GeeTAG and Postcards

The GeeTAG group I belong to meets on the second Saturday of the month to share ideas, inspire each other and learn/have a go at new techniques. A small group of us organise the details including a yearly program, update the blog and forward interesting items via an email list. Each year we propose a program at our February meeting for discussion, based on an online survey we email out at the end of each year. The group often has a flow in and out of members, some move on to pursue their own work and new members are always joining when they see the fun we have with fabric and thread.

For 2016 we decided to scale back on the ‘workshops’ as we found the same people were doing all the work to run workshops which we run over and over again for the new members. Instead of full scale workshops requiring lots of materials we run mini tutorials where we demo a technique quickly and email out a technique sheet for people to try at home. We are also running a ’15 minutes of fame’ session bi-monthly as many of our members are very accomplished textilers and it is great to see all the different ways they produce some beautiful works.

Our program this year has been to propose a theme and a technique each month for which members are encouraged to produce a postcard piece of textile art. Of course some of our members are taking this further by producing book pages, or a number of postcards each month. One of our members, who has a stash beyond life expectancy, generously makes  up little packages for us each year for our xmas meeting. This is designed to be used for a ‘starter’ for the next year’s program. This year we all received a bonbon of goodies, mine included lots of interesting images on paper, stamps, little tiles, embroidery threads, ribbons etc all in a subtle vintage pastel colour range. The idea was to create a decorated box in which to place our postcards. Mine is a layered collage on calico to which I am adding the TAST stitches each week, eventually becoming a very heavily embroidered cover for my tetley tea bag box.

I have all my postcards in various levels of completeness, hopefully I will catch up in the upcoming mid year break. This is the one for May, theme Flotsam and Jetsom, technique recycled . First step was some fabric manipulation using hand stitch of some re-gifted, well washed calico onto a backing of curtain sample. Each day when I walk the dogs at the beach it is interesting to see the different patterns left as the tide flows out. One day there was a distinct smocked appearance to the beach with all the items embedded into the sand so I have attempted that look here.

It has been coloured with inktense sticks and ironed flat. It will be embellished with stitch and found objects to create the beach after the tidal flow.

I am also hoping to enter an item in the upcoming local exhibition at Studio 54 for the Bellarine Arts Trail on Melbourne Cup Week so that will also keep me busy over the holidays. Perhaps next year I will be organised enough to be a host venue.