Summer's end

Welcome back to the sixth year of our textile playdays! Doesn't time fly? It's interesting to look back on what we've done as a group since we first started meeting, way back then. From a group that was mostly experimenting with techniques we hadn't tried, we've become a group of people who make and exhibit work in very individual ways, work collaboratively and challenge each other. Some of us make work for sale. It seems to be that there's a message there, for anyone who's thinking they'd benefit from meeting with other like-minded people: Just try it and see where it leads you!

We've already met a few times this year, but members have been holidaying and travelling, marrying off children and hosting Significant Birthday parties for parents, so we haven't managed a full house yet. Here's some highlights from what we've been doing over the summer.

Helen embroidered these small works for an exhibition, "Two Eyes", later in the year. They look very exotic, don't they?

Here is Jan's Paint Chip Challenge piece. It's a journal cover, which you saw unfinished here at our dyeing day in November.

It's a fantastic use of her chip colours, don't you think? It's very subtle colouring.

 

Nola is working on her challenge too. Her colours were very different to Jan's, and very hard to match. She was able to match the colours in embroidery thread so she chose to embroider the fine pinwale corduroy in a Jacobean style.

This is one side of a bag.

Maz has painted a background for her challenge piece, another way of getting just the right colours.

She's about to start stitching. Should be good!

Meanwhile, she's been working on some beading.

It's incredibly complex and looks beautiful.

Helen has been reading a book by Ralph Steadman. He's a British cartoonist and artist who, among other things, likes to create bizarre animal figures  with whimsical Latin names. You can see examples of his work here. She was so taken with the idea of creating these fantasy animals that she experimented with making some of her own.

 Here is her Amazonian Carnivorous Butterfly...

... and her red Blunt-Eared Rabbit.

She's also been embroidering some more of these gorgeous three dimensional pieces. They come with their own little bag.



Stay tuned for more! We're all madly creating things for our display and sale of work at the NSW ATASDA meeting in March.