Even though it was Easter Monday we had a well attended meeting. No speaker, instead we spent the evening working on card ideas, to sell at our planned exhibition, to be held on Saturday 17th June 2023, at the Friends Meeting House Cotteridge.

Easter Monday was a productive and fun evening. It is always good to have a chance to chat and stitch together. At the exhibition visitors will be able to see a wide range of work and will be able to discuss them with members of the group. They can also enjoy home made cakes and biscuits and the chance to buy a variety of cards and other hand made items on our sales table. Entry to the exhibition is free, with a small charge for refreshments.

On Easter Monday we held our raffle as usual, this time on a yellow theme. The two hand made bags were full of goodies and are pictured below, as are some examples of our card making.

Great day with Angie working on white velvet and using a variety of techniques, including spray dyes, ink and using stencils, printing and foils with information about other methods that can be used to develop work further after the workshop. The day was very well attended and it was lovely working alongside each other. Angie is very generous tutor, sharing knowledge and expertise with patience and enthusiasm. The images below include a work by Angie herself and pieces produced during the day by participants. It was very satisfying being part of a day when we were all able to made some real progress.

Angie can be found at http://www.angiehughes.com and on facebook.

At the March meeting members and visitors enjoyed listening to Edwina talk about her body of work and use of colour. She brought with her a wide range of finished pieces which we were able to look at ‘close up’ to appreciate the detail and the thinking that goes into her work. Some of the many insights she shared with us were : recognizing the impact of where you live on your colour palette, sometimes using limited palettes to great effect and making the most of initial and sometimes unexpected inspirations. An example of the latter is a range of pieces pictured below all developed from the colours of sushi.

She also shared positive experiences of using challenges including the 100 day challenge. The Sushi pieces were a result of a group challenge when each member interpreted the task differently. Our traveling books provide a helpful challenge and motivation for some BETA members and our group projects have played a similar role.

As well as large pieces Edwina also shared a number of smaller items pictured below and the inspirations that informed each of these groups, including vessels to hold memories or treasures, a beautiful idea. We could also also take away tips about using colour for example using the colour wheel to find opposite colours to a main theme, to provide a pop of contrast. A soft calm quilted piece can be set off by a contrasting darker block surrounding it different elements can be blended by stitching across the seam lines.

This was an inspiring evening helping us all to think about how printing, dyeing, other fabrics can be worked with using both machine and hand stitching. Edwina can be found on https://www.edwinamackinnon.studio and on instagram.

At the meeting we also had two lovely raffle bags and delicious coffee cake. Our next meeting in April will be a practical evening making cards or other items for sale at our exhibition featured in the last blog. Some materials and cards will be provided but members can also bring any elements they might have in their stash and basic sewing kit. The raffle colour will be yellow, perfect for beginning of spring.

This exhibition will run from 11 am to 3pm at the Friends Meeting House Cotteridge where we hold our monthly meetings and some workshops. We will showcase the work of all of our members, demonstrating a varied range of work and skills. Members of BETA will be around to answer questions about the work and about our group.

Entry to the exhibition is free. There will be a sales table with items for sale including gifts and cards made by members. There will also be tea, coffee, soft drinks and a wide range of home made cakes and biscuits, available to buy. We will keep prices down. The money taken will pay for the room hire and other expenses. We hope to welcome and meet with lots of people during the day. Please put the date in your diary and let any family, friends, colleagues who might be interested know about it.

More information will follow nearer the time.

In February BETA enjoyed an interesting and well illustrated ZOOM talk from Maria. She told us about her academic background and about early adventures in stitching, using fabric painted freely on, by her then 18 month old daughter. Maria responded to the marks on the fabric in stitch. (At least one recent grandmother in our group was thinking she might have a go at doing this). Maria used hand-stitch and included thoughts in her stitching. A beautiful Emily Dickinson quote ‘painting is silent poetry and poetry is painting that speaks’ is an inspiration for her work..

Over time Maria’s stitched writing became more like scribble and she became interested in asemic writing. This is script that does not include meaningful or legible words. She was also inspired by Chinese art, which she described as simplicity revealing the essence. Maria now blends landscape and story using asemic writing. She mostly uses machine stitching and often stitches on soluble fabric to create script that can be placed on top of backgrounds. Sheer fabric features a lot in her work so that layers can be seen and described herself as combining the purposeful – the stitch, with serendipity – the painting on which it sits. Her colour palette is shown in the beautiful samples above.

Maria shared a wide range of her beautiful work with us. She will be exhibiting at Mile End in London from 19th April. You can follow her on instagram and find more information on her website Maria.Wigley.co.uk. I for one would love the chance to see more of her work on line, but also in ‘real life’.

After the presentation Anne told us about a planned Westhope trip in September 15th to 17th and has sent a separate email with details. Members who haven’t been to Westhope before can see how lovely it is via that email. Numbers are limited so if interested members will have to commit soon and pay a deposit. The whole fee can then be paid in installments. The weekend led by Jane Hunter will include a day eco printing followed by a day stitching

The sit and stitch on the first Saturday each month in Northfield is a great success and is being extended by an hour from 11 am to 2 pm everyone is welcome.

