Don't Count the Calories

On Thursday, we started our Embroiderers' Guild meeting with the wonderful news that one of our members, Marjorie Derbyshire, had won 3rd Prize in the Coats Anchor Competition at the North West Regional Day for her hand-felted, embroidered vessel.

Marjorie received a selection of different embroidery threads and was presented with a certificate from the Embroiderers Guild. She also bought along her winning item for us all to see.

We then had the pleasure of listening to our guest speaker, Greta Fitchett, with her talk entitled "Don't Count the Calories" and indeed, there were no worries that anyone would be adding inches to their waistlines, however the pieces of her work on display were definitely a "feast for the eyes"!

Always working to a theme and inspired by her trips to Venice, she looked at buildings and reflections in the canals, to produce her "strippy" quilts, which were gorgeous. One in particular that was based on mosaic floors resulted in resounding "Ooh's" and "Aah's" from our members – it was covered in the tiniest of sequins and shimmered and sparkled when it was walked round the room.

Greta is known nationally for her more recent work, based on items you're more likely to find on your plate rather than a streetscape. With her dry sense of humour, she explained the difficulty she'd had with the research – looking at cake shop windows, checking out the layers of an ice cream sundae, having to make a cake to know exactly what a bowl of cake mixture looks like and eating boxes of chocolate so that she had the box to display her work!

As well as small journal quilts illustrating the joy and comfort of "a cup of tea", "baking a cake" and "apple pie", there was a whole cake stand displaying embroidered éclairs, cupcakes and fairy cakes.

Realistic embroidered sundaes, brought on a smile, and I defy anyone not to reach out for one of the hand-embroidered selection in the Thornton's box of chocolates! Our stomachs might have been rumbling by the end of the morning but we all went away visually satisfied.

Our next meeting, on 16th June 2011, is "Stumpwork" with Kay Dennis. Please check out our website for more photos and information at our website – click on the link below the photos.

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