A Teaser Trailer of things to come

Another busy and productive meeting of the Maids yesterday.
We spent some time preparing for an exhibition of some of our past work at the South West Patchwork and Quilters Show at Westpoint Exeter April 1st - 3rd. It was lovely to see the pieces again and quite an inspiration for our current efforts. After a brief struggle with a compass and then a borrowed bradawl (thank goodness for a fully equipped caretaker - thank you Victor) some eyelets and some length of picture wire, we were operational once more and ready for the show.
I am attaching a photo of one of the three collections  that will be on show in April.
 We would love to see you there.
Margaret P

Monochrome

New Year New Inspiration

Textile Maids met for the first time in 2016 and there was definitely a sense of renewed enthusiasm in the hall. Everyone brought at least one finished item and once again  I was blown away by the skill of these amazing ladies. I really am looking forward to seeing the exhibition in September in all it's glory. We had a great time with lots of work in progress, plenty of chat, a bit of business and of course some cake. We are already thinking of life beyond the September exhibition at Falmouth Polytechnic and have a few ideas of where we want to go but nothing set in stone yet. Debbie took some photos for me and here they are. Just a tantalising glimpse of what to expect from later in the year.

Liz

Margaret P

Sue

Margaret G

Debbie

Rosemary

Jenni

Barbara

Barbara again

 

Liz again

Thank you for reading the blog, keep checking back on us please - you ain't seen nothing yet!

 

Margaret Pellow

Sharing our Exhibition News...

We had our last meeting of 2015 this week, and although we haven't posted a great deal lately we are all keeping our heads down preparing for our next exhibition,  

Cornwall. Collected. 

at The Poly in Falmouth from September 12th to 16th 2016.

I've posted a few snaps from this week for you to see some of our work in progress...

Margaret Garrood

Debbie

Liz

Margaret Pellow

another of Margaret's

Sue

Barbara

And finally, here is a detail from one of Jane's finished pieces...

Jane

As you can see there's a great variety of work being produced.

More exciting news to share with you. We will have several pieces from our 'Stitched Art' Exhibition at the Spring Quilt Festival, Westpoint, Exeter from 1st to 3rd April 2016. 

Our exhibition had such a great response, it will be lovely to see some of our pieces back together again. As a bonus there will be new pieces of work on show. 

If you didn't make it to Heartlands, hopefully you'll get a taste of our work in Exeter and visit us at The Poly next September.

Bye for now

Sue

A Quick Up-date...

Just to let you know that from our recent exhibition, Trelyn Quilters were able to donate £3000 to  Newquay RNLI.

Thank you to everyone that visited and made it possible for us to support this worthy cause.

Bye for now

Sue

Something to look forward too...

This wonderful Christmas Fair held at Pencarrow has been organized by our very talented Jenni for the passed 15 years...

You'll find everything you need to celebrate the festive season and it's a great way to support your local suppliers.

Bye for now

Sue

A response to our day out

In August most of the group spent a lovely day out at Pine Lodge Gardens near St Austell. We decided to make a piece of work in response to the garden visit, and try to finish this within the month, as some of us have been missing the fast deadlines of our first two years!

Clearly having a deadline worked for me, and I have been able to get this small 12 x 12 piece done in time to hand it over tomorrow to Margaret - she is organising a small display of some Textile Maids work in the village hall at the end of the month.  Here is my final piece, and below is the quick sketch done the day and a photograph I took for reference. I hope you enjoy as much as I did - its been great to work fast again. I seem to have spent that last year working at a snails pace!

Regards, chris

A Holy Well... finished at last!

I am very pleased to be able to post a finished piece of work, the first in a series based on the Holy Wells of Cornwall.  This work is based on St Ruan's Well near Cadgwith on the Lizard. I decided before I started any stitching I would so some drawing, and on one of the first hot days of this spring I sat down and quickly made this sketch.



 I do think that making drawing part of my design process has made me look more carefully at the subject,  and I am hoping to keep that habit going!

I also took a few photographs focussing on the vegetation surrounding around the well and close ups of the granite. In particular there was a great mass of bare blackthorn stems which had an amazing texture which I rather liked...  During the period that I was starting to develop this project, I attended a weekend screen printing workshop with Vineta Cable at Cowslip Workshops. I decided to create some textured fabrics inspired by the photographs, and these prints of granite stones, grasses and blackthorn stems were all eventually used in the final piece. I loved the images of the tangle of ferns but this was not used in the final work as I had decided it wasn't possible to include imagery of the inside of the well. So I think I will be saving that for another project!

 

 

Thank you for reading this post, 

I hope you have enjoyed seeing some finished work from me - at last!  

Regards, Chris