OVGS Spring Workshop 2015

“Dancing Threads” Teacher: Hazel Blomkamp

23-24 May 2015 9:00-4:30 (Saturday and Sunday)  4th weekend in May

Location: Moncion Independent Grocers, 671 River Road, Community Room upstairs

Cost:

OVGS Members: $75 (includes class and kit fee) + $35 book fee = $110

Non-guild members: $100

Maximum number of students: 20

Design Size is 120mm(4 3/4")x77mm (3")

Deposit of $25 due with sign up.

Remainder due at April 2015 guild meeting

Hazel's contract wiht the publisher requires that every student taking a class where one of the projects is taught own a copy of the book it is from.

The piece "Dancing Threads" is from her latest book "Crewel Intentions"

Extra kits for any of Hazel's Projects:

If you would like to purchase any kits that Hazel has for her projects, you must contact Hazel directly by email to deal directly with her.  Hazel will bulk ship all kits for the class and any you have ordered to us here in Ottawa in time for the Workshop.  Deadline to order from Hazel is 01 April 2015.

November 8 & 9, 2014

Autumn 2013:  Marie Antoinette’s Shoe

A 2 day Workshop with Cindy Jackson

commissioned by the Ottawa Valley Guild of Stitchery

Please join us for an exciting 2 day workshop which will take place on 2 consecutive Sundays beginning November 24, 2013 and concluding on Decmber 1^st. 2013.

 This delightful three dimensional stitching project is completed on pale rose coloured satin with white cotton applique. Stitching includes various forms of goldwork. The shoe is equisitely embellished with Swarovski Crystals and tiny seed pearls. If you look closely at the photo on the left you will see that Marie Antoinette’s monogrammed initials are carefully incorporated into the sole of the shoe in tiny Swarowski crystals.

 Don’t miss this one of a kind opportunity to join in on a 2 day workshop which was commissioned by the Ottawa Valley Guild of Stitchery from the artist.

 Shoe is 9”L x 2 ½ ”W x 2 ½”H

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Spring Workshop with Alison Cole May 25 & 26, 2013

Rambling Clematis

Ottawa Valley Guild of Stitchery is pleased to announce our spring workshop with internationally renowned embroidery teacher Alison Cole. Alison comes to us from Victoria , Australia and is particularly noted for her stumpwork and goldwork creations.

After having so many people ask if they can purchase a kit for the Clematis I have now designed a smaller piece for those that love this gorgeous flower.  My parents used to have them growing up the poles in the main shadehouse at their fuchsia nursery.  This piece is worked in English Goldwork threads and Australian hand dyed Gumnuts silks on a background of black delustered satin.  Design size:  15cm x 15cm.

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Napkins and Beyond

November 17 & 18, 2012

Napkins & Beyond : An OVGS Exclusive Workshop

On Nov 17 & 18 four brave souls from OVGS embarked on an exotic adventure under the expert guidance of our own Andrea Schlosser as we explored the uncharted territory of stitching , distressing and generally destroying a select bunch of paper napkins. The workshop involved creating new and very unique works of art by deconstructing the napkins in various ways and then transferring the results to felt backings for the added fun of stitching ourselves silly. A truly fun time was had by all which was added to by the beautiful, sunny November days we were given to enjoy our creativity constantly bathed in light. Our thanks to Andrea and to Moncion’s Independent Grocers for providing us with the room in which we were able to spread out and create our masterpieces.

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Machine embroidered Landscapes

Spring 2012

Machine Embroidered Landscapes with Linda McBain Cuyler

I am a fibre artist who combines acrylic paint and free motion machine embroidery to create landscapes, gardenscapes and work influenced by one or the other. My work is colourful and textured and happy.

