MADEIRA EMBROIDERY COMPETITON at the NEC

Posted on March 28, 2022April 19, 2022 by Ros Lomas

Congratulations to Lindsay and Nikki who entered the recent inspiring Madeira Embroidery Competition at the NEC.

Vernice kindly took them up in her car and it sounds like they all had a great day out.

GLIMPSES OF ISLANDS – LONGSTONE LIGHTHOUSE

After reading Alison Holt’s ‘Machine Embroidered Seascapes’ I was inspired to create something that included breaking waves and water movement.

Alison suggests a background of varying tones of blue with lines of machine stitching in various shades of blue which, as they blend together, show the shadows in the breaking waves.

Longstone lighthouse is intriguing as, at high tide, it is barely 1 metre above sea-level.

Incidentally, my embroidery depicts a relatively calm day! In a storm it would only be the lighthouse itself that would be visible!

Write up and photos by Lindsay Sherwood

Alison’s website

https://www.alisonholt.com/

Alison’s book – Machine Embroidered Seascapes

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Machine-Embroidered-Seascapes-Alison-Holt/dp/1844486842

The Island of Maritius

After 2 years of waiting because of the pandemic the Madeira Stitch competition took place at the NEC in March. The theme was Islands. My work was inspired by the Island of Mauritius.

The jacket is on a mannequin which I hand painted the Island with sea and beach. It is made from a recycled coffee bean sack. There is a stitch stumped Dodo on the back as the last Dodo was killed on the Island by Spanish sailors in 1662.

On the front is the Spanish Galleon. Palm trees made from green lace, raffia and green plastic strapping from a delivery parcel. The bottom of the jacket the sea and sand is made from different strips of fabric free machined.

The hat has been made from scratch using sinamay, free machining with pipe cleaners for palm trees and free machined. Stitched coloured tights for the red flower, machined stitched wool for the grasses and stitch raffia round a cotton reel for the hut. The sea is hand painted and stitched.

I titled the piece Greta Thumberg Island to reflect the fact that if we don’t look after the planet we will end up like the Dodo.

In 2018 I was fortunate to be the overall winner of this competition and this year was awarded Highly Commended and the piece will tour the country over the next year. Although it took nearly a year to make it was fun and challenging to make!

Thank you Lindsay and Nikki for sharing your amazing work with us.

Ros

Stitch, Slash & Stitch workshop – Wendy Lloyd

Posted on March 13, 2022March 13, 2022 by Ros Lomas

The day after Wendy Lloyd’s inspiring talk she led a workshop entitled, Stitch, Slash & Stitch.

We were asked to bring a selection of fabrics together with our sewing machine. This was the first time in two years I had taken my machine to a workshop so it was quite an exciting event.

Wendy started the day by explaining to the group of 16 members the principles of the technique and we then brainstormed the various considerations for the choice of fabric, colour, direction of fabric, layout of design and other possibilities.

Everybody was asked to make a pile of 6 or 7 fabrics, stitch and then slash them creating a sample using a simple star like pattern. Once slashed we used a hard brush to rough up the fabrics and create an interesting fringe like effect on the surface. Some of the wonderful examples are below.

Wendy had brought an exciting selection of sample designs with instructions and it was then up to us to decide which ones were of interest.

By the end of the day the hall was full of colour from the brilliant work which had been created but my goodness, what a lot of loose threads on the floor!!!

Thank you Wendy for a great day. You were an extremely attentive and generous tutor sharing your creations with us and guiding us through the process.

Report & photos by Ros with Wendy’s permission

Wendy’s new website is under construction but do check it out: https://www.wendylloydart.co.uk/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_wendy_lloyd/

“My inspiration” by textile artist & printmaker Wendy Lloyd

Posted on March 13, 2022March 14, 2022 by Ros Lomas

It was so exciting to get back together again after months of Zoom meetings and textile artist and printmaker, Wendy Lloyd from Newbury spoke to a group of 40 members about “My Inspiration”. She also brought a wonderful selection of cards and prints for members to buy.

Wendy explained that her mother was a textile artist and she had done A Level art at school but had gone on to read English at University. It was not until she went to Dubai that she went back to textiles.

On her return to the UK, she was inspired to enrol on a City and Guilds Machine Embroidery course by an exhibition at her local college. One of her C&G projects focused on spiral-inspired felted accessories.

Landscapes have always influenced her work and Wendy showed us examples of patterns and colours which she had taken from an image of the desert in Oman and the golden dome of a mosque. Her aim is always to interpret rather than just reproduce an image. Wendy’s ‘Landscape Impressions’ class looks at aspects of this and she showed an example of how colours can be altered to change the mood of a landscape.

Wendy got involved with a hanging for Newbury Library where people were asked to imagine the town in 2099. She also led workshops on the interpretation of children’s’ drawings. We were shown examples of thermofax screen printing and mono printing using tissue and collage over print.

In 2015 Wendy created her ‘Journey’ series featuring contour lines.

Wendy created two pictures as a result of lockdown. One was entitled, “Bound” and showed someone tied down and it was dark and gloomy and the other was “Unbound” showing someone released looking towards open space.

Recently Wendy’s work has included abstract images as well as landscape and she is trying to create more crossover between her textile and print work. She is currently developing a collagraph class for textile artists.