TVCT meeting

On Saturday we had the May TVCT meeting. Because of the snow in January and cancelling that meeting, this was the first time we were all together since November.

We had a fascinating speaker - Meike Laurenson, who talked to us about an embroidery programme which was developed between European stitchers and Afghanistan embroiderers. They stitch small squares for payment. This gives them money for needed items including fuel for their homes. The squares have then been sent to European textile artists who find ways of incorporating them into their work. The work sold is then put back into the project to provide the cloth and embroidery threads for the ladies in Afghanistan.
If you want to find out more about the project, you can go to the Afghanistan Inspiration page at One Earth Textiles.

There is a new project which people can get involved with. This time, European textile artists will make A4 pieces which the Afghan ladies will embroider into. Then they will be returned for the Europeans to complete. This project is called 'Out of the Kitchen'. If you want to get involved, you can follow the link.

After the talk, we had a chance to look through the embroidered squares available for purchase which Meike had brought with her.

As you can guess, members were very delighted with the primitive drawing aspect to the images.

Several of us fell in love with particular pieces that caught our eyes. Margaret Ramsey has photos on her blog of the pieces she purchased. The multi-coloured fat-tailed sheep is especially wonderful.

Here are the ones I purchased. These are not to be worked for the project, just pieces you can buy for your own use - framing, using in a card, or whatever.

I loved the middle ages style depiction of this bird - chicken, turkey or turkey buzzard, who can tell!

This photo from a magazine article about the project gives a little clue what the inspiration might be, but it is still not too clear.

I think it will make a wonderful inspiration to develop further to create a fantastical creature piece! Can't you just see it reworked as a 'fire creature'?

The colours on this embroidery drew me. I think I could incorporate this into a work which would go with the fruit pieces I did as part of the journal quilts last year.

and here is one I wish I had picked up! Love the rainbow horse!

I haven't got a good photo of the talk, but Meike seemed to enjoy the discussion over the lunch table, and before long she was also involved the discussions about the Halfway Between work that is being made!

Meike is the one with the purple scarf near the door at the back.