Waltham Textile Group

I had a great time yesterday with the Waltham Textile Group ladies who meet once a month at Waltham, on the outskirts of Grimsby. It’s a lovely friendly group and workshops here are always a pleasure to do. I was invited over this time to run a wet felting workshop with the aim of producing a flower meadow type picture. One or two of the ladies had previously done a little wet or needle felting but for the majority this would be their first experience of felting. I had intended that we work small and simple to get the pieces almost, if not completely, finished before we went home………no chance!! These ladies know what they want to do and they are all very experienced when it comes to sewing so they decided to concentrate on the felting and the majority of the sewing will get finished at home.

By the end of the session there was some wonderful felt created, I am hoping to get back over to their November meeting when I can photograph the finished work and post an update. In the meantime here are photos from the workshop…..

Aileen & Anita chose to do a Flower Meadow

Carole based her design on a section of her garden

Kate’s design was inspired by her garden

Margaret went completely “off piste” and created a sea scape

Anita adding hand stitching to her meadow

Jacky adding free machine stitching to her design inspired by the work of Moy Mackay

Aileen adds detail with machine stitching

Brenda chose to make several pieces of flat felt to cut and stitch at a later date

Final show and tell…..lots more stitching to be done so I will post an update next month

Thanks go to Jacky for inviting me over and I look forward to seeing you all again very soon.

This morning I visited “Faraway Places”, an exhibition celebrating the work of the Waltham Textile Group, led by Jacky Hopkin. The venue, adjacent to Waltham Windmill, makes it an ideal spot for families to visit with cafes, picnic area, miniature railway, etc.

There was a very varied and interesting selection of work on display featuring a whole range of techniques including hand stitching, free machine stitching, crazy patchwork, applique, burning, fabric painting and machine embellishing to name just a few! The work really was inspiring as you will see from the following selection of quilts…….