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.