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Ariadne - November 2011 - CANCELLED

Cynthia Jackson

Cynthia Jackson is an award-winning artist who creates intricate arrangements of fibre and stitch to achieve her artistic objectives.  Her pieces use intriguing imagery to stir complex emotions and communicate concepts, often straying into the abstract.  As an international member of the Society of Designer Craftsmen in the UK, her work has been exhibited in Europe, and she has taught across Canada and in the United States. 

Cynthia Jackson completed her apprenticeship in traditional hand embroidery at the Royal School of Needlework in London, UK.  She is an Embroiderers' Association of Canada certified Embroidery Teacher.  She has earned her BA (Hons) Embroidered Textiles from Middlesex University and continues to research the fascinating history of hand embroidery while maintaining her roles as teacher and contemporary visual artist.

Squares of Colour - October 2010

Squares of Colour will teach participants that a beautiful canvas piece can be  developed using only minimal stitches and fibres. This piece will be small – only 5¼" x 5 ¼". Participants will have the opportunity to choose from several colour ways. Samples will be available as a starting place for participants as they will be encouraged to design their own. These small pieces are ideal for working into a top for a handmade box, a small bag or even as an element in a larger design. Students are asked to bring to class 12" x 12" stretcher bars, tacks for mounting the canvas, a weight or stand to allow students to work with both hands, a laying tool, a light and magnifer if needed, and their usual stitching kit. Kit cost is $45.00 which includes 1 overdyed silk, 2 coordinating solid silks, #4 and 12 Braid, and 18 count canvas. Total cost including kit is $90.

Pat Caffery, Ottawa, Ontario

Pat Caffery is an artist, designer and teacher who has exhibited in London, England, Oakville, Toronto and Ottawa. She frequently works on group embroidery projects, some of these can be found in the collection of the Dutch Royal Family in Apeldorn, The Netherlands, in Canberra, Australia and in various churches in the Ottawa area. Her work is also in private collections in Canada.

Picket Fence Garden  - February 2010

This small, colourful garden introduced many techniques, including using silk painting and opaque textile paints to create the background. Students choose their own colours for this. A simple couched gold thread border outlines the garden, adding a bit of sparkle. The students learned how to use combinations of several surface embroidery stitches to create each of the flowers in this dense garden.

Margaret Vant Erve, Ottawa, Ontario

www.vanterve.ca

A professional embroidery artist and teacher, lives in Ottawa, Canada. Her work depicts the Canadian rural and woodland landscapes, birds and floral studies. Margaret uses a variety of textile paint mediums and crayons to paint her fabric prior to applying hand and machine embroidery. Margaret is a certified teacher with the Embroiderers' Association of Canada and gives workshops across Canada. 

Her book, Window Gardens in Bloom,C&T Publishers, was released in 2005. Margaret's work has also appeared in international textile arts magazines such as STITCH, Workbox and Inspirations. Margaret's work  can be found in many private collections across North America.

Box Making - Fall 2009

Fabric covered boxes are a wonderful way to display small pieces of fibre art.  A piece of canvas-work or cross-stitch can be the entire top or the piece of needlework could be set into a frame somewhat like matting a picture.  While you can make a box any shape or make a cutout any shape,  for this workshop, you will need a finished piece of needlework that is either square or rectangular.  It needs to be ready for framing (ends sewn in, washed and stretched).  The piece should have a finished size no larger than 5x5 or similar rectangle to allow you to complete the box sufficiently to understand all the steps involved.  You will decide the actual size of your box, exactly how to make the lid, and whether you want any inserts or trays.  The course is 2 days, and because there is extensive hand stitching involved there should be at least a week in between the 2 days.

Helen Gordon

Helen has tried just about every possible form of embroidery and textile art.  Her inspiration comes from the world around her, and in watching how everything is connected and interlinked.  She likes to combine many different techniques in one piece of art to produce an unusual design. 

Recently she has added the sewing machine to her tool box and enjoys the speed of producing pieces by machine versus hand sewing.  However, her heart probably still lies with the handwork

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She has exhibited in the juried shows Passions 2007 – Threadworks winning best in show – in Common Thread International 2009 – World of Threads Festival Oakville and is currently exhibiting in Trees, Threadworks 2010.

