A New Beginning

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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.

Hands were kept busy while we were at home…

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Still Stitching

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Tamari Balls 2002.

Tamari Balls from Madge Pinge’s workshop.

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.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/www.embroiderygeelong.org/

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!

Stitching Alone!

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The Covid-19 virus is affecting all sorts of activities. We will be closing our meetings and classes until at least the end of April when we will be seeing what is appropriate then.

Here is a letter from our President

Dear Members

I am very sad to have to let you know that as a result of the current COVID-19 (corona) virus situation the Committee has decided that all scheduled classes, the April Sit and Sew meeting, the Sit and Sew session scheduled at the Library for Heritage Week in April and all meetings of our Guidance Groups will be cancelled (or postponed in the case of classes) from 17 March until the end of April. 

If you know a member who doesn’t have access to email, would you kindly pass this information on to them. I will also try to contact these members.

Embroidery House is closing for the next few months, and other branches are taking similar actions to ours in order to protect the health of our members. The Committee will meet again at the end of April to assess the situation and we will let you know what the next steps will be for our Branch. 

I suppose that the only positive thing to come out of this is that some of our unfinished projects may get completed! 

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions about this decision. It wasn’t taken lightly, but we all felt that the safety of our members was the priority.

Kind regards – and keep stitching. – Leonie Lister

Connecting Stitchers

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Kaz

Kaz McGlynn Mixed media

K Maloney book2s

Kerrie Maloney Book binding

weaving variation 2 and 3

Brenda Ryan’s Playing with Stitch

We are about to start our year’s program. Some of our groups have already met and our Intermediate Certificate Surface Stitchery students have their first class on Feb 3rd. I know they are getting excited. The Embroiderers Guild, Victoria turns 60 this year and there are many celebrations to come.

We start our Up Up and Away Exhibition year with a program of classes and workshops which will be open to the public. Connect 60: A seminar for those who like to Stitch It runs from March 10th to 22nd with  classes for all interests from Goldwork and Tudor Embroidery to more modern Playing with Stitch, Mixed Media  and Bookbinding.

To see the many other  classes and workshops we have this year Click here  Classes 2020

One of our groups is GeeTAG – the Geelong Textile Arts Group. This group meets on the 2nd Saturday of the month  12.45 – 3pm at St David’s. The program for the year contains lots of different techniques culminating in some final works and a Challenge entry for the exhibition in September.

Join us at our Sit and Sew meeting on the 2nd Monday of every month starting on Feb 10th at 10am. Bring your lunch and something to sew…you’ll never look back.

Most of our meetings are held at St David’s Church Hall, Aphrasia St Newtown.

Year’s End and New beginnings

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Patchwork Glenys

Patchwork scrappy quilt by Glenys Sikorski

We had our Annual General Meeting in October this year, as we will do from now on. It used to get very busy around Christmas time so now we can just celebrate!

A new committee was elected with Wendy Findlay, President of the EGV presiding. A very welcome guest along with Jenni Smith.

Committee for 2020 is:  Leonie Lister (President), Jenny Bakos, Yvonne Davidson, Ann Lawrence (Secretary), Marilyn Marshall (Treasurer), Anne Monagle, Gillian Norris, Dianne Richmond and Marion Dines (co-opted as minutes Secretary)

Xmas tree 2017 1

Santa’s been

Christmas will be celebrated by many of our groups, as well as the Big Sit and Sew Bring- a – Plate shared lunch on Monday 9th December. All are welcome to this meeting at St David’s Church Hall starting at 10am. Bring something to sew and join in the fun.

 

We have some busy Guidance groups with a recent Patchwork group showing off some

Patchwork Lyn (2)

Group scrappy quilt

of their work. This quilt was put together by Lyn Hughes using blocks made by group members in a workshop on scrappy blocks. Random choices made for a colourful finish.

Seniors Festival Special Invitation

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By Laurene Wilkes

You are invited to our celebration for the Geelong Seniors Festival on Monday October 14th 2019 from 12 noon – 2pm

Join us for stitching, a chat, a light lunch and see what we are embroidering.

Our Sit and Sew meeting at St David’s will be open to the public between 12 noon and 2 pm. A light luncheon will be available for everyone. If you have something you are working on please bring it along, or we will provide a small item to stitch if you wish.

The Geelong Seniors Festival is the largest community celebration for Seniors in Regional Victoria and a major partner of the state wide Victorian Seniors Festival.

As well as being a great opportunity to get out and about for little or no cost, the Festival provides a rare insight into what is on in Geelong for the rest of the year, as most of the events are staged by local clubs and interest groups.

We’ve been busy

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Classes and workshops are one of the most important ways of passing the skills of embroidery on from one embroiderer to the next. Recent classes and workshops have been fun and we have learnt an enormous amount. There is a lot of talent in our group.

Why don’t you join in for our next classes or workshops.

Some photos including Katherine Hamer Fox’s class in Creative Machine Embroidery, Delva White’s workshop in Wessex Stitchery and Jane Croxford’s Long and short stitch workshop – Hedgehog

Classy Fun

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Djianne Cevaal’s Machine Embroiderers
Sisters Stitch Boro



Our next Sit and Sew meeting is on Monday 11th March from 11am to 2pm at St David’s Church Hall Aphrasia Street Newtown At these meetings we work on our existing sewing or join in the Try-Out table to try a technique that may be new to you. We bring our lunches, chat and exchange ideas and sewing tips.

We also have access to the comprehensive library collection and are able to see what classes are coming up in the future. This year has already seen some wonderful work from class members and there are two International tutors lined up for later in the year

Education is an important part of our Guild actitivities, passing on the traditional and new styles of embroidery. Classes are held throughout the year and prove very popular including our recent Summer School ones. Lists of upcoming classes are available at the meetings and in the newsletter that goes out to our members. Coming up soon, Alison Cole will be teaching a Goldwork project in March – get in quickly for this one.

A Taste of Candlewicking workshop will be held on Friday April 5th

Alison Snepp, from NSW will be back for her final teaching session here and you must not miss her class, which will impart much of what she has learned in her long career as an embroiderer.

Hazel Bloemkamp, Crewel embroidery expertfrom South Africa, will be visitiing us in September so lots to look forward to.

New classes and workshops are added all the time, so come to meetings or join the Guild to get our newsletter for more information.

The Year moves on

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We are about to have our Annual General Meeting at which we ratify the appointment of those members who have been nominated to positions on the committee for next year. Thanks to those who have thrown their names into the ring this time.

The meeting is on Monday 10th December from 10am at St David’s Hall, Aphrasia Street Newtown. We welcome new members to join our many activities.

Brenda Ryuan Rackham Fragments 3

Rackham Fragments

Summer School is an exciting time for us and there are so many things to try.  See the Classes page for full details.

Blackwork, Scrumbling, Brenda’s Rackham Fragments and Needle lace are all on the list. Drawing for design is an important skill that we all need and we have a tutor from South Australia – Lorelle Leham to set us on the right path.

Kathryn Harmer Fox is to visit later in the year, very exciting.

We are also planning a retreat at Melrose Cottage in Ballan 15th – 17th April, Contact us now if you are interested

 

Shazam! What a Success!

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Winner of People’s Choice Group challenge – Canvaswork Tiles

Geetag’s Golden Scrolls

Our much anticipated exhibition flew by last weekend . By all accounts a raging success. The quality of work was amazing and it is always a joy to see items that have been produced by our members at home and which suddenly see the light of day at exhibition times.

The Raffle Winners are as follows:

1st Jacqui Beltchev No. 0905

2nd Sue Butler No 0308

3rd Barbara Tol No. 0336

4th Jenny Bakos No. 0145

5th Madeleine Campbell No. 0232

6th Sally Atkinson No. 0546

7th Jenny Foster No. 0134

8th Georgia Mellas No. 0479

9th Barbara Morgan No.0588

10th Pauline Veale No. 0436

11th Joyce Hunter No. 0498

We ran a People’s Choice award and the worthy winners were:

Most Popular Exhibit: “Rackham fragments” Quilt by Brenda Ryan

Individual Challenge: ” Treasure Chest” by Denise Bell

Guidance Group Challenge: “Tiles” by Canvas Work Group.