SAQA (Studio Art Quilt Associates) – Steam Museum, Swindon

Posted on September 30, 2023September 30, 2023 by Ros Lomas

A group of Committee members met on Monday to visit the SAQA exhibition of quilts currently on display in the Steam Museum in Swindon.

I was interested to see how the members of this group came from such a variety of countries and the only name I recognised was Maggie Harris who used to be a member of our group.

Below you can read about SAQA and the theme for this exhibition which was started during lockdown.

For those of you who have not visited the Steam Museum in Swindon, you have to weave your way through the various train related exhibits before and after reaching the quilt display so, needless to say, we all had a bit of fun playing at being train drivers! The museum is a great day out for all ages with lots of interactive exhibits for everyone.

We all enjoyed looking at the quilts on display, discussing the techniques used and the choice of design.

The exhibition is on display until 5 November 2023

Report by Ros

Photos by Ros

SAQA website: https://www.saqa.com/

Steam Museum website: https://www.steam-museum.org.uk/new-orient-express-quilt-exhibitions-comes-to-steam/

Lizzie Godden workshop – An Introduction to Natural Dyeing & Eco printing

Posted on September 24, 2023September 24, 2023 by Ros Lomas

Lizzie Godden workshop – An Introduction to Natural Dyeing & Eco printing

Having seen Lizzie’s work the day before, I was very exited to be in the workshop with her! The room layout was a little different to our normal workshops and we were told to work in pairs (sorry, Clare!). The centre table was a mass of lots of types of leaves; oak, sumac, blackberry to name a few, all ready for the day.

First Lizzie decanted iron water into washing up bowls and warned us to make sure we wore gloves unless we wanted black fingers for a few weeks! We picked off the leaves we wanted to use and placed them in the iron water as this is what helps the leaves to give a good print. Once covered, the leaves were placed on the strips of silk in a pattern we wanted, rolled around a dowel and boiled in a huge pan.

Whilst that was cooking, we printed leaves on watercolour and khadi paper using the same principle. Pressure is important to get a good print, so the layers of leaves and paper were pressed together between tiles and again boiled. This is a much quicker process, and we were able to see our results relatively quickly which just made us more curious about the bundles that were still boiling away!

Lunch in the sunshine was a lovely treat! After lunch Lizzie gave us all a piece of buddleia dyed fabric which surprisingly was a beautiful soft butter yellow. After seeing some of Lizzie’s samples, we had a go at shibori, the art of stitching and pulling fabric tight to create a resist before dyeing fabric in another dye bath. Lizzie used onion skins to overdye the stitched pieces, resulting in a rich amber colour.

We were handed our dowels but told not to open them for 24 hours! Torture! (I didn’t manage 24 hours; I think I got to 20…just 😊) And I think we all abided by the gloves rule; not a black finger in sight!

Report thanks to Tase

Photos thanks to Judy J

Lizzie’s website: https://www.lizziegoddentextiles.co.uk/

Lizzie Godden – Natural dyeing, eco printing and hand embroidery

Posted on September 6, 2023September 6, 2023 by Ros Lomas

Lizzie Godden – Natural dyeing, eco printing and hand embroidery

We started year three of the Textile & Stitch Around Marlborough with a fantastic talk by Lizzie Godden. Travelling from the Forest of Dean Lizzie spent two days with us, the first talking about her work and showing us beautiful examples and the second was spent with a very privileged group of members showing them her techniques for natural dyeing and eco printing.

In the hall Lizzie displayed her dyed fabrics, dyed threads, beautiful hand embroidery, her very precious folders containing formula and recipes for her dye baths and books showing natural dyeing, eco printing and hand embroidery stitches. To support the talk, Lizzie had two buckets of leaves which she planned to use for the workshop the following day.

Lizzie started by explaining that she first starting experimenting with plant dyeing in the 1990’s and recommended Jenny Dean’s book, Wild Colours. She explained that almost all of her plants came from the garden apart from madder which she bought and she showed us examples of over dyeing where the fabric is dyed, tied and dyed for a second time using another plant. Buddleia and golden rod were important garden plants together with the skins from onions, plants from the hedgerows and leaves from trees. Lizzie’s folders contained samples to show the shade and colour obtained using various plants. I was particularly interested when she brought out a knife and sliced the bark off a mahonia stem. As you can see from the photo, the colour is a deep yellow.

Everything has been a matter of experimenting over the years and in talking about the materials used, Lizzie said she mainly uses silk material and thread, and woollen blanket as cotton tends to produce less vibrant colours. Members were particularly interested in the cord which Lizzie had made using dyed thread and lengths of cut dyed stockinette. In addition she had experimented making cords from plants and mentioned dandelion and bindweed.

Lizzie then went on to talk about eco-printing or printing with leaves. The leaves are positioned topside up and the natural inks are extracted when the fabric is rolled up and left in position for several days. You can find out more by reading the details of Lizzie’s workshop but she mentioned the best plants for eco-printing were currant leaves, brambles and her favourite was the smoke bush leaf.

Another process that Lizzie shared was the preserving of leaves using vegetable glycerine. Once this is done the leaf is protected, can be displayed and stitched into.

Last but not least having dyed her own fabrics and threads and eco-printed some, Lizzie hand stitches her own designs some reflecting the prints and some using stitch patterns. She loves using unusual stitches and had several interesting books on display. Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn’s book, Stitch Magic and the Batsford Encyclopaedia of Embroidery Stitches by Anne Butler. Another book that Lizzie recommended was Alice Fox’s Natural Processes in Textile Art: From rust dyeing to found objects.

The final pieces of work we were shown was Lizzie’s lockdown project which has certainly turned out to be a family heirloom displaying a wonderful selection of designs and stitches all using natural dyed threads.

Report and photos: Ros