Branch Programme 2009 -2010

Blackpool Branch Programme 2009 -2010

October 2009

19^th AGM and Trudi Goodenough Competition

November 2009

9^th Biscornu for Christmas

30^th Biscornu continued

December 2009

14^th Christmas Party and Biscornu Competition (Members evening)

January 2010

11^th Committee Meeting

16^th Day School Art Doll details Kathryn Thompson

25^th Julia Carling Textiles and Scultpure: hands on evening

February 2010

6^th Day School Chinese Tassels Marge Quinn

8^th Hands on Evening Gifts for New Members

22^nd Variegations demonstrations and sales

March 2010

8^th Spring Clean Bring and Buy for Guild Funds

29^th Maxine’s Feathers Talk

April 2010

10^th National AGM, Nottingham

17^th Regional Day, Manchester

26^th Patricia Bennett Textiles from Around the World Talk

May 2010

10^th Mini workshops

24^th Elizabeth Cousins-Scott My Work Talk

June 2010

5^th Day School Dorset Buttons Margaret Waring

14^th Committee Meeting (5pm) followed by Own Work

28^th Sandie Maher Charles Rennie Mackintosh Talk

July 2010

12^th Summer Trip – to be arranged

15^th -18^th Summer School Alston Hall

26^th Priscilla Jones My Work talk

August 2010

No Meetings

September 2010

4^th Day School Heirloom in a Day Golden Hinde

13^th Committee meeting (5pm) followed by Brooches – for the Trudi Goodenough Competition

27^th Blackpool Illuminations from the design point of view Talk

October 2010

11^th AGM and Trudi Goodenough Competition

16^th Regional AGM, County Hall, Preston

Trudi Goodenough Competion

The subject of our Trudi Goodenough competiton at out AGM this year was ‘Holiday Postcards’.

We began working on them at our September meetings.
       
      
      
                                         
     
      
     

International Day for Older People

I apologise for this being out of order with other posts but time got the better of me and I have had to just fit these in when I can.

The International Day for Older People was organised by Seonaid, one of our members and we were asked to submit and exhibit some of our work on October 1st at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool, in the Horseshoe Bar.

We had a really good day and got to meet a lot of interesting people. We received a great many very compliments about or work and 1 new member to our branch on the strength of it!

             
           
            
                   
         
          
       
We had a great selection of work demonstrating a very varied range of embroidery techniques and we did ourselves proud.
When the exhibition finished the work was taken down and put up on display in the Art Society Studio for our Annual Studio Exhibition. Many thanks to all of those involved in setting and taking down for both exhibitions.

Special Guest

At our October meeting we had a very special guest speaker - Patti Medaris Culea, reknowned Cloth Doll Maker for America.  Patti was staying with Kathryn and had just been at Ally Pally at the Knitting and Stitching Show and was on her way to Fobbles, near to the village of Ravenglass, to teach a workshop.

Patti very kindly talked to us about her passion for Doll Making and more recently cloth book making  and all things to do with dyeing and stitching fabrics and threads.

She was most generous with her time and very kindly allowed us to inspect the dolls. She happily handed them to us after she had talked about them and we passed them round for everyone to enjoy.

We had a good audience with a number of members from neighbouring branches, our own members and friends.
It was a most enjoyable evening. A very big thank you to Patti.
We all felt very privileged  to have had Patti as a speaker and to be able to see the beautiful dolls and books that she has created. Patti is a very bubbly, energetic and friendly lady. She was like a ray of sunshine!

Several members of our audience were going to the workshop at Fobbles and I know that they had a great time.

                                

          

           

        

             

September Speaker

Our September speaker was Moncia Selway who talked about how she became inspired to work with spider stitch and how she started to incorporate folded origami techniques into her pieces of work.

           

     an amazing piece of work all done in spider stitch!
                  just look at the close-up for detail
Monica has used many different kinds of threads to gain this amazing effect.

                          

                      

        

        

          Monica is a member of Parbold Branch

More Bags

Two more bags made by Marie at,  and post, the Monkey Buttons workshop.

        

Our members were really inspired by this workshop and have produced some lovely bags. Thanks Marie.

Starwberry Tea and Rainbow Squares

Last night we had our Strawberry Tea. We also stitched all of our Rainbow Squares together. The ladies all work furiously at stitching before they were rewarded with lovely strawberries, shortbread fingers, scones with jam and clotted cream and teas and coffee.
We had a really good evening. A big thank you from me to all of those involved in setting everything up and for everyone who sat furiously stitching squares together.They look really good. It is much appreciated.
I made the scones and was asked for the recipe.

So here it is . I do hope you will try it and let me know what you think. These scones are not like traditional scones - they do keep well for several days. The recipe came from a handwritten recipe book that belonged to my Mother-in law, sadly, no longer with us. I was dleighted when I first tried the recipe as my husband said they tasted just as re remembered them from when his mother used to bake them. Praise indeed.

So here it is
Grandma’s Bun Scones

Ingredients:
4oz self raising flour
4 oz of caster sugar (I use much less as I don’t like things really sweet)
2 oz of butter (or margarine) I use about 1 ½ as it seems to rub better
1 beaten egg (you can add a little milk if you like – I use a large egg)

Method:
Put flour and sugar in a bowl, rub in the fat and then mix in the beaten egg.
Do not use the whole egg, just half of it to start off with and then add a little more if the mixture isn’t binding together into a soft ball.
You don’t want the mixture to be sticky but neither do you want it to be too dry.
Knead the ball slightly with your hand and if it is a bit sticky sprinkle some flour over it.

I make about 10 balls from the mixture using my hands and place them on a baking tray that has parchment paper on it.
Use the remaining egg to spread over the top of each scone.

