Clyde Olliver visted our Guild in November and treated us to a talk and slideshow. It was interesting hear how Clyde's artistic career and work had developed from his working as a restorer of antique rugs, to doing to degree in textiles at Goldsmiths, to the present day. Clyde's working with slate and stitch developed from his referencing of his past (both his father and grandfather were builders)

Textile 21 Exhibition at Farfield Mill

You are all welcome to the private view on Saturday 21st November 2pm to 4pm at Farfield Mill Sedburgh LA10 5LW

Peggy Fearne October 2009

Peggy Fearne saved the day for us in October when James Hunting cancelled on us at short notice. She came all the way over from Sheffield to treat us to her wonderful talk on the history of the bag, historical slides and a display of her sumptuous handbags.

Young Embroiderers 25th August 2009

The Young Embroiderer's had a great time on Tuesday making felt using a potato masher and a cat litter tray! The theme was the seaside so first they came up with an idea for design. They made the felt using the wet method and when that was dry in the afternoon they added detail to it using the needlefelt method. The results were really stunning as you can see!

Jennie Rayment July 2009

'Beware all the talks contain not just an amazing amount of Show and Tell but a bit of stripping too (in the nicest possible way)!'

This warning is given on Jennie's Website and we wonder whether our programme organiser had seen this when she booked this speaker!! Luckily we were treated to Jennie's extremely interesting and amusing complete with a tasteful strip tease.

To see more of Jennie's work visit her website

http://www.jennierayment.com/

Alison Mercer June 2009 ' From Birth to Bonkers'

Alison Mercer's talk and slide show was truly inspirational and her witty observations often had us in stitches ( pardon the pun!). She lives and works in Wales and is currently artist in residence at Ysbyty Gwynedd. Working in a hopsital environment allows her to work with patients and staff and much of her work has been in the maternity department working with new mums. One of her more unusual projects involves working on used breast pads to make an installation.

The driving force behind her work is the need to discover who she is and why stitch is important to her. A recurrent theme in her work is her ancestors, as part of the process of discovering who she is and she often uses text and images to explore this. More recently the birth of her daughter and motherhood has provided inspiration for her numerous sketchbooks and stitched work.

Alison has a wonderful website http://www.alisonmercer.com

Batik

We had a real treat in May when the Gaffney's showed us how batik is produced and brought along some stunning examples of some vintage pieces of batik. The following day Jim ran a batik workshop for members during which some stunning samples were produced.

Jenny Head

Jenny Head gave us a really interesting talk on the 22nd April 2009.First Jenny showed us her beautiful intricate designs she embroiderers on wedding dresses and then she wowed us all with her silk felted garments. Some of us were lucky enough to model them.

Young Embroiderers April 2009

The young embroiderers had a creative and productive day on 14th April 2009. They came armed with old pairs of jeans and gave them a new lease of life.

Mixed Media Workshop April 4th 2009

Maria Walker ran a mixed media workshop for members on the 4th April 2009. Most people nearly finshed the panel on the day and these examples were brought into the April meeting.
Well done ladies!!

Lydia Solomon Coral Reef Embroideries

For our March meeting Lydia Solomon can to talk to us about her 'coral reef embroideries'. Although reluctant at first, she developed a passion for diving and uses underwater photography and an underwater-sketchpad to capture images. By using a variety of media, embroidery and lots of ingenuity she has created a series of extremely realistic three-dimensional embroideries.

In fact they are so realistic that when she exhibited them at the diving show at the NEC people shunned her at first as they thought she had used actual pieces of coral from the reefs. It was only when she put up signs saying that they were made out of fabric etc that people in the diving fraternity came to talk to her.!!

Lydia has an exhibition at Cromford Mill Gallery fron the 12th to the 16th April 09

http://www.lydiasart.com/

Local Life November 2008

Chelford got at bit of publicity when the photographer from Local Life came to our sept AGM and took some photographs. The article appeared in the November edition and shows our wonderful table frontal as well as our beautiful commitee members!!

Young Embroiderer's

Our Young Embroiderer's Groups meets most school holidays. We meet arrange one off all- day workshops where the young people ( boys and girls) can use their creative talents to produce a work of art. In this workshop we transfered images onto fabric which were then stitched into and streatched over canvas.

In this workshop we made mixed media collages using leaves. The results were stunning

Nikki Parmenter

For the November 2008 meeting we were treated to a visual feast by local textile artist, Nikki Parmenter. Nikki's work arrived wrapped up as it had recently been exhibited at Salford Art Gallery. As she unwrapped the pieces we gasped in amazement at the rich texture, jewel-like colours and sheer scale of some of the pieces.

Her work is inspired by the jewel-like colours of India and each of her pieces is backed up a detailed research on the subject so is educational as well as decorative. As well as producing all this gorgeous work Nikki also teaches art at a North West School- we all wondered were she found the time!!! http://www.nikkiparmenter.co.uk