20th March 2025

 

Step by step a presentation by Kay Leech 

 

Mini Workshop 13.00 to 15.30

Sari strip pictures

 20th February 2025

Julia Wright Landscape surfaces 

Julia is based in Manchester and works in mixed media and jewellery, which has led her to create detailed small scale pieces. 

She has a family background which includes art, textiles and creative work.She initially undertook an Art foundation course where she discovered she was a maker rather than a painter which led her to a degree working with all materials and techniques. After this Julia worked in an Art gallery where she learned what was required to exhibit work and how to work with galleries. She also gained a teaching qualification, initially teaching adults, then high school art and 6th form A level textilesand Art foundation where she encourages students to explore ideas, experiment and play to see what works.

Julia draws a lot, she collects natural objects eg fir cones, stones, fossils, observes cracks in pavements, tree roots, fungi, rock strata, landscapes, sea shore, barnacles, waves etc, where ever she goes she takes with her small concertina sketchbooks to fill with her observational drawing. She gathers shapes, patterns, textures, structural shapes and then combines these with imagination to create loosely themed work.

Julia uses fabric manipulation, crochet, knitting, macrame, embroidery, working with natural fibres, recycled items,plastic, metal eg rings,wire, dying fabrics and threads herself to obtain the neutral/earthy/rust/natural colour palette required.

When knitting Julia uses needles of different size and will knit creatively to distort the surfaces. She will then crochet or weave into this also adding 'wraps' (fabric wrapped round with threads)and stitched'blobs' . 

 

Embroidery is used as a mark making tool to add colour/detail/texture, Julia has been inspired by the Japanese 'Boro' mending techniques comprising dots, dashes and linear marks.

Roots 2017 explored ideas of growth and decay

Coastal inspiration 2020 - coral structures, using multiple layers, worked in white and hand stitched.

 

 

 

 

 

Circles indicate continuity, use hand dyed muslin, threads, yarns, wrapped pieces and holes. Holes are created by pulling fabric to separate strands, she then stitches these, using small firm stitches, to form and hold the circles and holes.

 

 

Orange bark was inspired by Australia with its red earth/landscapes, Julia hand dyed cotton, linen, muslin, silk, including copper wire, paper and rubber.

Yorkshire dales landscapes

 

 

 

 

 

 

St Ives Cornwall series - undertook one per day during holiday, used neutral colour to focus on texture, pieces feature barnacles, bubbles left by waves etc.

 

 16th January 2025

Leah gave an interesting and informative presentation entitled 'My road to ruins and beyond' which took us through her journey in textiles, printing, stitch and quilt making.

 

 

Leah learned to stitch, knit,crochet early as mother and gran sewed, she went on to make her own clothes including wedding dress, but her sewing was all practical rather than decorative.

In 1986 she was asked to make a quilt - something she had not done before. Leah cut out 12" squares of fabric, sewed them together, backed , filled with wadding, stitched in places. From this Leah set out to learn more about quilts, she made more but then decided she wanted to design her own.

 She took a City and Guilds in patchwork and quilting, although she enjoyed the practical she did not like the sketch book element.Leah learned to dye fabrics,made quilts and to achieve the sketch book she put all the pictures she had taken during the creation of the quilt together.

Leah studied the making of art quilts, learned screen printing techniques and went in a new direction screen printing a piece of fabric and then adding some applique and stitching.(arrows)

The next technique was building layers - Sin city based on Las Vagas and gambling. The background for the piece was 'sin city'printed repeatedlyin different colours and font sizes to build up the layers and then had detail stitched in.

Leah's next was colour studies taking inspiration from Shanghai, she used procein dyes to print layers, then chopped up the fabric, arranged to give desired effect, then pieced/sewn together into a quilt/s.

The ruins series was based on abandoned/ruined buildings, featuring rust/moss/ industrial remains. For this Leah used breakdown printing- a process which gives organic marks/texture to create the fabric, which she then cut up , sewed back together and applied stitch to enhance - brick kilns were her inspiration.

