16th October 2025

 

'An embroiderer's tale' - presentation by Tina Saunders.

 

Mini workshop 13.00 to 15.30 

 'Paper,print and dye'  

 18th September 2025

 

September social and AGM 

Following the AGM and review of the year, members enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with each other, partake of the drink and selection of home made cake and look at the display of work featuring a variety of pieces from workshops undertaken throughout the year as well as the Travelling books project.

 

 

 17th July 2025

 

'Paint with fabric, draw with stitch'  by Melanie Baugh 

Melanie completed city and guilds in interior creative techniques, also HNC in stitch and constructing textiles, she has also undertaken a variety of jobs and roles including teaching textiles. Life changed with the Covid lockdown, she took a Dionne Swift online course 'drawing for textiles' which also used water paints.

This led Melanie to put the scenery, images,emotions and memories from her running, pre and post lockdown onto paper in the form of small sketches, some of these were abstract in nature. 

The first piece she created was a series of squares each one representing something she passed whilst running and the middle part of the panel depicts her running route for her half marathon.

The squares are made using paint, scraps of fabric and threads stitched into place with hand and machine stitches. Melanie uses the ends of threads she cuts off after stitching to create the running route.

 

Her next panel was based on a poem/piece she wrote featuring her training runs both on the roads and over the hills.

 

 The pictures she drew are abstract eg the road runs alongside a hedge which borders a ploughed field whilst the other side of the road has a wire fence.

Melanie also drew landscapes which she would photocopy and then cut these into small pieces/panels, she would then experiment with paint/handstitch/machine stitch etc. 

19th June 2025

'Felted journey with botanical colours'  by Helen Melvin 

 

Helen's journey started with spinning, she was then taught felting by Sheila Smith  making a scarf and then waistcoats, throughout this process she kept records and learned much from the making process.

She also uses the wool to crochet, making for example a 'fantastic coat'. 

 

  She then went to a natural dye workshop (initially Helen used synthetically dyed textiles) and following this has created her own natural dyes which she uses to dye merino wool for her work. She uses concentrated extract of natural dyes to paint onto fabric/wool/fibres.

An exhibition of textiles/felt from Central Asia - Kyrgyzstan, influenced her ideas for colours, patterns and designs. All the dyes used were natural and this led Helen to use indigo.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Helen has produced 4 books related to natural dyes including colours of sea and sky (indigo) and colours of the rainbow.

 Initially she made her own paper to stitch, batik, paint over with inks and then rip up in order to stitch by hand or machine onto her pictures as featured on the stones i the river in spate picture.

In other work Helen uses fine Japanese paper, stitched and painted together with ideas from the countryside which she develops to create pictures eg Slate fences, stone walls, path to the stile and standing stones (machine and hand stitched into with doodles). 

 

 

 

Japanese papers have a long staple length and can be felted in with wool which meshes with the paper, this when dried holds its shape. Helen uses this process to make the 'wasp like ' vessels. The finer the paper the softer the structure of the vessels is. Helen also makes felt, stitches into it and felts it further which distorts the stitches.

 

 

Helen uses 'solar dying' using solar pots - she uses Kilner jars to put dye in with one colour at the bottom and another at the top (multi colour), then puts wool or silk fabric into them and leaves them in the sun, this creates multicoloured fibres and 
fabrics to use.  

 15th May 2025

 

Catherine's work and her talk was detailed and interesting certainly demonstrating her 'Way with words' .

She comes from Lancashire her family having been connected with farming, cotton mills and industry. She has always stitched, but took a degree in maths and then taught. However in 2012 she was a leader for Quilts for London a project creating penants to give to olympic athletes of which 25,000 were produced and collected. 

Catherine's interests are felting, Dorset buttons,eco -dying using plants from her garden, patchwork, quilting and hand embroidery. She is particularly interested in how thread reacts with or compliments fabrics.

For her work Catherine uses a size 10 quilting needle, hoop/frame, appropriate threads eg vintage sylko to create the words which are the narrative telling the story, for the words she uses upper case as they are easaier and quicker to stitch. She tends to work in red (Red rose of Lancashire) and black with occassional accents of other colours.

Catherine researches collecting books of Lancashire poetry, history etc. 

When designing Catherine knows the size, shape, where it is to be hung etc proir to stitching/creating the piece eg at 1st sight she wanted a red square of colour and then the words to be revealed.

The words used may be of personal experiences (eg summer 76) or memories of others (summer 2022) Catherine collates and manipulates the words in order to create the piece of work.

