At sixes and sevens

Things really have been in a muddle here at Fibrecircle! We missed three meetings in the last three months due to clashes with public holidays. Even when we did meet, only a few of us could make it., because of travel and other commitments. Things should be way better from now on.

Of course we've still been making things, even though we haven't been getting together so much.


The first thing we made was a collaborative work for the ATASDA façade exhibition at the Palm House at the Sydney Botanic Garden. As we like to make postcards, we decided to make a work  inspired by those old-fashioned postcard booklets showing the highlights of a particular pace or region. Our fictional town of Fibriccerre is somewhere in the Mediterranean and has everything - a castle, galleries, fancy houses, a café, the beach... everything anyone could want. 

Helen has been making things for her group to show at the Embroiderers' Guild State Exhibition later this year. First, she needed to make a lollipop...

And then a church....

The exhibition will be held Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August 2016 at the Concord West Masonic Hall, Concord Rd, Concord West. It shows works from individual members plus works from their groups, like Helen's group. There will also be a display of botanical-related works by members, to support a display by a botanical artist who interprets some of her works in stitches. It's going to be an interesting exhibition!

We've also been learning new stuff. Helen made a book in a recent class. This is the cover...

 .. and these are some of the pages inside.

Did you know what a quincunx is? Well, now you do!

Yvonne also made two books, in a class with Peter Stanford at the Hand Spinners and Weavers Guild Summer School.

Cindy is continuing her online class with Linda and Laura Kemshall.  This time, she was printing with her printer onto tracing paper and adding stamping and other media.

Beautiful!

Nola has been drawing a lot lately and what she's been drawing is... bags.

I guess we'll hear more about this in due course...

We meet again next week - see you then!

Some work we've been doing

The things we make in our time together and the things we make on our own at home are always interesting to see. You can see how different we all are, in the things we like to make.

You know Helen will be embroidering, probably on rug canvas.

 

She was working on this a few weeks back.  She said, "just don't ask me what it will be when it's finished". So we didn't. I  guess we'll find out in due course.

 



It was Robin's last meeting with us, as she's moving away soon. We'll miss her!

She was knitting, as she loves to do. This time, it was an intarsia jacket from the Jane Slicer-Smith book, Swing Swagger Drape.

Cindy was embroidering on paper. She likes to work in a mixed media kind of way, often involving paper. 

The piece is part of a collaborative work we're making for an exhibition. You'll see the various parts in due course, when they come in to us in March, and then the finished work. in April.

Carol loves all things shiny. This time, she was incising metal shim as an experiment.

She thinks it might be a book cover later on. Or maybe just a sample.

It certainly gives a gorgeous effect!





Nola was putting together her journal for the exhibition work she made late last year. Yes, usually you would do the journal as you go! But she had been keeping an online log throughout the process, and this was assembling the log and her samples into a visual record of her process. It's more useful to use in the future in this format than as a computer log, though the log is easier to keep as she goes.

Cindy brought along some sketchbooks she's using for an online course with Linda and Laura Kemshall. It's strongly focused on drawing but in a mixed media context.

They're gorgeous, aren't they?

Nola showed us some sample prints she'd made, on paper and cloth, exploring the possibilities of the foam board print plate.

This one was a three-colour print on cloth, experimenting with overlays to create shadows. The weave of the cloth is also a visible feature, as the print is only about 15cm x 10xm (6in x 4in).

We had very few postcards to swap, because we were all working hard on our collaborative work.

This one was made by Maz. 
 
It's hand stitched onto a cloth background, with the edges turned over a card base.

Cindy layered fabric strips and machine- stitched them down with fancy stitches. She added an applique butterfly created wit hand stitch.

The edges were machine satin stitched with variegated thread.

Next time, more about Habitation...

Exhibitions, workshops, travels and all the fun stuff!

Lately, Cindy has been making works for the extraTexture group exhibition. If you wanted to see it... too late, you missed it! But it was well worth seeing. You can see some posts about their exhibition and their works over on their blog and on Cindy's own blog. But here's another of Cindy's works, J'adore, which was in the exhibition.

Just gorgeous! Cindy sold a lot of her work at the exhibition - well done!

Helen was working on an embroidery-in-a-hoop for a display for Lateral Stitchers.

The background is painted, and Helen was embroidering on it by hand. They're all going to be displayed together at a meeting, so that's going to be a great display!

Cindy also did the ATASDA workshop with Cas Holmes and showed us some interesting samples from the class:

It looks like a fantastic workshop!

Maz has been travelling overseas but she brought us all back a little memento of her travels in Italy.

Isn't it gorgeous? Now to find something special to put it in...

Of course we have been doing other things too!

Helen was doing some handwork on canvas. Isn't it pretty?

She says it may be a postcard one day.

Cindy brought along some very interesting show and tell this time. First, she brought a beautiful piece of Jane Bodnaruk's eco-dyed wool felt. Cindy added embroidery and applique to create this gorgeous work!

 

She also saw a silk scarf she liked, so she bought some silk laps to create a similar one. She laid the laps between two layers of a dissolvable stabiliser and stitched by machine. Then she cut some holes and added adhesive dissolvable stabiliser. She stitched around the holes she'd made and washed out the stabiliser.

Isn't it gorgeous?

This piece is inspired by the Aurora Borealis and is for the extraTexture exhibition, Flight, to be held at the Balmain Watch House in August. It's made from painted fusible web on cotton, with tulle and organza. It will be framed for display. You can follow the exploits of the extraTexture girls on their blog.

Her last work was an experimental art quilt made from an online website, using machine stitching and watercolour pencils.

She's so clever , isn't she?

Nola finished her book page that she was working on back here for the book round robin.

It will be interesting to see this book finished, won't it? You can see where she's going with this on her blog.

See you after our next meeting!

Some other things...

Do you ever get the feeling that the textiles world is an enormous web of connected strands? Very appropriate, for fibre and textile artists, I guess!

Helen brought along a work that she made for Lateral Stitchers. For those who don't know, Laterals is a group of the Embroiderers' Guild of NSW, who have been meeting for more than twenty years to make innovative textile art. They often have challenges and this one is Menu. Members were formed into groups to make works inspired by different courses of the meal and Helen was given Starters.

Helen also brought along  a work she has been doing at Fibrecircle for a few weeks. It's also for Laterals, on the theme of Ancient Civilisations. It's inspired by a tile border on a fishpond in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Of course, it's canvas embroidery, with embellishments, which came from a bead shop in Covent Garden - she's never seen anything like them anywhere else. They work really well with this, don't they?

Yvonne was knitting a capelet, ready for the EWES sale this past weekend. The EWES are the Epping Weavers Embroiderers and Spinners. They are one of the many groups using the Epping Creative Centre at Dence Park, where they had their sale.



Meanwhile, Cindy was working on her piece for the Untethered group's exhibition out of hand in November. Untethered is a sub-group of ATASDA NSW, and their first exhibition will be held in November, at Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre at Hornsby. As three of our members are also members of that group, I'm sure you'll hear all about it! This is just a teaser of what she's making - it's looking fabulous!

  

Carol was working on her postcard for June. It's gorgeous and glitzy and I'm sure you'll see it again!

 

 
While we're still on things handmade, Helen brought us all a present of some handmade paper she bought at the Milk Factory Gallery a while back. It's beautiful, isn't it?  It's too pretty to use...

 

 That's us for May - we'll have more Trees and our finished Rhapsody work in June. See you then!