October Speaker

Our October Speaker is Linda Chevell.  Her talk is entitled "Quilty Pleasures".

Bosworth based quilter and teacher, known for her meticulous work, precision piecing and perfect circles.  Linda will be telling us about her quilting style and journey.

A number of the group attended the Loughborough summer and school this year and enjoyed her perfect circles project, we saw some completed pieces last month and hope to see more at our October meeting.

Would you please bring the finished circles to the October meeting.

We also have Julie Chapman coming to the October meeting with her fabrics. 

September Meeting

 Kate Findlay began her career as designer working in the carpet industry and was made redundant in 1991 when the floor industry changed to hard floors or plain/mottled carpets. She then taught art in primary schools which included sewing. In the last class in their primary school the children were making quilts and one group won first at the Festival of Quilts.

Eventually she decided that design and textiles were her forte. She uses raw edge applique, bonding the fabric together and then free machine stitching for extra detail. Most of her pieces would be considered wall hangings and she backs them with felt rather than layering them up.

The subtitle of Kate Findlay’s talk was ‘Working in Series’ - that is the way that she likes to work. The first series she showed was about Henley with scenes of the spectators and rowers on the river. Her next series was inspired by photos of the hadron collider in Switzerland. She is also inspired by nature, particularly by birds. We all enjoyed the videos of her constructing her work.

Covid brought about changes in the way she works as her income came from talks and workshops, which had to stop. She then began to make up kits and cards; she has also produced designs which are licensed to companies for their exclusive use and sale.

She had brought with her a variety of the products she sells including kits, cards, fabric and books which were very popular with our members. Everyone enjoyed the meeting.

Detail from Bird Quilts

 Quilts inspired by the Hadron Collider

September Speaker

 

Kate Findlay is our speaker in September.  Her talk is entitled "Working in Series".

Kate is self employed as a textile artist and teacher. She lives with her partner and son in Berkshire, and has a studio at home on the second floor which gives her plenty of exercise up and down the stairs!

She trained in industrial textiles at Kidderminster College and worked in the carpet industry for a few years before retraining as a teacher. Kate taught Design Technology and Art in secondary schools for many years, before getting a job as an art teacher in a private primary school after her son was born. It was working part time here that allowed her own art to develop.

Kate produced a body of work inspired by the Large Hadron Collider. These were all textile pieces, with a number of large art quilts being the culmination of nearly five years of work. The series was exhibited widely and attracted international interest. In reaction to the scale and subject matter, Kate then turned to the natural world for inspiration and began a series of very small pieces inspired by birds, which has gradually grown to encompass a great variety of wildlife, and also landscapes and woodlands on a larger scale.

Kate travels the country giving talks and workshops based on all her work – and her ongoing interest in e-textiles and the use of other media. She has work in a number of Galleries, and exhibits at Art Fairs and Craft events throughout the year.

Making art is a complete passion and is probably the most important thing in her life right now!

July Meeting

 Karen Lane said how she had started crafting when she went to some craft classes to support a young girl she was working with.  The girl enjoyed the class and this lead to more classes.  Karen was hooked on crafting for herself as well.

She started with felt making and tried a range of techniques and then moved on to mixed media as well.  She had a beautiful display of all her different crafts and went through them explaining the different techniques she used and how they were the individual items were made.  This included the techniques which would be used in the workshop on the following day.

Jan Gamble and Gina Cooke's pictures from the workshop which was thoroughly enjoyed.

Workshops for September

Please note that there are spaces on the following workshops. 

On the 8th September Kate Findlay's workshop is entitled "Waterlilies" at the Community Church

On the 24th September Viv Denscombe's workshop is "Tiny Books"

July Speaker

 Karen Lane is our speaker for July.  Her talk is entitled "My F Plan Diet.

Karen Lane is a Mixed Media Textile Artist with a passion for Feltmaking.  She discovered the art of Feltmaking in 2014 and immediately fell in love with the very physical and tactile process of transforming loose soft fibres into a unique piece of seamless felt.  She was keen to learn more and since then has been privileged to attend workshops with some of the best International feltmakers including Dagmar Binder, Gladys Paulus, Marjolein Dallinga and Annemie Keonen.

She has always found herself drawn to texture and often works with a limited colour palette to allow the texture to be the key element.  Working with mixed media means she can combine hard and soft, smooth and rough, whether she is creating a pendant, a wall hanging or a wearable.  For her the tactile element plays a huge role in the design process.

Nature provides a never ending source of inspiration for her work, from trees and leaves to fossils and found objects, some of which are used as “inclusions” in her work.

She is a member of the International Feltmakers Association and runs workshops, one to one or group sessions, in Feltmaking and Textile Art both here in the UK and in France. 

Examples of her Work

 

June Meeting

Two successful events to report for June.  Our speaker Gail Lawther not only addressed our Wednesday evening audience but she also held a workshop the previous day.  The title was Doodle Birds and Doodle Bugs and was enjoyed by those who attended.  They picked up valuable tips as well as producing their bonded applique designs.

On Wednesday Gail explained the development of her style of applique including her method of stained glass patchwork.  She brought lots of examples of her designs which we were able to examine closely at the end of the talk.  It was interesting to hear how she developed her techniques and designs.