April Competition Winner

Not without difficulty... the committee chose Denise's Twelve Days of Christmas as the winner of the April competition. 

The April competition is for the best piece worked to a commercial design.

Design by Larissa Holland

Denise worked the Twelve Days of Christmas Ornaments designed by Larissa Holland. Further details can be found by clicking on this link to Larissa's website.

Our next competition has a very broad and open remit - we would like members to submit a stitched design for our new group logo. Our group is called York Embroiderers and Stitchers, so our initials are YES. Your piece can be any size and in any medium. It must incorporate stitch, and it must show the name or initials of our group. That's it - the rest is up to you.  This will be our competition for August. Please bring your entry along to the August meeting, where the winner  will be selected by all members attending that meeting. If you can't attend, let Nicky know (see contacts page) and we can make arrangements to get your piece to the meeting. 

April Meeting - Emily Harvey

Plans for our new group York Embroiderers and Stitchers are coming together, and at our Saturday Zoom meeting, Chris outlined some of the developments.

A new programme of events is being created, and details can be seen on the programme page. As a new group, we need a new logo. The competition to be judged at the August meeting is for such a logo. There are no rules, other than it must be in stitch! Either York Embroiderers and Stitchers or YES can be made into the logo.

Following news of these exciting developments, we had a zoom talk from Emily Harvey, a York based printmaker.

Emily spoke about her work, and the inspirations behind it. She showed how her work could have links with textiles, and talked about her residency at the Textile Archive of Bradford College. She is currently experimenting with making prints from pieces of woven rattan. The results are very striking, and could easily be translated into textile techniques. 

She is a member or York Printmakers, and they have an upcoming exhibition at the North York Moors centre in Danby from the 8th May 2021.

Next month we will have a Zoom talk from Ann Pocklington, on the subject 'Crinoline Ladies to Soldering Irons'.

New Beginnings

We are very pleased that there has been such a lot of support for an independent York group in place of the York branch of the Embroiderers’ Guild and you will see from the above that we now have a name; York Embroiderers and Stitchers. This has the benefit of a very positive acronym, YES.  I shall resist the temptation to add an exclamation mark.

We also have a new home. Beginning in July we will meet at Haxby Memorial Hall from 11am until 3pm on the first Saturday of every month,with the exception of August, October and January 2022 when we’ll meet on the Saturday after. 

Haxby Memorial Hall will suit us very well. Plenty of space and parking in a good location, plus a garden for al fresco  lunch in the summer.

The first meeting will be for informal stitching and catching up with each other,  but it will also be an opportunity for the members to give their ideas and requests for future programmes and procedures,  and to offer their help in any way. We would also like volunteers for running workshops and /or giving short talks. Or even long(ish) ones! We’ve had some offers and will be chasing these up. We are confident that our finances will enable us to have some external speakers from time to time throughout the year.  

Further details, including subscriptions and an initial programme, will be sent to everyone after Monday’s committee meeting. We would like the group’s members to be involved in the creation of a full and varied programme for the next year, one which reflects their interests and aspirations. There will be more on this at our first meeting.

Many thanks from the committee for all the lovely messages we have received. We appreciate them very much indeed.

At our Zoom meeting on 3rd April we are to have Emily Harvey as the speaker. Her talk is on Print and Printmaking. 

This blog has also had a little facelift, which is a work in progress as the new group develops, but all the archives are still here.

Next month's speaker and the future of the group

A super speaker at last Saturday’s Zoom meeting. Alison Wake who is based in the Peak District, described  her work as ‘painting with yarn’. Her talk was perfectly structured for a Zoom presentation and was obviously much enjoyed. We’ve had lots of enthusiastic  feedback from members. She can be found on cognissart.co.uk.

We’ve also had lots of support for the creation of an independent embroidery and textile art group in the light of the recent Embroiderers’ Guild crisis and the consequent closing of all EG branches. Given the financial predicament in which the EG finds itself and the EG Trustees’ legal obligation to protect the charity, the closures were inevitable. However, the news came as shock, though on reflection not really a surprise. As well as the desire to have an independent stitch group there have been offers of help with activities such as running workshops and financial donations to help us get started which is immensely encouraging.

The committee is investigating possible venues for the group and looking at the various aspects of its organisation including subscriptions and a monthly programme. We’ll keep in touch as we go along.

Our next Zoom meeting will be on 3rd April when Emily Harvey will talk about print and print making.

March Meeting

 Our March meeting will be on Saturday 6th. As we are still in lockdown at the time of writing, this meeting will be via Zoom, and joining details will be emailed to members nearer the time. Our speaker will be Alison Wake. Click here to visit her website.

You may have seen that our Exhibition, planned for 2021 has, not surprisingly, been postponed until 2022. That doesn't mean that work has stopped though! Here is an image of some work in progress from Moira, for our Hedgerow theme.

February meeting with Amy Butcher

 Hi everyone,

A reminder about our Zoom meeting on Saturday, 6th February at 2pm It has soon rolled round. We are delighted to be having Amy Butcher as our speaker and at our Zoom committee meeting yesterday Nicky told us about the super visuals Amy has prepared for her talk. Liz will co-host the meeting so that Nicky can assist with these.  Nicky will email the meeting ID and password for the meeting to you.  This meeting will be free to all those on the 2019/2020 membership list, plus new members.

We would like to continue to hold the April competition for the best piece of work from a commercial design. These can be done from a kit or something from a magazine, or a workshop etc. This  year we would like members to send Nicky a photo of their entry, or entries, to cityofyorksec@embroiderersguild.co.uk by 30th March at the latest. She will show them onscreen, without names, at the Zoom meeting on 3rd April. The committee will then choose the winning entry. Won’t be easy! 

Speaking of images, we would love to have images of members' work on the blog.

Send them to me please, at csmall044@gmail.com with your name and who took the photo. This latter is only for Diana’s records   because of copyright law. Don’t ask! 

The blog has been devoid of images for nearly the whole year, so to get the ball rolling, here are pictures of work by some of our members.

From Gina

From Moira

Also, don't forget that you can see work from other branches by checking out the links on the blog.

From Jacqs

The committee has made  the decision to cancel the exhibition for this year, and to hold it in June, 2022 instead.  Very disappointing, but under the circumstances not unexpected. We kept hoping but it became  obvious it just wasn’t realistic. We know that many members have produced work on  hedgerows so we will keep what is any case  a lovely theme, as well as the exhibition’s overall title, ‘Our Celebration of Stitch’ . And  we’ll book the Tithe Barn as before.

From Nicky

Finally, another reminder of the fortnightly  Zoom Social Stitchers sessions, next one on Monday, 8th February. These are proving increasingly popular, a great way to keep in touch with our fellow stitchers. Details will be emailed. 

Very best wishes to you all,

Chris

February Meeting

 It was super to have so many members join in when we had our first Zoom meeting in January, and we are very much looking forward to the next one. On February 6th our speaker will be York textile artist Amy Butcher. Amy was a guest speaker a few years ago, since when she has had great success with her charming and beautifully executed work. So, see you all on the 6th.

As with the January meeting, joining details will be sent via email to members. For further information see our Programme Page, or our About Us page for contact details.