It's Christmas...........

Lots of nattering and stitching. 
A wonderful lunch ...........

 

and a recipe as promised............

 

 

Sweet and Salty crunchy nut bars.

Thanks to Nigella for this simple but wicked sweet treat.

200g milk chocolate
100g dark chocolate
125g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon golden syrup

250g salted peanuts
4 x 40g Crunchie bars - crumbled

Melt the chocolate, butter and syrup.
Add the peanuts and crunchie bar.
Mix well.
Press into a lined 9" square tin.
Chill in the fridge.
Cut into 16 pieces.

Some slight alterations:
I added an extra 50g of peanuts and 2 extra 40g Crunchie bars.
Tip - I bought a six pack of Crunchies and bashed them with a 
rolling pin in the packet.

Enjoy.

Merry Christmas...........

Tee shirt transfer, Fuse Ex and Bondaweb.........

Thanks to Jill we had an excellent day on Monday. Uncertain what I was going to try and do with the materials I was to bring along, I now know that my choices were limiting, the birds being too much of a contrast.

I tried using crayons to add colour, not very successful but I should have made more of the mushrooms!

Here are the pictures of what I did on Monday and a sample I tried later for making gift tags.

Layering paper photos, voile, newsprint and trains foils.

Isolating a smaller area gave a better image.

At home I then experimented further.

Hi Everyone, don't forget the group tomorrow!

We look forward to seeing you.

Textiles of the Past. Work in Progress

Working from primary sources as opposed from photos  is often the best way of capturing the 'feel' and essence of an object or artifact. There is something special about handling a piece of old textile that has been made and used by someone from a bygone age that can be conveyed in your own new work.  
For our workshop day on 9th September we used antique textiles as inspiration for creating some really contemporary pieces.
Here are a few pics from the day in the new hall ( which is fab to work in and a special thanks to our lovely caretaker lady who helped us settle in).

Just a few pieces of the real  stuff to work from. An array of world textiles from my collection.

Joan selecting some colours and textures to tie in with the  afgan trouser cuffs she had chosen to work from.

Linda was working from a Sind wedding headdress with shisha glass and very close work embroidery. She did a lovely detailed colour drawing in her sketchbook ( see right hand lower corner).

Kathy had chosen an Albanian goldwork piece as a starting point for her work. Changing the colours but using the shapes and symbols from the piece - you can tell she is working frantically - look at her hands go !!!

Pam selected a small area from a 1920s bag and worked with the shapes and flow of the piece.
Look at that stunning and utterley delicious fabric she purchased from the Festival .Just perfect for the squares on her piece.

We all gushed over this. Purples and blues in  shot metallics. Would make a brilliant Shirley Bassey dress !!!

Silks and more silks. Sue fell in love with an antique piece of patchwork - grandmothers garden hexagons hand stitched of course. But she really loved the backing that showed all the mark making in stitch. Changing the scale and using machine stitch, her piece will show strong influence from the original.

Olive selected a delicate lace panel. Cutting out star shapes in a variety of fabrics and colours, she has applied them to a black discharged backing. With the intention to work into it with machine stitch. A powerful contrast in colour but it works !

Ali took a Victorian beaded purse covered in roses and other florals and extracted some interesting  shapes from the piece. Applying hand stitch over the top with the intention to add beads to reflect the original piece.

Ann choose an old Afgan piece because she loved the rough ridged texture. Working in hand stitch and intending to work machine stitch over the top, she used simple shapes and sari ribbons to show the influence from this embroidery.  Oh how are you going to do the cowrie shells?

Having a break for lunch - but still working of course. Hope everyone enjoyed the day and got some interesting aspects from it. Looking forward to seeing some finished pieces.
Great big hall and lots of tables and plug points -  a success for our expanding group.
We missed everyone who couldn't attend ,but  hope to see you next time for the  October session.
Sally Hutson

Textiles of the Past - a design and stitch day

Our next workshop day is Monday 9th September. Its a design and stitch day using antique textiles as our inspiration to create some wonderful  pieces.
Here is a taster of some of the old pieces being used as a starting point.

A variety of world textiles of all ages just to tickle your creative thoughts.

See you soon

Sally Hutson

Abstract quilts

Following on from the brilliant  play day I have created a couple of quilted pieces.
The first one is from a grid one that I did - I extracted a section from it and worked from that.

Lots of yellow and browns with a big white patch along the side.
Here is the stitched piece.

Not quite so much yellow and the bands of brown seemed to have changed to blue - lots of artistic license used  here !!

 I think I prefer these colours to the original paper - not really used to working with yellow. And I might chop off a bit of the white to make it less in your face.

The second paper was very Monet in style and colour. I really love blues and greens anyway so this was more 'me'.

This is the piece quilted. Layers of ice dyed fabrics and chiffons before free motion quilting.
Then as in the yellow one I have over painted the fabric with acrylics, mainly to add whites.

 Note the angle at the botton edge - yes I meant to do that.

Enjoy and pop on over to my blog for more explainations to the techniques I use.
Any ideas as to the binding would be useful , I'm not sure how I want to finish them.

Has anyone else done anything with their abstract paintings yet? Come on,  lets see please .

Sally xxxxx

Play day.....

An excellent day, thanks to Linda for brilliant tuition letting us experiment within clear boundaries.
I really enjoyed working in acrylic paint and a variety of implements, not brushes, on large sheets of paper. I had a very limited palette of colours and this was a good discipline. Our theme was gardens in full blown summer splendour. I've never done anything like this before, so really pleased to have been nudged out the comfort zone!
Here are a few of the sheets I worked on today.

This is the first and I was still thinking more litterally but I learned alot about layering paint and the ability to use anything but a brush!
Next I thought about the possibility of using the painted sheet as a means of printiong a design on to fabric and these next two are ideas for this.

Here I think I'll try and isolate an area and just work with that.

This is half finished. I need to add another couple of layers and get  bit of zing colour added.

What a super PLAY day we have all had today at Weedon Bec. Many thanks to Lyn for the Abstract Art session. So much fun and inspiration to go on and  to turn them into fabrics.
Here are details from  my paper images . Just trying to get the paint out of my fingernails before cooking dinner !!!

And here are some that I have played with in Photoshop to alter the colours.

Now to turn them into fabric pieces !
Sally
www.stitchywoowoo.blogspot.com

August Meeting

Experimental  day - working on abstract images of a garden in full summer foliage.