November Dayschool - 'That Darn Stitch' by Patricia Bartlett

Patricia explained she is a member of the Padiham Branch of the Guild and loves everything to do with
textiles. She tries new ideas with great enthusiasm and explored the possibilities of darning when she saw an article in a magazine. She remembers darning socks (as many of the group also did!) with an added comment “Thank goodness for cheaper throw away socks now.”

The very first piece she attempted was an idea based on an allotment. She drew a small square on her fabric which was stretched on a hoop. She applied warp threads to each section
and began to weave with a wide range of interesting yarns (many of which you could only dream of couching onto an embroidery) and ribbons. 
From this she explored with designs of gardens, buildings and creatures and included embroidery stitches on some of her work.

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Patricia tends not to draw her ideas out carefully. She works spontaneously playing with shapes and
textures. It was this point that encouraged us to ‘get stuck in’.
After a few moments to collect our ideas together by either using templates to make abstract shapes and designs or choosing a picture of a landscape, we began to lay down the first warp threads following the shape of our design.

Next we began to weave threads across the warps. The technique was simple but with a wide variety of textured yarns the designs started to come together. In no time at all lunch was upon us. The morning had passed so quickly.

Margaret reported back from the North West Regional AGM at Garstang over lunch as we continued weaving.
After lunch Patricia showed us other ideas she was investigating; using hessian and rag rugging, leaving spaces and even wrapping some of the threads and interlacing them with ribbons. She also explained how to create raised areas by adding extra warp threads over the top of the initial design which gives a 3D effect.
She also showed us some ideas for making simple frames for our work including using paper, card and
‘plastic canvas’ by stitching or threading string around and covering with glue and tissue paper and then adding gilding paint for different effects.

Throughout the day school Patricia spoke to us all individually and offered advice and ideas for other techniques. She was extremely generous with her own threads and materials, which
we were so grateful for. At 3:30pm everyone was still busy stitching -  a sure sign that we had all enjoyed the day.

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Thanks to Patricia for a really inspirational day. Her enthusiasm for the technique certainly rubbed off on all of us.
The ladies in the backroom continued to stitch on their own projects and throughout the day Sylvia
organised the group shop brilliantly, sorting through donations of materials, threads and equipment. At lunch time the sale in the back room raised more funds for the group. Our thanks to Ruth Stuart for her generous donation.