Last week, I went to my sewing club in Market Harborough. Its proper name is Aspects of Stitch and it's a local branch of the Embroiderers' Guild, a national organisation that I've written about before.
The local group is similar in some ways to #needleworkmonday. Members are interested in all kinds of needlecraft and there is a varied programme of talks, outings, social events and workshops.
The sewing club also does group projects from time to time. The last one was called Endless Landscapes. Each person embroidered a small panel which, when it was put with all the others, created an endless landscape of sky, mountains, lakes and rivers, and lowlands.
The panels can be put together in any order and incorporate a huge range of interpretations and needlework techniques. They were deliberately small, so that anyone felt able to have a go, regardless of skill, and without making a huge time commitment.
Being small and of the same size mean the panels are easy to store and to take to events to display the range of work and interests. They're like a travelling catalogue of inspiration and ingenuity!
The meeting last Thursday was used to launch the next group project: Birds on a Wire.This is the same idea - each panel will have a black line, or wire, that goes from one side of the panel to the other and, above or below or entangled with it, will be a bird. When the panels are finished, the wire will be the point at which the panels are connected (rather than the edges of the panel) to create an up and down sequence of Birds on a Wire.
We were all given a starter pack with the instructions, a stencil to get us going, a small fabric panel and two pages of bird outlines which we could use as we wished. You can make as many panels as you like, as long as each one has the black line from side to side.
At the meeting, we had a chance to try out a method of colouring the background and the bird, using Markal paintsticks. These are oil paints in stick form. They can be a bit like working with lipstick and we were shown how to apply and blend the colours using a toothbrush - much more subtle!
I found this Inspirations Pack in among my things today (I had forgotten how much embroidery equipment and materials I have), I bought it several years ago, when I first visited the sewing club. They make and sell little packs like this to raise funds for the branch.
Here's the result of an evening's work on my panel. The bird shape and its wing were fixed to the background using Bondaweb, an iron-on adhesive web. I've chosen some embroidery silks, including the all important black for the wire, and a few other bits and pieces that I might use.
The bird stencil is reminiscent of some of the Polish folk art and embroidery I saw when we were at Steemfest 3 in Krakow. The colours are very bright and simple and birds like this feature quite often, along with flowers and other animals.
Source The rooster has a special significance in Polish folk traditions. I am thinking of using bright colours like this for the panel.
But when I saw the photograph, especially the way I have put the maroon coloured thread over the tail (I wanted to avoid the shadow caused by having the spool in the picture), I was reminded of Kandinsky.
I like Kandinsky's work a lot, especially the later abstract works.
Source The Rider, 1911 - Wassily Kandinski - collectie.boijmans.nl : Expressionism : Painting, Public Domain.
Perhaps I will think about a more abstract Bird on a Wire for a future panel.