We will be there doing some stitching and would love to have people to talk to.
Dijanne Cevaal
Dijanne Cevaal will be our guest speaker at our next Sit and Sew on Monday May 9th. She is well known internationally for her Travellers Blankets and her series of female Sentinelles. She has worked on printmaking on fabric to embroider. She is going to bring some of her prints and fabrics for us to buy so don’t miss out. Visitors are welcome so bring your friends.
Our meeting starts at 10am and goes until 2pm. Bring your lunch and join us at St David’s Church Hall, Aphrasia Street, Newtown.
Colourful stitching by our President Pauline Mackenzie
We are making a new start with the hope that we will be able to get together more often. We do enjoy our friendships and shared love of stitching.
Our first Sit and Sew meeting this year will be on Monday 14th February 10am – 2pm at St David’s Church Hall Aphrasia Street Newtown. We’d love to see everyone there and look forward to meeting some of our new members again, or for the first time!
It’s also our AGM when our new committee will be voted in. If you’d like to help running our branch or think a friend would be great in this role please contact us before 21st January.
Classes and Workshops will be up and running soon. First up some cute Rabbits.
Our smaller groups will also be getting under way – the Canvas work group are first up with a Round Box Top mini workshop, 20th January. Patchwork Group meets on Tuesday 25th January
Assisi work by Barbara Grose
Counted Thread enthusiasts will have a meeting on Monday February 7 10.30am- 1pm at South Barwon Community Centre, Mount Pleasant Rd Belmont. We will see if there are enough people to form a new group. If you love Assisi, Hardanger, Blackwork, Cross stitch, Pulled or Drawn Thread, Shwalm or any other counting stitches please think about joining in. The group will share knowledge and perhaps have a program of learning new stitches.
Artisan Books and Geetag (Textile Arts Group) – Saturday 12th Feb and Slow Stitch Thursday 10th Feb (good for beginners) are also keen to get going again.
Wyndham Vale group will also be meeting to decide on their future meetings so keep an eye out for info.
Our famous Garage Sale will be held on Saturday 26th March so start going through your stash to find donations – bring these to Sit and Sew or contact us for a pick up.
Our newsletter Geelong Threads will keep members in touch with the latest on activities classes and groups
Once again we have been prevented from running our excellent exhibition.
We have sadly decided that it is too much of a gamble to go ahead. It is too much to ask our volunteers and loyal visitors to be exposed, with the numbers of covid cases on the rise in our neighbouring areas. Extensions of the lockdown now seem likely.
The raffle will still be drawn as advertised and if you have tickets please hang on to them.
We hope that you will get to see the wonderful artworks that we have been creating at some time in the not too distant future when our Phoenix finally rises from the ashes.
Our Birthday celebrations were held at our June meeting. Sadly the President from The Guild in Melbourne was unable to travel to join us (due to yet another lockdown) but our very own Valda King who is the Branches Liaison Officer was able to present our long standing members with their certificates to commemorate their support over many years.
L-R Berry Millard, Marj Kavanagh, Rosa Cullen, Jean Shinners, Valda King (Branches Liaison Officer) and Pauline Mackenzie (EGV Geelong President) [Irene Roach, not present]
We all enjoyed our morning tea and congratulate these very special members.
We’ve expanded our Special Interest Groups to include 2 new ones and a proposed one.
We never stand still! We have our birthday meeting on Monday 14th June with visitors from Embroidery House. We will be honouring our members who have reached their 25 year status.
We are trying out a new Guidance Group – Slow Stitch starting on Thursday 8th July
We are on track now for our exhibition, brought forward from last year but now up and running on Friday 10th – Sunday 12th September. Up, Up and Away! is the theme and it should prove to be very well worth a visit, as usual.
More about these will be announced as the time nears.
If you are new to embroidery, or need to refresh your stash (and who doesn’t!) you must visit our garage sale. We have burrowed through our stashes and donated so that you can have one too.
Our Geelong Design Week display (19th and 20th March) at the Geelong Library was fun and those who visited were impressed. Hopefully we will have a few new members who found us there.
We are thinking positively and have some wonderful activities planned for the next little while. Check our special interest groups for their days and times
We will be out and about Stitching in Public forGeelong Design Week on Friday 19th and Saturday 20th March 10 – 4pm at the Geelong Regional Library and Heritage Centre, 51 Little Malop Street. Come and see our work. You can even try out some stitching for yourself!
We have a Garage Sale organised for Saturday March 27th 9am – 1pm at St David’s Hall Aphrasia St Newtown. Books and Kits, Fabric, Sewing Tools, Threads and Beads. Come along and add to your Stash!
Classes are starting, including Ann-Marie Anderson-Moyes Dragonflies in the Garden canvas work class . Intermediate Surface Stitchery is a six class series giving you a very good introductory base for your embroidery adventure. Classes info page is Here
We started our year with a very chatty Sit and Sew in February and ( we look forward to our next on Monday 8th March at St David’s Hall Aphrasia St Newtown 10am – 2pm) Join us on the second Monday of the Month
A Message from our new President for 2021 – Pauline Mackenzie
Just staying in touch…..
Hi everyone, a lot of us have been chatting on our Facebook Group and it has been amazing and also wonderful to see everyones’ beautiful pieces of work.It has been a very arduous 2020, and we don’t want a repeat performance.
Some of our members have been meeting in small groups and that is great in order to maintain our contacts with various people. I have always felt that our Branch is a wonderful friendship group, where we share our achievements and maintain our various friendships. We don’t want to lose members, because it is our members who we all learn from and who have life time sewing skills that they are all eager to share.
For our first meeting for 2021 there will be strict Covid rules which are there to keep everyone safe. We even have our very own COVID coordinator, but she promises not to carry a whip or long darning needles…!
So to you all, stay safe and look forward to seeing you all Monday, February 8 at St. David’s Church Hall, Aphrasia Street Newtown at 10am. Bring lunch and your own mug for tea or coffee.
It looks as though we won’t be meeting again for some time yet. I’m guessing that being at home is a mixed blessing for our members. Some will be on their own and hopefully you are managing to look after yourselves and take the opportunity to do some stitching. Others will be sharing their isolation with their immediate families. Learning to manage working arrangements for yourselves or your partners, and maybe your children, may not leave so much time for “play”.
Don’t forget that stitching can be a very soothing and meditative process as the needle slips in and out of the cloth.
There are lots of places on the Internet that can give some help, ideas or jolts to your creativity. If you are a Facebook member you might like to join our own group there. Many lovely pieces of work are being shown and web places of interest are shared.
Our future activities are still on hold, we will keep you informed as things change. Hopefully we will be getting together and stitching together soon!
Embroidery Geelong 