 

Dinure featured colours based on lichens, stones etc and Leah used two different screens, one with calm/restful words, where she used lighter colours, the other with angry/worried/anxious words, where darker colours were used.

The Print series was inspired by the 'red top'papers and the typeface Frankin Gothic heavy.

Democracy - was inspired by the Brexit debates and who speaks for me. The pandemic and lockdown interupted this but did lead Leah to a 2nd book - Colour your Palette as well as online workshops.

  

 

 

 

 

 

Cadence series - blue-white-blue with an orange strip and stitch featuring in the middle, the theme being randomness.

 

 19th December 2024

Christmas Celebration with surprise speaker

Our speaker was Matthew from Tiger Muffin Soap. This was an interesting talk covering the origins and making of soap which was interspersed with demonstrations about making soap, bath bombs and body wash.

This was followed by a buffet 'Christmas lunch'  there was time to socialise and members had an enjoyable time.

 21st November 2024

 

Teresinha Roberts  -  'Wild colours, natural dyes'

Mini workshop 13.00 - 15.30

Pebbles part 2

 17th October 2024

 Rachel's presentation 'How textiles tell stories' was brought to life by the wide range of her work which she brought to illustrate her very informative and thought provoking talk.

Rachel came from a home with a sewing background where her mum made clothes and taught her stitches. She took a one year Art foundation covering photography, life drawing, painting, fashion textiles, this gave her a direction. Her degree was Fashion and Textiles, during the first year she was encouraged to draw - focused on roman frescos/ mosaics, the second year saw wedding dress design with pattern cutting etc. Following this Rachel spent a year at a trimmings design company - designing collars for dresses and jumpers, where she learnt about budgets,working with customers, using a limited colour range.Next she had a job designing socks which introduced her to using a computer and designing using CAD.

Rachel joined a City and Guilds pattern cutting course creating the 'Pebble dress', she researched on beaches, waves,pebbles etc recording in sketch books. From this she designed pattern blocks and cut out, created designs using gutta resist  hand painted on then applied silk paint in layers, which she then fixed, once the dress was made she used a soldering iron to burn out areas to produce the desired effect of the edge looking like pebbles in surf.

 

 

 

 

 

 

She was approached by Remix group and here worked to a theme of collaboration, for this Rachel used a sketch book, containing sketches and silk painting, which belonged to her grandmother when she had lived in Shanghi, Australia and Hong Kong. She used the work, copying it onto transfer paper, then cutting out stems, twigs with flowers, having found a dress belonging to her grandmother she applied these using free machine embroidery round all the stems, flowers, and then cut round the shapes removing most of the back.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next for Rachel was Materials Matter - any material clay, fabric, thread etc, as she wears white shirts she decided to use old shirts, cutting them on the bias, machine zig zag to get a 'lettuce' edge. Fashion victim blouse - cut out labels from clothes to use to decorate collars. Rachel researched cotton which has a difficult history involving slavery, excessive water use etc. There is also a fashion transparency index - Who is Making My Clothes? - brought about following the devastating factory collapse in India, which revealed the conditions in which people worked, where many big name companies had outsourced their making to.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lines of Thought - strands of denim, each free stitched with machine embroidery and cut out, the denim hand painted and embroidered. (at this point Rachel left teaching)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Refresh Project - use language of Chester as a starting point, Rachel selected black and white buildings, taking the four oldest (Leech house etc) and using patterns from these to embroider on white fabrics from charity shops. She included painting, embroidery based on Elizabeth 1st . Also the story of a Chester family is featured in the work. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rachel is now self employed delivering a variety of workshops and talks. 

 

 

 

 19th September 2024

 

September social, AGM, coffee and cake 

The meeting featured a display of work completed at a variety of workshops held throughout the year (2023 - 24)