More about Bloom! York 2018 - Part 2

Sitting in the flower seat outside Bill's in York

Bloom! from 5-8 July 2018 was a great success.  To celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Ancient Society of York Florists there was  a floral explosion in the city with flowers and gardens appearing everywhere.  Here are some pics to give you a flavour...

Grand Hotel display

Detail from Grand Hotel display

Exhibition Square

Elizabethan Garden at the Rose Theatre

Betty's window

Detail from Betty's window

Davygate

One of Crabtree & Evelyn's windows

Coppergate

Pop-up tipi bar SÓL ÁST in Dean's Park

Fancy Dance Studio window

Browns window

Dean Court Hotel window boxes

The Ivy

Lotte Inch's window

St Helen's Square

St Martin Le Grand

Theatre Royal

Treasurer's House

Upside Down Design

The Yorkshire Soap Co.

The Mansion House

Pyramid Gallery

Flowers in the Minster

St Helens Church Flowers

And of course it wasn't just going on in the city centre.  Take a look at Bishopthorpe Road...

Bloomin' Lovely Bishy Road

  
You have till Monday 16 July at midday to vote for your favourite in the Bloom! Window Dressing Competition!  Click here to vote. 

Thanks to everyone involved with Bloom! - it's been bloomin' marvellous!  And the final installment of my Bloom! blogs is coming soon - Miniature Magic Gardens & More.

York's Bloomin' Marvellous Flowerwall in Bloom! - Part 1

Part of the Flowerwall at York Explore Library

The Bloom! festival in York over the last few days has made the city look even better than usual.  From the 5-8 July 2018,  the festival celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Ancient Society of York Florists - who have held an annual horticultural show since 1768.  This blogpost is dedicated to the York Learning community art flowerwall at York Explore which was magnficent.

Flower arch at Bloom!

You may remember that I went along to take part in one of the many York Learning flowerwall workshops given by Deborah New - read more here.  Then I told the Fairfax Court Yarnstormers all about it and they decided to get involved - read about that here.  Fiona Dixon & her group Sew Chatty also contributed fab flowers to the project...

Sew Chatty Flowers courtesy of Fiona Dixon

See if you can spot them in the flower wall...

Green flowers

York Learning put on lots of flower making workshops for people to go to. Workshops weren't only held at the library.  Claire Douglas (project leader) & Kerry Roberts took workshops into New Earswick, Skelton and St Barnabas primary schools and Karen at Lakeside primary ran after school workshops for parents & children.

Some people made them at home or in their craft groups.  Sue Clayton worked with older learners & Kat Wood, created lovely flowers from plastic bags with crafty folk at Chapelfields Community   Association & Foxwood Community Centre.  Other groups (including Haxby Methodist Church Hall, Clifton Library & Blossom Women's Group) and individuals (especially Cheryl Pickard & Hannah Savage) also made lots of bloomin' flowers...

Green Flowers

There was such a great variety of flowers - fabric, paper, plastic, willow, stitched, knitted, crocheted and they were all displayed in groups of the same colour...

Blue Flowers

Blue Flowers

Purple Flowers

Red & Orange Flowers

Fabulous Flowers

Yellow flowers

White flowers

White flowers

It wasn't just the outside of the library that was blooming...

The Stairwell is Blooming

Inside the Library

It all looked fantastic.  And Claire Douglas, Deborah New, Donna Taylor & Karen Winship did an amazing job putting it all together.  Thanks to York Learning and everyone who took part for creating such an amazing display!

York Learning Flowerwall

More about the Bloom! festival in another post!

 

Stitching with Jessie Chorley at Loop, London

Jessie Chorley - Designer, maker, shop owner

I have just been on an Embroidered & Appliqued Illustrations workshop with Jessie Chorley at Loop in Camden Passage, London.  Jessie, designer, maker & shop owner, is a textile artist who combines hand stitching with applique and patchwork to create scenes and stories.  

Jessie Chorley - All Day Still

We started the day with tea and biscuits and a kit that Jessie had put together to get us started.  This included some base fabric, some precut shapes, some of Jessie's lovely printed pieces and a key stitches info card.  Jessie had also brought along lots of fabric & threads for us to dig into.

Pack of goodies to make our piece

Everything Jessie had brought looked enticing & was all displayed in her characteristic style...

Jessie Chorley's Suitcase of Equipment

Handmade Buttons - Jessie Chorley

Button Tin

Handmade Brooches - Jessie Chorley

Packs to stitch and embellish - Jessie Chorley

Her stitched samples were a great inspiration and she showed us her key techniques of couching, seed stitching, button making, running stitch and back stitch.  In no time we were stitching away.

Jessie Chorley - Samples Book

More from Jessie Chorley's Samples Books

The time whizzed by and at the end of the day we all laid our pieces outside to check out our progress...

Our achievements at the end of the day

Detail from some of the above pieces

It was a great day.  And afterwards there was still time to look round the wonderful Loop.  Situated in Camden Passage, it's well worth a visit - and impossible to leave without buying something! 

Loop in Camden Passage, London

I haven't finished my piece yet but I did work on it on the train home and I am pleased with how it's progressing.  I hope to get some more done this week!

My piece so far

You can find Jessie's shop at 158a Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG  - open Thursday to Sunday from 11am to 6pm.

What a fab day - thanks Jessie & Loop! 

Fairfax Court Yarnstormers are Blooming Marvellous!

Ann Driffield, Edna Shilletoe, Doreen Feetenby, Jose Smith, Marjorie Winn

The Bloom! festival in York, running from the 5-8 July 2018 is celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Ancient Society of York Florists.  After attending a workshop run by York Learning to make flowers for the community art flower wall at York Explore Library, I thought, I know some people who'd like to get involved with this! 
 

Daphne Atherton, Jean Elliott, Jean Marshall, Hazel Laws

So I popped along to see the Fairfax Court Yarnstormers - stalwarts of community knitting, stitching and crochet projects.  And guess what - they've been Bloom!ing marvellous!  Between them, these magnificent makers have produced 140 knitted blooms for the flower wall...

Knitted flowers for Bloom!

And more knitted flowers for Bloom!

I'm sure York Learning will be delighted with these fab flowers - thank you Ann, Daphne, Doreen, Edna, Hazel, Jean, Jean, Jose, Marie, & Marjorie!

Unusual Mixed Media Embellishments with Jessica Grady

My dyed mixed media embellishments - elastic bands, cable ties, cotton buds & more

Recently I went on one of Jessica Grady's "Make Your Own Mixed Media Embellishments" workshops which was great fun.  

Detail of Jessica Grady's work

More examples of Jessica Grady's work

 
Jess is an embroidery artist and is inspired by surface textures such as barnacles and peeling paint.  Her work is truly original, colourful and inspirational.  She describes her work as "encrusted" and makes her own embellishments out of all sorts of unusual materials.  Jess's work has been featured in various magazines - Fibre Art Now (Spring 2018), Reloved (Issue 54) and the Embroiderers' Guild members' magazine Contact (46), not to mention online at Mixed Up magazine & Art Reveal (Issue 38)...

 

Fibre Art Now & Reloved Articles

Jess taught us to make our own embellishments and provided lots of different materials to experiment with.  It was interesting to see how each material took up the colours. 

Dyed paper & tyvek

And when we were spray painting - the background paper ended up looking great too...
 

Painted metal, wood & plastic embellishments

We spent the day dyeing, painting, melting and foiling...

"Sequins" from melted plastic

 

Foil added to the painted embellishments

Now I have lots of interesting materials to work with - thanks Jess!  If you fancy doing one of Jess's workshops, you can see what's coming up here.

You'll be hearing lots more about Jess this year.  She has become the Under 30's 2018 Embroiderers' Guild Scholar and so will be exhibiting at this year's Knitting & Stitching Shows in London, Harrogate & Dublin & will be appearing at Art& in York as an installation artist. 

Some of Jess's work will be on display at the City of York Embroiderer's Guild Triennial Exhibition from 22-24 June 2018 at the Tithe Barn in Nether Poppleton, York. More details here.  Why not come along!