West Country Quilt & Textile Show

It's a week since I came back home from Bristol but I've only just finished unpacking and put my mind to writing this. I spent a very enjoyable few days at the UWE Exhibition Centre with Dia, Deb and our friends from On the Surface, who were exhibiting on the adjacent stand.

It was our first time there but we have shown the 'Destinations' pieces a couple of times before and knowing how the pieces fitted together meant our work went up relatively easily with the help of the lovely Mr Day (otherwise known as Deb's husband, Chris). I managed to avoid too much faffing (or Caffing as Deb has re-named it in my honour!)

After our previous exhibition, we decided we needed a banner and I enjoyed both making it and seeing it displayed for the first time. Positioned as it was above Dia's beautiful Northern Lights, it actually formed quite a convincing capital T for Traverse, which wasn't planned at all!

As always, Bernice's work was much admired and photographed. Her use of text encourages close examination and I overheard a few conversations about her 'Pathways' piece - and her 'Venice Tiles' are always popular.

Bernice's work, including her mixed media books on Venice, which were also admired

The opposite end of the stand, where my work and Deb's was displayed nearly didn't look like this.

It was only thanks to a very early morning dash with Chris to Tamworth services that my 'Richat Structure' made an appearance at all. I had left it at home on the dining room table, all packed up in its box and he very kindly offered to drive me to pick it up. My husband met us half way for coffee and delivered it safely. I was very grateful to both of them.

It's one of the needle-felted pieces, produced mainly on an embellisher, which are useful to show  the effects that can be achieved. It featured in an earlier blog here, when I had a problem with the yellow areas. There are usually many comments about the 3D effect, which happened a bit by accident but I went with it!

Difficult to show the 3D effect on a photograph but it can be seen in this upside down work in progress shot

Deb has also used the embellisher on this beautiful piece, 'Destination Mindfulness', combining it with some hand needle felting to add texture. There is another 'accidental' 3D effect on her sun - she went with it as well!

Although these are not new pieces, it was important to remember that it was the first time that most people were seeing them and we tried to describe the processes and techniques with as much enthusiasm as we had way back in March when we first showed 'Destinations'. There were some lovely comments in our book ...

...including one from a man who saw the 'Working with Janome' sign by the embellisher and spoke to me for some time thinking my name was Joanne - he saw the joke and went off chuckling.

In fact, we spoke to several men who were either just very interested in how the machine worked or in some cases had actually used embellishers - one said he used his wife's embellisher more than she did! We do enjoy demonstrating and talking to people about our work; whether they have a machine and don't use it much or have never seen one before, it makes us smile when they go away saying they are inspired.

The effect of the embellisher on these curtain fabrics gained a lot of interest.

Dia made a beautiful piece of fabric big enough to make a photograph album cover
- just calling out for stitch and I look forward to seeing it when finished.

Meanwhile, 'Joanne' made a big effort not to do stripes, ending up with a very familiar looking spiral
... and it was half the size of Dia's sample - guess who was doing all the talking!

Soon it was all over and what began for me with an emergency dash up the M42 ended with another complication - a fire alarm just as we were all rushing to get everything packed up and head home. There were quite a few disgruntled faces but it was mainly greeted with smiles and 'At least it's not raining!' as we stood in the car park waiting for the all-clear. Fortunately, it was a false alarm and we didn't have to wait too long before we could return to finish packing up and set off up the M5, tired but happy with the reception our work had received.

So we look forward to The Creative Craft Show, November 1st - 4th, at the NEC, where we will be exhibiting 'Destinations' for the last time before moving on to our new theme for next year, 'Revealed'. The show runs in tandem with 'Simply Christmas - the Crafty Christmas Show' and 'Cake International', which all sounds rather tempting and we look forward to seeing some of you there.

Cath

Jan Seys

We are extremely sad to announce the death of our dear friend Jan.  She was a kindhearted and talented woman, a great teacher and a lovely friend.

Knitting & talking

Today let's celebrate Jan's work and some of the happy moments we had recently at the NEC.

Jan & Dia with Deborah, the Creative Director from Janome

Small pieces of work on canvas

Orkney: a knitted and wet-felted vessel

Brancaster: free machined and handstitched

Mordor: needle felted, machine & hand stitched

Off the Beaten Track: bonded applique and hand stitched

Knitted and felted brooches

Knitting at the NEC exhibition

We will miss Jan and her contribution to the group immensely.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Jan's family.
Bernice

I have known Jan since the Experimental textile course which we began together in early 2016. Jan was an unique person, warm, kind, helpful, quiet, knowledgeable, an excellent teacher and did beautiful work. At our Traverse NEC Exhibition she was so happy. She showed me how to use the embellisher and embellish knitted work. I thought that technique was very special and started a piece myself and was excited to show Jan, sadly she passed away.

