.  It was particularly good for the visitors because they got to meet lots of the members and everyone had a really good chat.  Of course I forgot my camera again so I am hoping Christina will be able to email some of her photographs and I can upload them if they come.  Thanks to Jackie and Ann for organising this, we all appreciated it.

Plans are moving ahead for the exhibition and we have also put some thought into what to do with the bag of pieces that we got at Regional AGM.  Some members have already signed up for the Regional Summer School and there are several people thinking about the Regional competition.  Altogether we are a very busy branch.

We also had a visit today from Pauline, our Regional chairman.  I think she enjoyed her day with us and took away a good impression of our Branch (and some of our ideas).