Summer School

Christina and I had a wonderful weekend at Bishop Burton, doing lots of work and meeting up with friends from other Branches.  We have all put on half a stone in weight with all the lovely food that was prepared for us.
There were four tutors, Nicola Hulme, Chris Gray, Jenny Adin-Christie and Linda Miller.  All the classes did lots of wonderful work and I have got some photographs below of what went on in our room.

Sorry no, this isn't a members fantastic work, it is two models that are in the grounds at Bishop Burton.  Still fantastic though.

The next pictures are from Chris Grays workshop which is where Christina and I were.  Known locally as 'The Messy Room'.  We were making three fold books to contain something that was of interest to us or had a special memory that we wanted to cherish.

 These next two are Chris's own books.

 This was one I missed earlier.

The other classes produced some wonderful work too.  Jenny Adin-Christie did goldwork which was absolutely beautiful, Nicola Hulme did stump work and Linda Miller did machine embroidery, creating pictures and views done in solid machine stitch.

A wonderful weekend and I can recommend it to anyone and very good value for money.

June Meeting

Sorry this is so late but I have been decorating my dining room and then I have been away on a wonderful workshop with Sarah Burgess and Distant Stitch.  It was an excellent weekend and we worked really hard, I was so tired I slept through an apparently very loud thunderstorm.

We had another good meeting in June, lots of things to discuss and we are becoming involved in lots of different things such as the Capability Brown project and the repairs to my local church altar frontal which will give us a small exhibition in the church later this year.  Watch out for the dates.

Our speaker this month was one of our members, Colleen who spoke about 'Just a Bag' a very interesting talk which started out describing a friends reactions to Colleen wining a prize for a bag she had made.  Needless to say, this friend does not appreciate the finer arts of embroidery.  As always with Colleen, the talk was entertaining and there was lots of work for us to look at but as usual, I forgot my camera and so cannot share them with you.

No blog next month as I am away and as we don't  meet in August, it will be September before I have a meeting to blog about. However, if there is any news or information you need to know, I will put it here.

May Meeting

Today we had a mini workshop with Josie Storey who is always great fun to have at a meeting.  We were making mini bags, like little shoppers, which can be used for keeping small precious items or for giving tiny gifts like earings or even a gift card.  All the members present had a go and it was a very busy day.

We have managed to gather together a good supply of items for our 'raffle bag' for the regional day in June, so a message to any other branch - watch out for the Ryedale bag, it is well worth putting your ticket on it.

A small group of members have been working on an altar frontal repair for one of the local churches and as payment for doing it, they are going to allow us to hold an exhibition in the church in October.  It will co-inside with the re-dedication of the frontal by the archdeacon and also the harvest festival.  It promises to be a very special weekend for the Branch.

 Here are some of the items Josie brought for us to look at and kits for us to buy.

 These are Josie's versions of the bags she demonstrated.

And these are the bags that some of the members made.

Stitching in the Dales

A number of us joined the Grassington Branch for their annual 'Stitching in the Dales' workshop.  We spent two and a half days with Lynda Monk making a huge quantity of fabulous pieces.  We worked really hard and were exhausted at the end of each day but we came home with lots of wonderful ideas and plenty of work to finish off.  Thanks to Lynda for such a comprehensive workshop and thanks to Grassington Branch for arranging it all.  Also, a huge thank you to Rachel and her team for the wonderful lunches she provided.  Here are some of the things we made:

This was my panel with the stitching and the tyvek scrunched scrim attached all ready for the gesso to go on.  These next pieces are lutradur which has been stenciled with various pastes and gels and then painted.

Next we were using expandaprint onto lutradur through a themofax screen.  We finished some off with foil and some with embossing powders.  Some will go home plain to be painted.

Friday morning we were making flowers using the same technique as above.  They are so beautiful you don't need a vase to display them, they look good anywhere.

Ann's daughter may recognize these hands.

 Here is some of the finished work at the end of Friday afternoon.

Not to forget the ladies who were beavering away upstairs with Kate Stewart making these lovely landscapes using watercolour paint and organza.

A wonderful few days with lots of good food and good company.  Looking forward to next year.

April Meeting

Today we had a visit from Pauline Heyward who is the Regional Chair and she brought along the Guild Suitcase Collection.  This is a series of slides showing some of the items that the Guild has in it's collection.  It starts with some beautiful embroidered gloves and travels through time and styles to the present day.  There is a good range of items shown and it was interesting to see how embroidery styles have changed.  Those awful pieces you have in the loft that you made in the 1960's and 70's don't look so bad now.

We have decided to try and do something for National Stitch day and several of us are going to approach local libraries to see if we can sit and stitch there on the Saturday.  Hopefully we will get some attention although here it will be Yorkshire Day so all towns and villages will be very busy.

I didn't get any photographs this time as I forgot my camera as usual.  One or two people had finished their little books that they did with Christina last month and a few were still finishing off their stumpwork pieces that they had done with Alison.

Our bag for the Regional Day bag raffle has now been made and just requires filling with any items you can spare in the the colour range of apricot and also deep, bright pink.  Please bring any pieces to the May meeting.

March Meeting

We had a lovely day today with a visit from the ladies of the Hull Branch of the Guild.  The room was full and the chatter went on all day but we still managed to get a fair amount of work done.  I even had to clear them out at the end of the day.
In the morning, Christina did a workshop using transfer crayons.  She did a demonstration first and we all had a go and then she gave each of us a kit to make up into a small book using hand painted papers.  Here are some of the work done trying out the crayons.

In the afternoon, Alison did a workshop with stumpwork.  She provided kits with varying degrees of difficulty and we chose which we felt we could best cope with.  Most people did either the holly leaves or the dragonfly.  Here is some of the work in progress.

The work being done at St. John's Church in East Ayton on the the alter frontal is well on its way now.  Only a couple more sessions should see the embroidery finished.  It has been quite difficult doing some of the stitching but it does look a lot brighter than it did. The one on the right has had the central gold added and the one on the left is still to do.

I recently went to a church in Leavening just outside Malton and they have this wonderful embroidery on the wall of the chapel.  If you are ever out that way it is worth a look.  All the central picture is done in split stitch and this piece was the starting point for the Leavening Embroiderers. The surrounding pictures are all activities to do with the village.