Dia's work using Jan's technique

It was a privilege to be her friend and I have fond memories of her. Jan rest in peace.
Dia

Jan, your determination was inspirational.  I loved your down to earth attitude and your advice was always spot on ... you gave so much but had so much more to give.  I'm going to miss you but am happy I was able to call you my friend ... sleep well lovely lady ... lots of love
Deb

I met Jan for the first time in 2016 when all of us in Traverse met at Inkberrow Design Centre for the initial weekend of Experimental Textiles. She was a quiet, softly spoken lady but always had a warm smile and willingness to offer suggestions to anyone of us needing advice. Jan’s own work was always so beautiful and detailed and much admired by all. Jan was a wonderful friend and will be very much missed.

Becca

Jan was a very special person - a gifted quilter and embroiderer, who was always looking to expand her considerable knowledge of working with textiles, approaching new techniques with such enthusiasm - a teacher and maker of wonderful things, who brought so much to Traverse. She shared with us a wealth of experience and always had a positive response if we had a problem with a particular project, calmly coming up with a reassuring smile and a solution. I'll remember Jan's courage, her generosity of spirit, the warmth of that smile and the twinkle in her eye. I'm thankful for the chance to know her and glad to have been her friend.
Cath

Our First Exhibition

We are slowly recovering from an exciting few days at the NEC last week. It all went very quickly and smoothly, although slightly complicated by the weather. The snow on Sunday meant I couldn't get back to Birmingham as planned - there were times when I even wondered whether I'd get home after my concert on Saturday night but that's another story.

I was really sorry not to see the whole event through and not just because I was going to actually buy some resources on Sunday to add to my stash! It was just such an enjoyable experience and I wanted to be there through to the end; it was the culmination of all our hard work over the past year.

It began with build-up day on the Wednesday and we watched as the stand slowly began to take shape, thanks to our trusty build-up team of Roger and Chris, who managed to satisfy all my random (fussy) requests for various wall fittings with a smile - my reputation for faffing grew as the day went on.

 

   

It went up pretty easily, notwithstanding my foibles and we left that night, looking forward to welcoming visitors to the stand the following day. Although Chris's coat looked particularly avant-garde and might have been a useful talking point with them, he did take it home ...

and it was replaced the following day by 'Destination Life - The Ultimate Journey' - one of Deb's unwearable dresses ...

... an unwearable dress, which actually proved to be very wearable!

It was a case of 'now you see it, now you don't' for Deb's dresses as they made several appearances on the catwalk, being replaced by a photo in their absence.

Another exhibit which caught the eye of many of our visitors, was Dia's twisted vessel - how did she do that?

We particularly wanted to demonstrate some of our methods while we were there and they provided a useful talking point and in many cases (we were told) inspiration to people. Bernice's mixed media work was very much admired and she was asked many questions about it.

Bernice loves books and here are some examples of her beautiful artbooks.

She demonstrated how to make several different kinds of books on the stand ...

... including this beautiful fabric scroll book, a work in progress, which I'm really looking forward to seeing as she made it on Sunday, when I wasn't there.

Several of our exhibits were made either wholly or in part on an embellisher, which is a needle felting machine. For example, the background for Cath's 'Zanskar' ...

... and Jan's 'Mordor' ...

...and Deb's 'Destination Mindfuless - Wistful Thinking' were needle-felted both by machine and by hand.

We were able to borrow an embellisher from Janome and demonstrated several ways of using it on the stand. We were very grateful to be given this opportunity and here are Jan and Dia thanking Deborah Shepherd, the Creative Director of Janome.

Dia really enjoyed her first experience of using it.

Here, Jan is experimenting with needle-felting knitted fabric.

There was great interest. Some people were very curious as to how it actually worked and there were many comments like 'Where's the thread?' This lady was typical of many who already had an embellisher and were looking for inspiration.

These are the moments I will remember - sharing experiences and ideas with people and knowing that some were inspired by what they saw on our stand. Our aim was to begin to establish our place in the world of textile art and I hope that some of those lovely people we chatted to will remember us.


There will be more relating to our work on the embellisher later but I'll leave you with Bernice's video of  our time at the exhibition.

Cath Tyler