She has studied with a variety of fibre artists from traditional embroiderers to art quilt artists.

Shashiko - March 2009

Learn this beautiful but simple ancient Japanese stitch, which literally translated means "little stabs".  Traditionally used to repair worn places or tears in clothing, students will experiment with this running stitch technique for decorative purposes. The history of Sashiko will be discussed as well as step by step directions of marking and stitching.

Karen Goetzinger

Karen Goetzinger is an award winning artist, born and raised in Milwaukee, Wisconsin who currently lives in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fashion Design with a minor in Fine Arts. Since 2004 she has taught at the Ottawa School of Art and is a mentor/instructor in the Fine Craft Certificate Program.

Karen is known and sought after for her finely detailed mixed media textile works that are influenced by her roots in traditional quilt making, couture construction, and her life-long passion for the urban landscape. Mike Taylor, curator of the Trinity Art Gallery at the Shenkman Arts Centre in Ottawa, Ontario, was quoted as saying, "It's the multidimensional approach that makes Karen's work pop. She is meticulous in her composition; she has a terrific understanding of tone." Her works have been exhibited by public and private galleries in Canada and the United States, in museums, at regional art exhibitions throughout North America, hang in private collections internationally and are featured in the recently released book "500 Art Quilts" (Lark Books a division of Sterling Publishing Co. Inc.).

Blackwork Peacock and Butterfly - November 2008

In November, 2008 14 Guild members enjoyed another Tanja Berlin 2-day workshop. Tanja  was wonderfully accommodating, offering to teach two different techniques at the same time. Nine people learnt the two-sided technique, which makes the piece reversible. Five others worked on two different Blackwork designs. Everyone agreed that it was a wonderful weekend, and that Tanja is a super teacher.

In this two day class the student worked either a Blackwork Butterfly (2 choices) or the Blackwork Peacock. The student was then taught how to work the Blackwork embroidery from a selection of patterns within the tacked outline of the design.

Apple Blossoms 2-Sided Embroidery - November 2008

In this two day class the student worked an apple blossom branch in DMC Perle Cottons on taffeta fabric.

The student learnt how to work satin stitch, padded satin stitch, stem stitch, and long and short stitch as a reversible stitch so that the embroidery could be viewed from the back or the front of the embroidery.

Tanja, originally from Dorset, England is a graduate and former staff member of the Royal School of Needlework. At the school she became an expert on various techniques of embroidery as they applied to restoration, conservation and commission projects.

Tanja now lives in Calgary and teaches embroidery classes in Canada, USA and internationally. She also maintains a website of her embroidery kits and designs and has had embroidery articles published in Embroidery Canada and Inspiration Embroidery Magazine.

Tanja has five of her thread painting designs featured in the A-Z of Thread Painting and two of her goldwork designs in the A-Z of Goldwork book by Country Bumpkins Publications.

Tanja Berlin

berlinembroidery.com

The embroidery was worked in DMC Perle Cotton, DMC embroidery floss and YLI silk floss in backstitch or double running stitch following a stitch pattern and counting the threads of the fabric. We concentrated on giving the embroidery perspective and dimension by changing the thickness of the thread and altering the density of the patterns.

Happiness Tree - April 2008

This course is designed to give the student an insight into the techniques and use of approximately seventeen/eighteen different crewel embroidery stitches.  It illustrates the balance of colour in the design, and also demonstrates the stylistic Jacobean design with its flowing curved leaves and impressionistic flowers. The piece requires some proficiency in crewel embroidery at the intermediate level.  It is worked using crewel wools on fine linen.

