March Speaker

Our speaker for the March meeting was Stella Adams Schofield and her "Textile Stories" certainly provided us with an informative and enthralling evening.

Stella a textile artist, researcher and teacher currently lives and works here in the North West.

Her work is an exploration of the symbiotic relationship shared by humans and textiles and is rooted in historical British textile craft practice and references the forensic scientific premise that cloth is like a net, capturing and containing evidence of the processes through which it has passed and the people with whom it has had contact. 

Using natural materials such as linen and wool Stella immerses herself in the process of textile making, ‘living through’ the construction of cloth then, the further layering of print and stitch on the cloth, finally combining the cloth with the projected film and animation. The resulting cloth 'fragments' and cropped soundless moving images encourage the viewer to consider that which is not seen as being equally important as that which is seen. 

These images are taken with permission from Stella's website and are subject to copyright so please do not use them for commercial purposes

       

See more examples of Stella's work at: 

http://www.stellaadams-schofield.co.uk

March Stitch Night

The first of our March meetings was a stitch night.  These meetings have proved to be very popular and give the newcomers a chance to learn and practice new stitches and the more experience can explore variations and re-discover the stitches that may have not been used for a while.

These meetings have been very well attended and it is great to have such a "buzz" in the room

International Womens Day

International Womens Day was marked on the 8th March in Blackpool with an all day event at the Winter Gardens.  The Branch had a stand and members manned it on a rota through the day.  
We managed to display a cross section of our current and ongoing works and drew lots of interest from visitors and other stand holders.

At our next Branch meeting several new potential members attended following on from seeing our stand so it is great that we managed to reach so many new people at this event.

It was also very useful and interesting to meet members from other organisations and charities and exchange information and ideas.

It is hoped that this event will continue on an annual basis 

  

Mary Taylor Landscape in Stitch

Our February speaker was Mary Taylor who brought us some fabulous landscapes in stitch. Mary brought along a work in progress to talk us through and demonstrate her work.  The evening was very informative and Mary was very generous in sharing her work with us.
The following images are taken from Mary's website with her permission, but should not be reproduced or used for commercial purposes please.







 

Mary drives to her studio at Farfield Mill Near Sedbergh through the beautiful Yorkshire countryside which is a continual source of inspiration for her.  Her work is very detailed with lots of very intense machine stitching which produces wonderful textures and gives a feeling of depth.

Details of opening times for Farfield Mill and  current exhibitions can be found here:
www.farfieldmill.org/