MEMBERS attending the meeting held on Tuesday, April 1 were greeted by a large, colourful wall hanging of tulips that had been made by Ineke Berlyn, the visiting speaker. The theme was not surprising, as she was born in the Netherlands! Today, she lives close to Bromsgrove. As a recognised international textile artist, she runs courses and workshops in her own studio, shares her knowledge abroad and continues to develop her own projects.

Her talk was entitled an A-Z Guide to Quilt Creativity. Here is a taster of some of the tips that she gave:

G – Be Generous and share your knowledge with others, particularly the young who are the future stitchers.

S – Carry a small Sketchbook in your bag so that you can draw a quick impression of things that catch your eye and add all kinds of words/thoughts to go with your work.

L – Lutradur, an industrial material that lends itself perfectly to being coloured with acrylic paints, stitched, burnt with a heat gun and manipulated in all kinds of ways i.e. try new products.

Y – Yellow. Explore one colour through several projects. For Ineke, this led to a hanging called Here Comes the Sun. She even incorporated some of George Harrison’s words on her quilt using small, alphabet stamps.

If you want other suggestions to inspire you, please look at Ineke’s website.

Members had an opportunity to put some of her ideas into practice the following day when they attended a workshop with the title Black Magic.

The Guild’s next meeting will be on Tuesday, May 6, 1pm for a 2pm start, at Perdiswell Young People’s Leisure Centre, when Helen Melvin will give a talk entitled Our Felted Journey with Botanical Colours. For further information, please contact Jan Cooper on jancooper23@yahoo.co.uk