Bake at 180 degrees for about 15 mins – test for browness and doneness! I always think you have to judge finished baking by your own oven – if not quite done give them another 5 minutes so – it isn’t crucial!
When baked they will have spread and look more like biscuits.

I have also baked them in one of those flippy floppy baking trays – placed on a metal tray. Then they come out more traditional scone shaped.

These are not like traditional scones – but they are delicious and unlike normal scones they will keep for several days!! (Bonus)!

Enjoy

Monkey Buttons

In June we had Saturday workshop from Monkey Buttons. They design and create patchwork bags.

The members who attended had a great day and produced some lovely bags.

These bags belong to Val, Marion and Pauline. I hope that one or two more members will eventually let me have a photo of their finished bag.

Kathryn and I missed out as we were conducting a Regional Training Day for Branch Officers. Maybe next time! (with better planning on our behalf.!

Val's bag

Marion's bag

Pauline's bags

Rosettes, Corkscrews and Wiggle-woggles

Last year one of our members taught us how to make Rosettes, corkscrews and wiggle-woggles, blogged about in an earlier post.

I promised to ask Joyce for some instructions and she has very kindly written them out for us.

A big thanks to Joyce - we really enjoyed making these - they were quick and easy to make - are great for using up small left over balls of yarn, can be made to look quite exciting and have lots of uses.

Over to Joyce for the instructions!

These patterns are starting points only and there are many ways in which they may be varied. Needle size should be appropriate for the yarn chosen, but tension is not critical. 10 metres of yarn should be enough for any of these projects, but thick yarns need more length than thinner ones. Rosettes and corkscrews may be finished off in a different yarn

BASIC ROSETTE

Cast on 10 Stitches.

Row 1: knit 1, *yarn forward, knit 1, repeat from * to end. (19 stitches)

Rows 2, 4 and 6: knit

Row 3 as row 1 (37 stitches)

Row 5 as row 1 (73 stitches)

Cast off loosely.

Curl the shape knitted into a rosette. It may help to pin it as you go. Fix the shape with a few stitches, using the ends of yarn from casting on and off. Decorate as desired and stitch a pin to the back.

BASIC CORKSCREW

Cast on 30 stitches.

Row 1: knit into the front and back of each stitch. (60 stitches)

Row 2: knit 1, *yarn forward, knit 1, Repeat from * to end of row (119 stitches)

Cast off.

BASIC WIGGLE-WOGGLE

Cast on 12 stitches

Row 1: knit 2 together, knit to the end of row.

Row 2: purl 1, yarn round needle, purl to last stitch, knit 1

Repeat these two rows until the knitting is slightly longer than it is wide. Cast off.

The aim is to make one side of the knitting tight, and the other loose. It should be curling itself into a cylindrical shape as you knit, but depending on the yarn and the knitting it may need a little coaxing. Curl it into the desired shape (cylinder or cone) and fix one end with a few stitches, using the end of the yarn.

Joyce Pemberton 2007

Programme Update

Monday June 22nd - we have a speaker Caroline Jordan talking about 'The Harris Museum' .

On Monday July 13th we have a Strawberry Tea for branch members  and we will stitching the rainbow squares into their strips.

Monday July 20th is the Branch outing to the Ice Cream Parlour, at Kendal for a meal and a talk in the evening from Christine Johnson of Reticule, Kendal. http://reticule-bags.co.uk/

Do take a look at her website. If possible please try to visit her shop in the afternoon.

There are no meetings in August.

Our Saturday workshop in September has been cancelled and you will be informed at a later date if there is to be an alternative.

We start back on September 14th with a practical evening on 'Holiday Postcards'.

Rainbow Squares

We are reaching the stage when all of of rainbow squares have to be handed in so that they can be stitched together ready to be exhibited at GMEX in September.

This is just a selection of the finished one so far. We had no control over the choice of colour for our branch we each had to select a sealed envelope. It turns out to be quite a good choice for us as it happens to be the colour that Blackpool football team play in!

We hope to collect as many as possible in at our next meeting, tomorrow night, and plan to stitch them together at our Strawberry Tea - July branch meeting. Oh what fun!

I think they are really looking good - a big thank you to all of the members who have contributed to our branch effort.

There are still more to come - so there will be some more images later.

Marbling Fun

Recently we had a fun evening with one of our members, Val, demonstrating a range of marbling techniques for us all to try.

She had worked really hard setting everything up earlier and she had provided all the materials that we required. All we had to do was to get stuck in and have a go!

Marbling a wooden bead

Marbling polystyrene balls - they were fun!

Marbling on a piece of silk fabric.

This one got a bit messy but we managed a couple of pieces of paper and a piece of silk fabric!

Nice and bright and colourful!

Hanging out to dry!

Mountmellick Workshop

Today we had a wonderful workshop with Rubina Porter teaching us how to do Mountmellick Embroidery. Ruby is a lovely lady who gave so willingly and generously of of her time and her expertise.

She is a trustee of Shishu Polli Plus. (Here you can read all about the project). She told us all about the work that she does out in Bangladesh and brought a lot of beautiful items made by the ladies at the centre.  If you look at the 'news and events' section on the website you will see that they have formed an Embroiderers' Guild group.  We had a really good day and we were all so quiet because we were so engrossed in what we were doing and listening to Ruby.

Ruby brought several cushions worked in Mountmellick. They were all worked on cream silk.

Ruby's cushions

 

Work in Progress

 
  

This is my piece - I have deviated slightly by using some darker shades!!! (There's always one)!!!

These pictures were taken at the centre in Bangladesh.  (Don't mention the apostrophe)!

This last picture shows some of the items that Ruby brought show us.  These are produced by the women in Bangladesh and sold here to provide money to support the project.