Hark the Chelford Angels Sing

The competition for the Christmas meeting was to design an make an 'original ' angel. When the committee came up with title they meant that it was not to come out of a kit but some of the entries were decidedly 'original' and not at all angelic ( especially those Carol Stow and Jenny Rydell!!!)
The angelic winner was created by Linda Towse and she was awarded the rose bowl which was handed over to Linda by last year's winner Bernadette and Chairperson Scilla.
The evening was spent making christmas cards and trying our hand at at Christmas Quiz.

Putting on the Ritz November 2010

I am really sorry that I wasn't able to get to this meeting as everyone I have spoken to has told me that I missed a wonderful evening. Notty Hornblower from Hope House Museum brought some of her collection of vintage costumes and as you can see from this photograph it really was a visual treat for members.

"Coming up Roses'

The Young Embroiderers are continuing with the theme of flowers and are working together to create a floral wall hanging using many different techniques. At this meeting we made a selection of flowers from suffolk puffs, gathering and layering techniques. We also made some with faces!. The idea is that we will continue this theme for the next couple of meetings and that the hanging we make will be exhibited and them donated to a worthy cause. If any 'grown up' members have any flower making techniques they would like to share with us please let Maria Walker know as you are welcome to come along to out next meeting on the 15th Feb 2011

Maggie Smith - October 2010

Maggie Smith treated us to an interesting and informative talk entitled' Still Life as an Inspiration for Embroidery". Maggie is a very talented textile artist and experienced tutor and all learned a lot from it and felt very inspired.
Maggie , of 'Get plastered fame' has a couple of websites where you can see more of her work, namely Stitch and Print and Haversham Dolls which showcases her new body of work, art dolls.

September 2010 Sarah Burgess

For our september 2010 meeting we were honoured to have a talk by Sarah Burgess entitled '"Glove Stories". Sarah is a member of the Practical Study Group and has had her work exhibited in ' Art of the Stitch".
Her talk and slideshow took us back to how she began her career in textiles, her work with the Practical Study Group, her detailed research into the history of glove making and her artistic interpretation of this work.
We were all really impressed by the professionalism of Sarah's work.

Young Embroiderers August 2010 Blooming Marvellous!!

The members of Chelford and North Cheshire's Young Embroiderers Guild had a ' blooming' good time at their August meeting. In the morning the young embroiderers learned how to make fabric flowers out of their old jeans and other fabrics. They then attached the flowers to hair clips and head bands. In the afternoon they had another go at making button jewellery and could add the flowers to their jewellery creations

Nicky Dillerstone July 2010

Nicky Dillerstone, who came all the way from Grimsby to talk at our meeting, treated us to an interesting talk about her work. Her enthusiasm about her work, and her wonderfully sumptuous surfaces, book and boxes, left us all really inspired.

Linda Miller workshop June 2010

The following day Linda ran a workshop for us where she showed us the secrets of creating densely stitched machine embroideries. She led us through the techniques firstly using a simple heart-shape which could be made into a brooch and then moving on to create a more complicated design if we felt ready for that. Everyone completed at least one item and everyone was pleased with their results.
Here are pictures of Ellie, Elsa and Linda Towse all concentrating on getting their machines to behave.

Linda Miller June 2010

For June we were treated to a talk and slideshow by Linda Miller whose work I have admired for a long time. Her style is distinctive and unique. She creates rich, colourful, humorous embroideries. Her work has a naive cheerful quality about it which makes you want to smile. We really appreciated that she travelled all the way from Winchester to Chelford to come and talk to us. She shared her amusing anecdotes with us and gave us an insight into what its like to be a successful textile artist.

See Linda's website
www.lindamillerembroideries.co.uk

Young Embroiderers' June 1st 2010

Everyone went button mad at the Young Embroiderers' workshop in June. Maria Walker ran the workshop in the morning and shared her expertise with the young participants
and everyone managed to make two bracelets in the morning either for themselves or as presents for their lucky mums. In the afternoon Ann Ford showed everyone how to make brooches out of suffolk puffs and of course buttons!!!!!
Here is all the work we produced on the day - styling by the young embroiderers.

Textile Extravaganza May 2010

The 22nd May saw the Chelford bi-annual exhibition. This year the theme for the members exhibition was 'Rags to Riches' and we saw a wide range of pictures and three dimensional work exploring the creative art of recycling. The winner of the competetion was Ann Ford and she is seen here receiving her prize. As you can see all the work was of a very high standard.
The event was very well attended and there was a wide range of suppliers selling everything the textile artist could wish for. There were also demonstrations and workshops( run by the young embroiderer's).

May 2010 Marge Quinn

For the May meeting we were treated to a talk by Marge Quinn, a lady who has made more than the average amount of boxes!!!!!
She brought about 30 boxes for us to admire and we were all very impressed at the amount of work she had put into the making of them. It is obviously a very skilled task.

April 2010 Pauline Coddington

Pauline Codding came in March and gave us a really interesting talk and demonstration on felt making. She brought a selection of wonderful bags and prefelts which were for sale.
Her felt bags are based upon simple, smooth, sculptural lines and explore colour by combining dyed merino wool with vibrant tussah silk fibres. Her creative textiles reflect a deep interest in landscape and use blended fibres and recycled fabrics to create subtle atmospheres

www.hawkgreenfelts.co.uk

March 2010 Elaine Hughes

Elaine Hughes of Oh Golly Gosh treated us to a really inspirational evening

www.ohgollygosh.co.uk

February 2010 Kath Danswan

Kath specialises in handmade embroidered felt wall hangings, bags and the exquisite embroidered silk bowls for which she has become renowned. Her work is in private collections world wide.

Who invented the sewing machine ?

January saw us having a really interesting talk by Sue Sercombe on the history of the sewing machine. We had all assumed that it was Singer but actually the design of the sewing machine was developed over quite a long period by a number of different people. Sue treated us to an amusing and informative talk and even brought along her collected of pre 1900 sewing machines - although we were slightly concerned that the table might give was under the weight !!!

Christmas Cheer

Our December meeting was a fun packed evening full of christmas cheer. We had two competitions- one was to bring in the oldest piece of embroidery you had made and the other was to make a christmas card. We were amazed at how people had kept items they had embroidered at school and it just goes to show how treasured our 'works of art' are. Members were asked to vote for the piece they liked best and the runaway winner was Bernadette with her lovely dolls. Bernadette was awarded the small rose bowl as her prize.
We also had to vote for the christmas cards we had made and brought in and Elsa's card got the most votes.
We spent the rest of the evening participating in a 'hands on session' where we all made a christmas card.