Meetings are continuing to be virtual and not at the Rugby Club.
If you are not already a member of the Grassington District Embroiderers' Guild Branch and would like to watch our Zoom Speaker Meetings you are now able to do so. For or an annual fee of £20, you will be sent the link to the Talks which take place on the first Wednesday of each month.
If you are interested contact the secretary:
GrassingtonDistrictSec@embroiderersguild.co.uk
Amanda Hislop, speaking from her summer house studio in Oxfordshire, has just given Grassington Embroiderers' Guild branch a marvelous zoom talk, "Imagined Seascapes", drawing on sketchbook inspiration while land locked in lockdown; a personal response.
Amanda Hislop has a degree in woven textiles and painting. She began her career as a teacher in art and textiles but in 2007, she took the opportunity of redundancy to pursue an exciting pathway as a textile artist and tutor.
Amanda spent the first half of our meeting using a power point presentation and followed with a second half, showing and talking through her wonderful sketch books.
She shared with our members the processes she used to produce her incredible seascape textile art. Working with cloth, paper, colour and stitch, she discussed her inspirations, her design stage and her final pieces.
Some of the materials Amanda used were new to our members and I am sure we will be busy sourcing them for our own work!
Whether you were able to join in or not, check out her work on-line, where there are lots of photos
of the things we saw today.
Amanda has written a book "Stitched Textiles: Seascapes" Details here. This will certainly be on my Christmas list this year!
Amanda also mentioned "Stitch Magic", by Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn as being a super reference book. Details here.
Amanda is a member of the textile group "Prism". Prism Textiles exhibit contemporary textile art of the highest quality, highlighting the breadth of textile practice and challenging notions of the textile as decorative and domestic.
A big thank you to Amanda from all our members for another excellent Grassington Embroiderers' Meeting.
What a lovely idea for the box we were all given in September. Please continue to send me photographs.
Next Meetings
November 4th - Guest Speaker Deborah Mullins
Read more about Deborah's work on her website.
November 18th - Members Discussion Topic: Transferring patterns and pictures to fabric
December 2nd - Guest Speaker Zara Day
December 16th - Virtual Christmas celebration
"Woven" is about celebrating our textiles heritage.
Stitchery Stories is an embroidery and textile art podcast, hosted by Susan Weeks.
Textilia Exhibition is at Farfield Mill, 3rd Nov - 4th Jan
Textile Snippets
A visit to Sue Hawkins Needleworks by one of our members found the thread cutter: Details.
Glow in the dark threads can be purchased from Minerva Fabrics.
For all those interested in Freeform knitting have a look at Fibre Artist Jenny Dowde's Blog. She is also the author of numerous books.
Have a look at Chris Gray's work as a textile artist, author and tutor.
The Yorkshire Button Kit has been a great hit with our members.
TextileArtist.org is a place for textile and fiber artists to be inspired, learn from the best, promote their work and communicate with like-minded creatives. A number of our members have joined and are enjoying the challenges of this group. Have a look at the web site for further details.
Emma Herst, a university of Huddersfield student has won a prestigious Wool Week design competition to create a coat.
100 years of Textile Designs and Fabric
Tennants Auctioneers in Leyburn are selling a hundred years of textile designs and fabric samples from two private collections. Curator Harriet Hunter Smart said: "These two private collections of fabric samples and textile designs are an extraordinary treasure trove of pattern, colour, and design."
Pop into the Singer Outlet shop for a look at all things sewing! I especially like the Christmas 2020 Advent calendar 24 piece sewing kit!! Or into Scraptastic for all kinds of craft ideas.
Here is a list of fabric retailers sent in by a member:
Amo Threads sell fabrics that would otherwise go to waste.
Polin Fabrics are an online store but low in price.
The really useful textile company Calico Laine.
Shop on line at the Yorkshire Fabric Shop.
Interesting gadgets to check out!
Free from Google Play, Knitting Genius is an app with video tutorials, a row counter and several free knitting patterns. Might be worth a look.