As the meeting this month was a zoom meeting there was no raffle. The March meeting will be in person and features Edwina McKinnon, who will be talking about colour. The raffle bag is orange.

The first meeting in January is one of the favorites in our yearly calendar when we share the work and experiences of two of our members. On this occasion Anne and Ruth each talked about their personal history with embroidery. They shared some beautiful pieces of work, just a few of which are pictured below. As always they don’t do justice to the quality and range of work we saw.

Anne our current chair and longstanding member, talked about her memories of her grandmother and about a photograph that was taken of them together when Anne was a child. This inspired a detailed piece of stump work embroidery pictured below. She also shared her work across an impressive range of skills, which also covered canvas work and Japanese embroidery. We saw some of her work in progress, as she is currently using circuit boards as an inspiration for her stitching. Anne told us about the influence of others on her work including Anne Brooke and Angie Hughes. The latter is running our March workshop which is sure to be great fun and very informative.

Ruth is a more recent member of our group, although it doesn’t feel like that given her level of engagement and contribution. She shared a moving personal history of the role that stitching has played in supporting her through difficult periods in her life. She also showed us a lovely range of her work included pieces based on soldiers experiences in the trenches. She told us about her developing insight into her own engagement with stitch over the years. While she produces beautiful finished pieces, based on existing patterns, including the black work shown below, she also increasingly enjoys the creative process and has like Anne learnt from Anne Brook. It was a privilege to listen to both contributions.

We also had our monthly raffle, which was red and both beautiful bags are also shown below. Our next meeting will be on Zoom with Maria Wigley, before we return to our usual face to face meetings in March. Anne will send out a zoom link to everyone in time for that meeting. As a result of being on Zoom we will not exchange traveling books again, until the March meeting. There will be no raffle so we will alter the schedule with the planned February orange bags being used at the March meeting. We hope all our members enjoy the Zoom meeting if you have any difficulties technically do tell someone from the committee.

Apologies for the late addition to the blog, technical glitches and the Christmas bugs got in the way. We had our Christmas party with cakes and other treats. The biggest treat of the evening was however our talk from Marion Plumb a member of BETA herself and of the textile art group Eclectica. She talked about her use of different forms of adding colour to fabric sharing an inspirational range of her work and including some wonderful Japanese silk. The photographs of her work don’t do justice to a brilliant display.

We enjoyed spending the day machine stitching with Joanne using her beautiful designs as a starting point. Joanne was knowledgeable, patient and approachable. A really good fun, well structured and stimulating day. Below is an action shot of one of us stitching and the work we had all done by the end of the day. So lovely to be all together stitching chatting and helping each other. Roll on the next workshop with Angie Hughes in March.

We had an informative and entertaining presentation from Clive, covering the history and processes involved in the development of the silk trade. The presentation included his own painting of the Empress Si Lung-Chi who has been credited with silk’s discovery. Clive also talked about a more local link, the development of the Coventry ribbon industry, and the connections to the industrial revolution. He brought along his own beautiful work which uses silk. We were tempted by, among other things, bowls, lights, necklaces and painted cards. It was good to have the chance to shop and we also enjoyed being able to talk to Clive personally, after the presentation.

At this month’s meeting we had two filled raffle bags, decorated on the theme of silver and made by Margaret and Bev. Both were beautiful and filled with stitching and other goodies. We are now looking forward to our Christmas party next month, with drinks, sweet and savoury treats provided by the committee and our Christmas competition. Members can also bring along filled gift bags for the women at Anawim, a project we talked about at the last meeting. The raffle theme for December is gold.

Further information about Clive and his presentations can be found on his website. http://www.mulberryworm.wordpress.com and he can be contacted on CliveGarnerSilks@hotmail.co.uk

We had a relaxed evening with inputs from members and a sharing of ideas as the evening went on.

We began by hearing about a local Birmingham project ‘’Anawim’ which provides a range of support services, helping women understand the impact of trauma on their lives and beginning the process of healing and overcoming obstacles. One of our members Margaret is a volunteer at the project, running a weekly stitching group. She showed us the wonderful hanging pictured below, which is made by her stitching group with scraps of fabric. The frayed denim feathers are very effective. Stitch has been found to be a pleasure and a creative outlet for the women who attend, it can play a role in building confidence and skill as well as being fun. Beta members look forward to seeing other work from the group in the future and to finding ways to support the project.

We then enjoyed a stimulating and informative input from Anne, the chair of our group, with tips about how to mount and display work effectively. The photograph below shows how samples of stitch from a workshop Anne had been attending, were easily and effectively displayed on an artist canvas. Simple individual items, look so effective when put together in this way. One of the good things about BETA is the chance to get ideas and advice from others and this evening was no exception.

Finally we had our monthly raffle this time black and white was the colour for the bag. On this occasion it was stitched by Janet, and is very effective. As always it filled with goodies donated by members, matching the black and white colour scheme.

We are looking forward now to our November meeting, when we will have a speaker, Clive Garner, telling us about the history of silk. We will have silver themed raffle bags to admire and have the chance of winning.