From Della: October 2011

Jacqui & I dressed for the animal themed final party

My chosen course for this year’s Geelong Fibre Forum was a little out of my comfort zone in that it was a hand embroidery class – ‘Embroidering the Landscape’ with Liz Maidment, a tutor imported from France for the specific purpose of teaching me (OK, and 7 others too)…her particular style of landscape embroidery. I can’t quite remember doing any embroidery after primary school, except for a touch of chain stitch on a set of rompers when Bryn was a baby. Apart from that, I have stuck doggedly to running stitch, which I think I can manage neatly, as well as the mammoth tapestry I completed over a 15 year period, perfect proof that I can colour by numbers.

Despite my obvious lack of experience, I gathered a nice array of embroidery cottons, photographed my ‘landscape’ (a view of our farm), made a passable attempt at sketching the photo as suggested by the tutor, and then turned my mind to more familiar topics, like preparing the various animal-themed costumes that were essential clobber for all well-turned out forum fanatics.

The scene of our farm (looking up the Jeeralang West Road)

A few minutes in the classroom had me feeling quite confident: Liz had a most encouraging and relaxed manner (she didn’t give a shit about what the back of the work looked like, for instance), I was sitting with my friends, Jacqui and Glenda who, as veterans of 2 other embroidery classes, would surely set me straight if necessary, and the class of 8 had all the hallmarks of a ‘nice lot’. I did feel a slight pang of disappointment, however, on hearing Liz’s voice: an English accent, not the delightful French tones I had been anticipating! Oh well, I guess ‘Maidment’ isn’t really a French name, so I should have twigged. We all made up for our loss, however, by doing a few rounds of ‘Alouette’ before Liz arrived one morning…

The 'nice lot' with Liz back left

Liz’s method began with spray-painting the background silk fabric to suggest the colours of the landscape. This then became the canvas on which we stitched our scenes in freehand, selecting fairly simple stitches as dictated by the images. Some scenes were more easily interpreted with a little appliquéd fabric, which was usually embellished with embroidery. Machine embroidery was also an option for this class, either for the whole piece or parts of it. Only Andrea chose this option, and duly produced 3 brilliant and beautiful machine embroideries – but then, every class has its over-achiever!

My spray painted background with Jeeralang West Road appliqued in place. (Note neat assortment of embroidery threads ready to roll!)

Unbelievably, it took me the whole week (nights included) to embroider my little A5-sized piece. But to quote Liz on day 1, it wasn’t a race (thank God!), and I loved every minute of the work! On proudly showing my masterpiece to Steve and mentioning plans of popping it in a little frame, he noted that he had often seen such things adorning the walls of little old ladies’ houses…but then, one does have to come back to reality some time!

The finished masterpiece

But of course, the week was not all about work - far from it! Geelong Grammar School's grounds and buildings provide a lovely setting for catching up with like-minded people and being inspired by their work. And always there is the heady silliness of several hundred women getting together for a good time - lots of laughter, outlandish dressing and the odd glass of wine or two. Looking back through my photos from previous years, I see that there are lots of shots that capture the essence of Geelong Forum, so the following collation is a bit of mixture: