Hemmed in

Copyright Zoe Williams 2012

 Our local Art Gallery has a great textile exhibition on called Hemmed In: Embroidery and Needlework from MK and Beyond. It presents work from the 1930s to the present by over fifty practitioners and is organised with MK Embroiderers Guild and Jamie Chalmers, otherwise known as Mr X Stitch. Ranging from the local to the international, the exhibits include needlework through unusual media, techniques and unexpected subject matter, including street art, rock music and internet spam.

Copyright Stephanie Thannhauser 2012

I took part in the MK Embroiderers Guild (MKEG) part of the exhibtion (see my work above) which challenged their members to represent ‘Milton Keynes in an eight-inch square’, to create small, needle and thread portraits of their favourite places in the city. The results constitute a real celebration of the city in stitch. In addition to work by the members, the exhibition includes a number of rare and significant pieces on loan from national collections, including such luminaries from the embroidery world as Rebecca Crompton, Rachael Thompson, Julia Caprara and Beryl Dean.

The exhibition at MK Gallery runs from 7 December 2012 – 6 January 2013, and admission is free.

Merry Christmas EVERYONE!

I 'd like to wish all my lovely followers and folk that drop by my blog a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. A big thank you for taking time to leave comments and I hope you have fun whatever you do!

Christmas Eve stroll

Every Christmas, Milton Keynes Centre has a fab. Christmas show. Each year it's a different theme, this year it's The Land of Enchanted Dreams. It features millions of fairy lights, a wishing tree, fairies and toadstools and lots of fake snow - magical!

Home Made Deccies and tatt

Paper chains inspired by little tree's garland, thanks little tree!

One of my favourite Christmas songs

Don't stress!

Watching this video has just reminded me that stressing about Christmas is a luxury. My kids have so much in comparison to those in the film. Landfill Harmonic is an upcoming feature-length documentary about a remarkable musical orchestra in Paraguay, where the musicians play instruments made from rubbish. Cateura, Paraguay is a town essentially built on top of a landfill. Garbage collectors browse the rubbish for sellable goods, and children are often at risk of getting involved with drugs and gangs. When orchestra director Szaran and music teacher Fabio set up a music program for the kids of Cateura, they soon had more students than they had instruments.

That changed when Szaran and Fabio were brought something they had never seen before: a violin made out of garbage. Today, there’s an entire orchestra of assembled instruments, now called The Recycled Orchestra.

 

The film shows how trash and recycled materials can be transformed into beautiful sounding musical instruments, but more importantly, it brings witness to the transformation of precious human beings.

Beautifully wrapped

I met up with my crafty chums on Friday and we exchanged gifts. Here is one of the pressies I received, beautifully wrapped hey?

ELF

We watch it every year to get us in festive mood. It was on TV yesterday. Our kids LOVE it, we LOVE it. I want Elf to come and decorate my house with all those cut out decorations, paper chains and fake snow. Santa's coming.................. S-A-N-T-A!

Oh lovely, more glittery goodness......

............on some Crimbo cards I designed for Jodds. Sorry the snaps are a bit rubbish, it's hard to photograph glittery stuff. I'm feeling super festive today, we had some snow in the night. I might wear a party hat while I work today : )