Worker bee and the sound of the mill 2021 - the bee is the symbol associated with Manchester and the words are from a poem written in 1864, the words are stitched into rust dyed fabric and surround the image.

Life's rich pattern - as words are aspects of her life they inspired 'Time for Tea' the clock and the menu.

Cheesegrater with recipe for her mother's cheese and onion pie  2019.

Covid 19 - Memories of what was said and felt were doccumented.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Accrington Pals 2023 (Rose) - tells the story and honors the 720 men(represented by 720 french knots) who 'went over the top' that day with only 100 returning.

 

 

 

 

 

Memories - take time to smell the roses (2019) words and time, 1st piece of work exhibited.

Match box challenge 2023 - as children were given a match box and the competition was to collect as many items as possible to fit into it. Catherine created the Bryant and May match box using silk and vintage sylko, to display her work.

 

 

 17th April 2025

Tudor dress and the ordinary woman was an interesting and informative talk by Sarah Thursfield (Medieval Tailor).

Sarah went into re-inactment to make clothes, she had undertaken a City and Guilds in Fashion in the 1980's and learned pattern drafting and fitting and applied this to making clothes.  She is interested in the technical development of clothing from early needles and thread and the making of fabric through to Tudor times. By the 16th century, despite the home industry of spinning/weaving/lace making these were all produced for manufacturers to make into clothing. Tailors bought cloth and made clothes, there were also seamstress', glovers and shoemakers together with luxury trades making ruffs, silk buttons etc.

It is harder to find what ordinary people wear, the high fashion portrayed in pictures/paintings was only for the rich and royalty. Over the 16th Century there was a move from flowing medieval to clothes worn by Elizabeth I, tailored dresses with square neck, fitted bodice,gathered skirt, wider sleeves.

 

Elizabethan look 1580's a pair of French bodies (corset) which lace at the front and back.The front fitting over the stomacher providing the Elizabethan 'V' shape waist. A bum roll and farthingale would be worn with this to support the skirt.

  Knitted sleeves or fabric sleeves were produced to wear, these could be tucked under short sleeves, or tied on to gown or doublet.

Stockings started as being made from fabric held up with garters and were then knitted and also held up with garters.

Collars can be increased in height and edged with lace or deep 'ruffles' gathered /pleated fabric to create a 'ruff' effect.

Surface decoration can be applied on clothes to enhance eg sleeves, collars/ruffs

     Embroidered Coif

 20th March 2025

 

'Step by step' in this presentation Kay related how walking influences her inspiration and the work she creates.

She decided to retire to Cumbria for the landscapes,views, walking opportunities etc. Kay had always been interested in art and at an exhibition met a textile artist which led her to a City and Guilds in embroidery. She loves working with material and stitch to create textures as seen in her panels based on rocks, minerals and crystals.

A large panel created as part of her certificate course was based on the theme 'our garden' Kay took photos which she manipulated in photoshop and created the piece using calico which she painted and stitched.

Following her diploma Kay started to exhibit her work and also run workshops, then for the Friends of Higham Scholarship she created 10 pieces of work based on rocks/minerals/geology/stonecircles - Journey through time quilt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The theme for the Northern Threads contemporary textiles group was Fragmentation - torn by time, disintegration, splintering - for this Kay used fabrics torn into strips to produce the fragmented landscape, her colour palette was green/grey featuring stripes of wool and with words embroidered on to it.

For Cumbria above and below ground, having walked all the Wainwrights she took this as her theme, creating backgrounds including patchwork, each panel consisted of 9 patches, Kay wanted not an accurate representation of places, but of memories/ how she felt. Foxgloves down Lingy end was one piece, another Scarfell Pike with the hill. For this she used a fabric background then applied the shape of the hills with paint, dyed fabrics to applyand embroidered, organza printed with words ' the stream of consciousness' was added.

 

 

 

 

 

Thinking about the impact textiles have through water use, dyes etc Kay considered how she could minimise her footprint and turned to recycling.Panel features an old Victorian dress, she unstitched the back opening it out to become the panel, then has hand stitched torn /ripped fabric to this and added embroidery. She has also torn old blue fabrics into strips and re stitched them to create 'Ocean' panels.

Kay also paints fabric using earth pigments and soya milk (home made), applies free machine stitch to create images interpreted from pictures.

She ecoprints, using silk, camomile and rusty nails - the long panels she created being hand stitched and appliqued with leaves.(silver birch)