a few weeks ago

as I said before, it has been rather hectic with starting teaching this year. and I won't get into it all, but it hasn't really got better yet.

anyway...

Before all that, and before the MIL 91st birthday, the Thames Valley group met for their September meeting. We ended up in the Birch Hill School Hall because the Community Centre had been double booked.

Annie Hamilton gave a talk about a series of very personal pieces she had made. Each piece represented a place where she had lived and had references of events - either by using a certain colour for certain emotions, or through little images of buildings and people, and also through words stitched into the work.

As you can see in the group shot in the first photo, the Bracknell Town Mayor, Gill Birch visited us in the morning. She said she enjoyed the talk. I think she has booked to come visit on the afternoon of the next meeting, too! She asked if she should wear her chain the next time. I said, if she wanted to. But she was welcome to come as Gill Birch if she wanted to!

One of our members is in the process of getting cleared out for a move up north. So, she was selling off a wide range of felt making equipment, books and so on. I bought several things relating to paper making. something I wanted to do, but hadn't got DH to make a frame. now I have one for a very small fraction of the original price, plus some other bits and pieces as well.

In the afternoon we had an activity centred round the Suitcase Collection: Childhood Memories hired from the Contemporary Quilt group.

A few shots of the A3 size pieces laid out on display.

Jane Glennie ran a very thought provoking excercise in which she had groups of people look at the quilts as if they were to curate a show. They were to think about ways they could be grouped and so on. The pieces could be viewed without looking at the statement or could be lifted using the white gloves to find the page with the artist statement beneath. Some of the stories were very poignant, others were very joyful.

The comments about the activity were quite positive. Some spoke about having a better understanding about what goes on behind the scene and some spoke about how it could help them with upcoming shows they are participating in.