February 2010

The meeting for February started with an apology for Meg not being here with Grania chairing the meeting. The members decided that to fund raise for a multi-media projector that a weekly raffle would be preferable to the proposed auction. Tickets for the raffle will start to be sold at the March meeting and will continue until the projector can be purchased. This projector has become a necessity as most talkers now do not have slides and although we have managed to borrow one this is not guaranteed.



Paula gave a demonstration on foundation peiced hearts. She also had some fabulous bags that she will be giving a workshop on at an Grainan.









Rose Little talked about the course she is currently running (see below posting) and also showed her silk dupion quilt that has been qppliqued with hand died cotton and represtents the fossil coral to be found on Clare's coast.



Show and tell started with three of the four children that came on the evening, sewing with binka and emmbroidery thread to make needle cases. Demelza Palmer, Keeva Banting and Orla Banting had all brought bags to show.










Show and tell continued with Claire Lynch with a peice from her City and Guilds Course, the minature quilt by Maureen Talbt and Rebecca Palmer with the embroidery from Ann Fleeton's workshop that had been framed.















Rebecca Palmer gave a very interesting talk on Ecclesiastical embroidery. She had brought with her some repair work that she is currently working on.




She also had photos of work on the Bishop of Milwaukee's mitre and a stole that she designed and made on commission.








Rebecca explained that the Bishop of Milwaukee's Mitre was very special to the diocese as it had been with them since the 1950's (which too Americans is a long time!) but more importantly it had appeared in several of the portraits of recent Bishops and was therefore a 'historical' piece to them. When it arrived with Rebecca it was in a bad state, all the lining was shredded and the leather sweatband inside was hanging off, but most importantly the gold couching was in a bad state, the 'gold' leaf was falling off and much of the actual stitching had disintegrated. Unfortunately some member of the vestry at the Cathedral had decided to take a pot of superglue to the edges in an attempt to hold the thing together.



She dismantled the Mitre and carefully scrapped off the dried superglue - which left a hard, brittle fabric, in places, this was reinforced with calico. Rebecca then reworked the gold couching and repaired the stitching on the Lappets (the things that hang down at the back!) relined the whole thing and replaced the leather sweat strip - taking care to stitch the original manufacturers label back onto the new leather.

Any piece that leaves Rebecca always has its own calico, cotton lined drawstring bag and is wrapped in white acid free tissue. She also write up notes explaining what she had done and giving care instructions.





I was commissioned by a female priest (in San Diego) to make her an Advent stole. My brief was that she wanted something that would appeal to the children. I explained that I had a 'Little Town of Bethlehem' Idea milling around in my head and that I thought this would be ideal, so via emails we threw back and forth design ideas and fabric samples! The biggest concern we had was the placement of 'THE STAR' as we didn't want it to look like a 'Vegas dancers tassle' as she described it!!

I strip pieced the main ground fabric of raw silk, including a basic 'village' along the bottom edge. Then I applied shapes in voile with hand stitching, lots of beads and gold threads.

Apparently the Children Love it!





Rebecca's workshop at Villers was well attended and productive. Embroidery was explored using different mediums.