A peek at last weekend’s Grasby Embroiderers Exhibition

Since most of my blog readers weren’t able to visit our Grasby Embroiderers Exhibition at Grasby Church last weekend, I’ll show some of the photos that I took after we set it up. I’d intended taking more when I was there stewarding on Sunday, but somehow the day disappeared so quickly with so many visitors that I never gave it another thought.

Jean’s “fishes” and Helen’s “tree stump” were beside the path into the church.

My “sunflowers” from the “Out in the garden” exhibition were hung in the porch on either side.

On the font Mary and Jean had done an arrangement with dried flowers and the Tyvek “seed-pods” that we did at a workshop with Karen Lane a couple of years back. They fitted together really well.

Opposite the entrance was our large “tree”. We had all made “leaves” for it, covered in fabric from our own stashes. It stood next to Lorna’s “fern” and felted “parrot”, again from a Karen Lane workshop (the rest of us had done “cockerels”).

On a clockwise walk round the church the “Altered images” pieces came next. Mine is the purple “peacock feathers”. I’m still not sure whether to leave it as one or to make it into the triptych that I originally intended.

Then came the “Botanicals”. I did a felt background with organza “hydrangeas”, the piece draped over the front, next to Eileen’s “sunflowers”.

The copper wire “wrens” were perched on twisted branches in one of the windows (a workshop with Wendy of “Twigs and Sprigs”). They’ve darkened over time!

I’m missing the altar cloth and a couple of other pieces, as I was taking photos while some of the others were still making finishing touches.

On the other side were the shells that Mary had given us from a trip that she’d made to a beach in Norfolk. We could all take our pick from lots of different ones, and the ones that jumped out at me were the very large mussel shells (on the right)……

…….which I drilled holes into and stitched through. On some of them the backs were as interesting as the front, meaning that they can be turned around or I can display them so they can be seen from all round.

We all did the black 8 inch frames called “Putting the garden to bed” after we took down the “Out in the garden” exhibition last year.

Mine was inspired by Mary’s “succulents” that went in the succulent glass house among the real ones at the “Out in the garden” exhibition.

The landscape canvases were displayed again by popular request, as several people had missed them in the summer house at the garden exhibition last year.

And finally, there were the linen tablecloth pieces (from Jean) that we all interpreted in totally different ways, as always. My embroidered “vase” just had to sit on a shelf!

We had lots of positive feedback, and the sun shone the whole weekend. There were lovely cakes by the local parishioners, who also manned the refreshment stall in shifts; the profits are for the upkeep of the church. All in all a good weekend, thank you to all involved. It was just a shame that I’d not taken more and better photos.

2022 and all that

I missed doing my blog last week, because Colin and later I had Covid. I felt better by Christmas morning, having spent two days in bed, but still tested positive. Colin had tested negative, but was still feeling very tired and washed out; thankfully, we’d both managed to avoid it until now.

So, lots of the Christmas things that we usually do just haven’t happened. However, rather than focus on the things we’ve not done, I thought I’d have a quick look back at some of the things I have done this year.

I started the year off with finally braving cutting the Sari fabric for a dress for my friend Alicia. It took ages as I rarely had chance to fit it on her, since she lives more than two hours away. There are several posts about it, including More and Dress and eventually Finished dress. It still needs a good press here.

I also did some work for a couple of exhibitions. The first was for Grasby which included Altered images – part one and Altered images – part two.

We all also did a little coaster-size canvas work and French knot pieces on a garden theme. My first one was based on roses, which was just a starting point for colours……

…….and my second one on daffodils and narcissi.

The other exhibition was at the Chapter House at Lincoln Cathedral, over the August Bank Holiday weekend. I was supposed to act as steward on the Tuesday morning, but unfortunately didn’t make it as Colin had been hospitalised the night before with a nose bleed that wouldn’t stop. I had done work on two collaborative pieces “Shard” and a Banner for the exhibition.

My “Shard” was Stitching in thin air, More stitching in thin air and Finished stitching in thin air. The photo right at the very top is the finished right side, and the one below the back before it was attached.

The group also wanted to change the name on the banner to Lincolnshire Textiles and add some more 6 inch squares. I did one with Lincolnshire Poacher on it.

We also all did a fabric origami butterfly to be hung en masse. We’d been given a pack of fabric in a range of colours and patterns, with notions and instructions. This was mine.

I’ve also done several workshops: stitching, felting, printing and a copper-wire wren. Alongside my usual classes in stitching and painting, I’ve gone to Scunthorpe Embroidery and Textiles Association (travelling book pages until the last couple of months), Lincolnshire Textiles monthly meetings, and various other creative projects.

Yes, I have several WIPs (works in progress), things to pick up and continue. But all in all, I’ve been pretty productive throughout the year one way and another. I’ve learnt lots of new techniques and stitches, and new ways of using familiar stitches…… and lots of ideas for future work.

Copper wire wren

Last week the Grasby Embroiderers had a workshop with Wendy of Twigs and Sprigs. Wendy does lots of willow workshops and sculptures, but Helen had made a copper wire hare at a workshop with Wendy a while ago. Helen had thought it would push the group out of our comfort zone if we were to use wire instead of our usual threads.

We were going to make wrens using hard and soft copper wire. I had done some sculptures with wire before, for my Degree Show back in 2013, but nothing realistic (see the three photos below). I’d started fidddling with the wire from red wine bottles, and then progressed to copper wire from old electric cables, which was much finer wire than Wendy was using.

This is the start of wrapping in fleece.

The whole body of work was titled “Informed by the organic”, and this is one of the final pieces.

Back to the wrens! We started with a template that Wendy had provided (along with everything else we needed). It was very challenging, as proportions needed to be right for the wren to look realistic. It looked simple enough …

… but tricky to get just right. The coils were wound round a wooden spoon and it miracuously went from this ….

to this …

I’d become so engrossed with the work that I’d forgotten to take photos. The coils were used to fill in the body and head. Another piece of wire was bent to represent tail feathers; it was then anchored in position and more wire added to the body.

The next thing was to twist the feet and legs, and the trickiest part was to make the second one match the first! Each leg was pushed up into the body, and the remaining wire twisted to fix it in place. Much to my surprise it stood up with little adjustment to balance it.

That just left the wings to make and attach. This I found to be the most difficult bit: they need to be attached, but not so the wrapping round was visible; the wings need to appear as if they can be opened to fly away.

I’m really pleased with the result, and between us Grasby Embroiderers have a little flock of wrens.