Strawberry Tea and Competitions

Blackpool Branch always enjoy a good party, and this years Strawberry Tea provided the ideal opportunity. As usual our members were very generous with their donations to the buffet which provided a great focus for the evening.

                                            

Our annual competitions were open to members and give us the opportunity to view and vote for the entries.

It was great to see Marge in good spirits and full of enthusiasm for the entries for the Marge Quinn Award.  As always Marge had words of praise and encouragement for the newer members of the branch, and found it hard to choose a winner.
Congratulations to Joan for winning this year:

Apologies for the light shining on the picture

Marge also decided this year to award an additional prize to Jan for her lovely needle case

Members voted for the Chairman's Award and this year Ellen was the winner

Several members had produced pieces to be submitted for the upcoming Capability Brown exhibition at Gawthorpe Hall.  More details and photographs of the exhibition will be posted soon.

Emily Notman Workshop

Our members workshop in June was led by Emily Notman. Emily was one of our speakers last year, so we are already familiar with her lovely intricate stitched landscapes.
We spent a messy morning colouring all kinds of fabric with emulsion pain, ink and lots of other mediums, before beginning work on a small landscape as an introduction to the techniques.

Dyed fabrics

                                        

                                                 

During the afternoon, working with a "bondaweb sandwich" we assembled  larger landscapes and then spent a lovely quiet afternoon hand stitching and adding embellishments.

    

By the end of the session most of us had a complete or almost complete piece to take away after a very enjoyable and relaxing workshop

                                                

                                                 

Of course we had biscuits too!

More about Emily's work can be found here:  www.emilynotman.co.uk