We had a brilliant start to 2023 with Kate Findlay’s inspiring Nature in Textiles talk (6th January) about her work and creative process. We learned so much through her images and short videos about how she sets about creating a textile picture, many featuring birds, using raw edge appliqué to form the basic scene, and then adding machine / hand stitching to fill out the details. Some scenes require the use of ‘confetti’ – very small pieces of fabric – to represent, e.g. blossom, leaves, and Kate dyes much of her own fabric.
Kate’s talk imparted a wealth of useful advice besides demonstrating her artistic talents with great flair. This meant that those lucky enough to be signed up for her e-Textiles Lantern workshop the following day knew they would be in for a treat. We weren’t disappointed!
Following Kate’s clear and straightforward demonstrations and instructions for creating our own scenes using Lutradur, colouring media and voiles, we quickly got into the first phase of making our lanterns. Some works in progress, showing the addition of appliquéd shapes and stitching :
Phase two after lunch: we were probably feeling a bit daunted about adding the ‘lighting up’ bit, i.e. a colour-changing LED, but Kate carefully guided us through this, and everyone was thrilled to be able to produce an illuminated lantern by the end of the workshop (ok, some finishing off to do at home).
Thanks to Kate’s expert guidance and generous sharing of her skills, we had a thoroughly enjoyable and satisfying day.
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Our next meeting: Saturday 21st January – Members’ Day, Boro stitching.