And finally, trumpeting her success......

Deryll had entered several items for the Long Ashton Flower Show and came away with not one ,not two, not three but FOUR first prize certificates

We think that deserves some praise!

Books.

Liz has  a passion for making books ,but properly.

She had been on a three day course(website above)

and the whole rationale was to use a very precise cutting method 

without the use of a pencil and other aids.

These are just some of the book forms she created.

No doubt these will pop up in her work over the months, maybe in fabric form.....

A creative break.

Deryll took herself off to Church Stretton in Shropshire for a creative break in August.

The participants experimented with a number of media and techniques which included felt making ,silk fusion and weaving.

Here you can see the lovely little samples she produced while there.

She wasn't overly pleased with her results but we think they are the basis for more experimentation.

Especially with her chosen Lichen as inspiration.More mileage to be had from this source.

Taking joy in small things.

Debby had been to see a Boro exhibition in Bath at Margaret Place.It had been advertised but she was the only one of us to manage to catch it.She said there were some lovely pieces and many were for sale but at prices beyond the reach of most people.Inspired she had collected together some pieces of blue fabrics ,some picked up at Quilter's others from County Threads in Pierrepoint Street.We shall see how this thread develops.Debby manages to be so prolific.She had also made a summer trip to Ireland and was very taken with the place and its people.Selvedge magazine had done a feature on Aran jumpers so we wonder if this will surface sometime in her work.

She was following someone called Laura Horn and using her inspiration to do a page a day in a small book.

10 min sketching, 5min washing brush etc., 1min finding joy in what you done .

You can glimpse some of her thoughts on a page below.She was reminded of a quote by William Morris about the key to happiness being about finding joy in the small things in life.

It seems like a good habit we should all adopt.

She had begun to add in things to the pages like this below, incorporating orange which is a colour she rarely uses.Testing herself out of her comfort zone.She picked up some "holes"

the circles, from an upholstery shop along the Gloucester Road and added them with some blue fabrics to a page .

You may mock........but

Several meetings ago Viv showed us some fork weavings and we scoffed.Why would anyone even bother?

Well, undeterred by us she persevered with the technique .Using Viscose ribbon and with the distraction of Wimbledon she made many more.

Using lace to print she has made some delicious fabrics.

With her photograph of a rockpool for inspiration, she intends to put these to a new piece of work.We guess we shouldn't be so quick to judge!

Tibet.

Sally was away in Tibet for our last meeting so we were treated to a look at her travel diary

this time.Packed as usual with her lovely observations in drawings, photos and words.

She had even pressed some flowers.She said they had been lucky to see a blue Tibetan poppy in flower .It dies once it seeds and is only able to grow above 12,000ft.

She purchased this purse while there ,which is worn on a belt and holds very little!

Amber ,coral and turquoise are used in these pieces usually.It is quite weighty to carry about.

They travelled about in cars on good roads as evidenced by her sketches in a concertina book, done as they sped along.

As usual she collected lots of ephemera and now has to decided how it will be used in new work.A scroll perhaps?

September's slim pickings.

This month we had very little to show after our busy year with exhibitions

Jenn chose to bring along her best bits from our play-day.She had used some stencils and homemade stamps to print on a variety of papers, keeping to a limited palette.

She had printed on both sides of an A3 page of a sturdy sketchbook.It was then folded and cut into a zigzag book.There is the possibility of adding some of her bits from the first image and maybe adding in some stitch.

Monoprinting playday.

After the hectic year we have had with exhibitions,

it was time for a little self indulgent play.

We hired our usual hall, brought along paints, papers, fabric, rollers ,stamps

and experimented with Monoprinting.

Jane showed how to play with drawing with rollers and work over Gesso to create some interesting marks.

Jenn gave some ideas as to how a Gelli plate is used to create layers and not finished prints.The fun comes later auditioning and selecting out.

Everyone was then encouraged to experiment at their own pace.Here are some of the results.......

It was commented at one point in the day, that our meetings are generally not this quiet!

It will be interesting to see if lessons learned today will feed into future work.It was lovely to have no pressure to produce something finished .

Anni Albers

After being inspired by the Anni Albers exhibition back in January Jane has been experimenting with her machine .

She has played with colour mixes of threads to create woven textures on a canvas background 30x20inches in size.She has worked on white with overlays allowing the eye to colour mix, a little like Seurat and pointillism.

She has not quite decided if she needs to add in touches of white ,we'll wait and see the verdict.