April Workshop with Enid Davies - Places Available

Skewers, Spills, Matches & More with Enid Davies Saturday 20th April, 10-4pm Venue: at The Institute, Lime Street, Gorseinon, Swansea, SA4 4EE Cost: £20 members, £25 non members

Experienced teacher and member of Itchy Fingers Textiles Group, local textile artist Enid Davies will be leading this inspirational workshop. You will be encouraged to branch out into using mixed media in the form of wood or its offshoots. You will experiment with a variety of methods to incorporate wooden items into a fabric and thread sample that can be used as a small panel or container, or just sampling techniques.

©Enid Davies 

This workshop is suitable for beginners or experienced stitchers alike, and you can use either machine or hand stitch, or both.

To get the most out of this workshop it will be useful if you have a few ideas for a theme or colour scheme you wish to work with.  A good starting point may be a particular image or postcard that appeals to you, or you may like to just select a nice mix of colour from your stash that work well together. If you are working on a particular theme, this will help you decide on the most appropriate colours scheme and images for stamping/printing to use.

A full list of materials/equipment you will need to bring along will be made available on booking.

 
If you are interested in booking a place and/or are interested in joining Stitches Coven please contact the group secretary, Donna here or tel 07933 750 344

Stitching Memories with Alison Moger

Well how could Saturday have gone any better ?? A stitches Coven workshop with the lovely Alison Moger for starters, followed by the outstanding Welsh performance, annihilating England and snatching the 6 Nations Tournament cup from under their feet :-)

Bridgend-based textile artist Alison joined us for the day, delighting us with her talent for storytelling and sharing her love and appreciation of the everyday, the domestic, and female relationships. Alison's work is  light hearted & humerous, yet embedded with meaning, emotionally charged at the same time, and speaking of the quieter events and personalities we encounter that both shape and move us. To learn more about Alison and her delightfully intimate & quirky artworks, please visit her website.

Alison (standing) putting us through our paces - we look like they're having such a tough time don'twe??

Donna Dolittle pretending to be getting on with something for the camera!

Show and tell

Brenda gets romantic!

Brenda gets busy and completes another!

Angie's trip down memory lane

Gwyneth's wee birdy

Kathy's kissing couple

Karen's ocean scene

Donna Dolittle did something!

Mad Hatters at Mandy Nash Workshop

Saturday saw the launch of our programme of workshops with Mandy Nash's 'Make a Felt Hat'  - and I think it is fair to say it went down a storm!

Raring to go...

Here we are at the start, all eyes on Mandy as she gives her first demonstration.

 It was hard to imagine at this stage how this was going to end up as a hat.

Mandy laying out a first layer of fibres

But under Mandy's calming and expert tuition we were all able to make our own hat creations, even those of us who have never done never done any wet felting before - all credit to Mandy's  excellent teaching skills - and of course the fact that we will generally try anything once!

Karen's cheeky number

Brenda having a well deserved cuppa

Here are a few of our creations - I'm afraid I was too engrossed with all that wool to remember to take pictures of everyone's hats - if you want me to add any, don't be shy :-)













The actual felting is quite exerting, so we were glad of having tea & cake on tap to keep our strength up.

Angie's elegant number

 

We all had a great time and it's given us the skills and confidence to take on other felting projects which we may otherwise have been a bit apprehensive about 

Thanks to Mandy for such an inspiring day!

Marilyn's Marvel

Paula's fine accomplishment

My 'Middle Earth' number, as Mr J describes it!

Mandy is currently exhibiting work using various media undertaken with her lazer cutter at LLantarnam Grange - hurry though as this will finish on 9 March. She will also be running a workshop there entitled ‘Fun With Felt’ on International Women’s Day, Friday 8th March, 10 -4pm. Cost £30.00 includes all materials, and booking is essential via Llantarnam Grange. And of course, look out for Mandy on the International Feltmakers Stall at Wonderwool in April - don't forget to wear your hats!

To learn more about Mandy and her work with felt and jewellery visit her website. She will also be returning to provide another Stitches Coven workshop on 21 September. this time to make frilled and layered felted scarves -  so keep you eyes posted for further details of this soon.