Bags of materials with Rosemary Hufton
14th March 2026
Wow – what a turnout. This meeting was better attended than any we have held before. Thank you to everyone for your patience as we signed -n visitors and rearranged the room to add extra chairs.
Today we were treated to a fascinating and humorous talk by Rosemary Hufton (@rosemaryhufton) with an amazing array of bags made from the weird and wonderful.
Rosemary loves to re-use, in very inventive ways, old things. So, she shared stitched bags, woven bags, and heated pressed plastic bags.
Her sample pieces not only covered an array of techniques, but also used an unbelievable variety of old things. Bags were made from reused garments such as jeans, but then got increasingly weird… juice containers, medical fabrics, the insides of computers, home-brew hoses, seat belts, sail fabric, buttons, cut up socks (toes and ankles), the insides of CDs, and huge lorry springs, to name but a few. We were generously allowed to handle all of her examples.
It was a joy to see and really stretched our imaginations. Who knew you could make a bag from just about anything? The message was to go out, try anything and have fun!
Later, the new Committee were introduced, and a vote was taken (and overwhelmingly passed) to change our name from Contemporary Quilts Surrey to Contemporary Textiles Surrey. This reflects the change at national level, with the renamed Contemporary Textiles special interest group of The Quilters’ Guild.
Buffy introduced our next challenge – ‘Evolve’. Further details can be found in the Challenge section of this website.
As ever, there were some lovely Show and Tell pieces by members and a lot of shared information on upcoming exhibitions to enjoy. Some hand stitching – inspired by Rosemary’s talk finished our afternoon.
14 February 2026
Richard McVetis and AGM
Guest speaker: Richard McVetis
Whilst quilting is in our group name, we’re a broad textile church, and many
members have an embroidery background. Richard’s distinctive spare and
monochrome style is intriguing and it was fascinating to hear about his inspiration and process in an entertaining talk. An artist, designer and painter as well as a stitcher, he describes himself as a ‘geeky nerd’. A lover of science, cosmology and quantum physics, he explores how time ‘looks’ in tangible form. He loves the slow pace of stitching, and the opportunity this affords to think, reflect and analyse. His more recent works has explored links between heritage and materiality, drawing on his father’s working life as a coal miner.
Examples of the work he showed members is below.
Richard will be running a workshop for members next Saturday 21 February 2026.
Exhibition debrief
Our very first exhibition at Denbies in January 2026 was a great success. We were overwhelmed by the support and positive comments from more than 1,000 visitors over 6 days. It was a great opportunity to work together as a team and make new connections within the group. Members thanked the various committees for all their hard work. A debrief report would be put together to help organisers of future exhibitions.
Richard will be running a workshop for members next Saturday 21 February 2026.
Visitors’ choice was Jenny Packer’s stunning embroidery of St Martha’s-on-the-Hill, Chilworth. But all makers were recognised by visitors in the voting, which was testament to the quality of work on show. Details of the winners in each category can be found here
AGM
The Chair’s report had been circulated in advance, and Kathryn presented the
Treasurer’s report. Several new members had joined following Denbies and cash reserves were strong.
Members thanked Annie Henderson-Begg and Deena Goff who were standing down from the committee. Both had done a huge amount over the last three years setting up and establishing CQ Surrey as a strong, supportive and creative group.
Alison Livesley