Beverly G. Wile

Beverly has taught crewel embroidery and needlepoint for the past twenty-nine (29) years. She has studied at the Elsa Williams School of Needleart and she obtained her Master Craftsman ? Crewel designation from the Embroiderers' Guild of America in 1995.  She presently teaches private classes and has given workshops at the Nova Scotia Centre for Crafts and Design and certain local Chapters of the Embroiderer's Association of Canada. She has taught a two day workshop at the Stitchers' Ceilidh held in Truro, NS, by the Marigold Guild of Needle Arts, (the annual Seminar of the Embroiderers' Association of Canada).  Jacobean designs using shading techniques are Beverly's speciality.

Blackberry Flowers, Berries and Leaves - September 2007

Mountmellick embroidery is a form of Whitework embroidery, which uses a matt white cotton thread on a heavy cotton satin jean (cotton sateen). The threads are much thicker than normal embroidery floss or even Schwalm threads and there are between two to three different thicknesses used in a piece. Natural motifs are the inspiration for Mountmellick. Stitches used in Crewel embroidery such as back, bullion, buttonhole, chain, coral knot (known as snail trial) couching, feather, fly, herringbone and variations etc are used as well as special stitches created for Mountmellick such as the Mountmellick stitch, cable plait etc. Johanna Carter of Mountmellick, Ireland created this highly textured embroidery, in 1825, and it was named after the town. Since this embroidery is such a sturdy type of embroidery it can be found on sturdier items such as bedspreads, brush and comb bags, pillow shams, tablecloths and doilies. The special knitted fringe applied to its edges can usually identify Mountmellick embroidery.

Erma Scrimgeour
Whitework: A personal Odyssey

Erma recounts that her mother was her first embroidery instructor, but as a child she was the ever-reluctant student (she would have been happier playing outside than sat tied to a needle and hoop), and that her passion for the needle arts emerged much later in life. It was in April 1992 that Erma found and joined the Lakeshore Creative Stitchery Guild (LCSG), which was the first step in her exciting odyssey.

No longer the reluctant student of her youth, Erma now undertook to learn as much about the various forms of embroidery as she could. She soon joined the American Needlepoint Guild (ANG) and the Embroiderers' Guild of America (EGA). She took classes at the LCSG, and regularly attended seminars in both Canada and the United States. During these early years she touched on a multitude of techniques, including some whitework in the form of pulled-thread and Schwalm. But it was not until 2002, when she undertook the Embroiderers' Association of Canada's (EAC's) individual correspondence course in whitework that her true passion for this form of embroidery was ignited. Under the tutelage of EAC Counsellor Bunty Severs, Erma signed on for 18months of intense study, research and, of course, stitching. She was introduced to broderie Anglaise, Richelieu, Hedebo, Mountmellick, and Ayrshire. She completed the course in January 2004, but knew then that her journey had just begun. Over the next several years Erma took classes at the Royal School of Needlework in London, England (2004), the Museum der Schwalm in Germany (2005), and on several trips to Italy (2007, 2008, and 2009). During all this time, Erma strove to share her knew found knowledge and abilities with the members of the LCSG through workshops and courses. Her dedication to this art has inspired an ever-growing group of new whitework enthusiasts who eagerly wait to learn of the next stage in Erma's continuing journey.

Whitework Defined

Treasured Thistle - April 2007

This stitched version of the thistle is done in a simple stumpwork and surface stitches  techniques, with a background done in Pulled and Unpulled stitches . Waterlilies, DMC flosses and Perle cottons are used to create the design.

Heather Macumber

Heather has been involved with the teaching of needlework for over 35 years, teaching many of the different embroidery techniques through Continuing Education classes, Guilds, Seminar, and through her shop, Fair Creation Needle Arts, in Truro, N.S. ( closed 2002).

A Home Economics Education Degree, and B.Ed. laid the ground work. Further study in needlework techniques was done with Anne Adams of One Stitch at a Time, Elsa Williams School of Needlework , American Institute of Textile Arts – Pine Manor College, Boston, plus many more workshops.

Pulled Work, Crewel Embroidery, and Canvaswork are among her favorites.