New workshop offered........

Long-time group member Elle chatted to us at this week's meeting about her new venture; she has become the sole distributor/stockist of Di van Niekerk's hand painted silk ribbons, kits and printed stitch panels in Spain.  This is good news for Elle and us, as we will be able to buy ribbons etc. from her without having expensive postage costs from South Africa.  Also Elle is offering workshops, limited to six students at a time, teaching silk ribbon work and further down the line, stump-work embroidery.   The first workshop is on October 22, and it didn't take long for Elle to be approached by six group members who will work on a small fuchsia design.  All the materials, needles and instructions will be provided in a kit from Elle, students just need to bring along an embroidery hoop.  You can check out some of Elle's lovely silk ribbon embroidery over in her gallery page on our group website Elle Smith

It was good to see another long-time member of the group return yesterday.  Charlotte, seen below right chatting to Margaret, hasn't been able to join us for quite some time but is planning on staying for about 5 weeks and expressed  her disappointment at not being able to attend Elle's workshop as she is travelling back to the Isle of Man on the same day as the workshop!

It was a smaller meeting this week, with only 21 members, and it was really unusual to see only two or three members working on their sewing machines.  Christine, back from her trip to visit family had plenty of space to spread out her work!  I was interested to hear about the reactions from Christine's grandchildren to their quilts  when they were given them during their summer visit here.  Christine's granddaughter was delighted with her pretty quilt, and the younger grandson declared his aquarium inspired quilt to be "cool" so that was a thumbs up, but Christine's older grandson at 12 years old, looked at his quilt then at his mother and asked very seriously "well, what do I do with it"!  Christine says that of course he is pleased to use it now and I'm sure that despite his initial reaction, he would have been very disappointed had his grandma not made him a quilt at all.

Christine, whose row-by-row workshop begins at the end of the month, showed us two of the panels she has prepared  for the project. 

As expected, Vanessa brought in her quilt top with much of the quilting done.  Vanessa is quilting large petal shaped motifs in areas of the quilt and can be seen above explaining to Louise how she marks out the shapes with chalk before stitching.  Vanessa was frustrated at the end of the session to have run out of thread and needed to wait three more hours before the shop opened where she could buy more and she could continue quilting!

Sue and Gladys watching as Vanessa quilts

Eleanor and Sandy had a chat while Kath, below worked on her strippy quilt.  This quilt project has taken Kath right out of her comfort zone, as the colours are very muted compared to the usual bright bold colours she likes to work in.

Decisions, decisions!!  Above Carole is making decisions about which fabrics to use in her next project, another scrappy illusion quilt, while Carol W, below left, is seeking advice on how to stitch this large quilt top which I believe is her first quilt project.  Carol is not happy with the machine quilting she has done so far, as like many of us she is having difficulty manipulating the quilt through the small space on her sewing machine so she has decided to opt for hand quilting, and is getting advice on needles and what threads she could use from Yvonne and Gwen.  The quilt has been packed away again while Carol finds what she needs, and she is looking forward to keeping warm under the quilt while she works on it during the winter months.

Tricia is seen here explaining to Elle where the inspiration came from for her latest "fishy" project seen below,

then Elle listened while Yvonne  explained where her latest work is leading her.  Yvonne is working on a mixed media sketchbook, using paint, paper and stitch working to a theme of springtime.

During the work process, inspiration struck and Yvonne decided to try printing the pages she had created using paint and paper, onto fabric.  She liked the textures produced by the watercolour paper and chose four of the printed fabric pages to make into a small quilted wall hanging and is now adding stitch.  Yvonne says all other work is on hold while this has unexpectedly taken over her time!

Yvonne adding stitch to outline the flowers

Ann has been playing with her new sewing machine and has experimented on her "sumptuous stitch" project (above) by using various individual embroidery motifs  to fill an area of her ongoing project.

AnnC popped in briefly with her grandson and his fiance, to show us these little quilted seasonal wall-hangings that she has made as gifts for family members.  

And before I end this week, I must say hello to Margaret over in the UK who is recovering from knee surgery. I hear Margaret is frustrated at not being able to travel over to be with us at our meetings, but I'm sure you have some stitching and knitting on the go Margaret, and we look forward to seeing you when you get back.

I'll leave you all with a bit of advice I found from a Singer Sewing Manual from 1949 about how you should approach your stitching.  I wonder how many stitchers actually worked in this way?   (Apologies for the quality of the print.)