I've a pretty steamy six months coming up as we bring together 29 organisations into a joint venture by the beginning of April. I decided it would be a good idea to schedule some other activities to distract me. One of those was catching up with the Market Harborough branch of the Embroiderers' Guild.
First, though, a bit about the national Embroiderers' Guild which was started in 1906 by 16 graduates of the Royal School of Needlework with the aim "to deal entirely with embroidery and with the first object of keeping up a high standard of work and design".
The Guild now has 22,000 members and is bang up to date with an embroidered Game of Thrones sculpture of the White Walker, known as the Hardhome Embroidery. The Guild has an extensive library and an important national collection of embroidery and other textiles, used for study and research. Some of the most valuable pieces in the collection are on permanent display at the Buckinghamshire County Museum. The Guild holds national and regional events, courses and workshops and publishes two magazines.
The Guild also has local branches all over the country which provide local programmes of talks, events, workshops and outings. We have one in Leicester, which I have never managed to get to (it's on a Saturday afternoon) and there is another local one in Market Harborough, about 13 miles away from where I live.
The members at Market Harborough thought the name "Embroiderers Guild" didn't reflect the wide range of interests that they had and was possibly a bit off-putting to new members. So they chose a new name "Aspects of Stitch" and if you can make out the wording on the leaflet, you'll see their ideas are very similar to #needleworkmonday:
We are a lively group with an interest in many aspects of textiles - historic and contemporary, machine or hand, traditional or avant garde, functional or art textiles. No special talent or experience is necessary - only enthusiasm!
Last week was the AGM, there was also a mini workshop based on one one of the study folios from the national Guild (folios are collections of pieces around a theme - this week it was pattern darning and Scandinavian embroidery) and the travelling books (I'll write about these another time).
I met a lovely person called Joy who turned out to be a big crochet fan and she put me on to these two fabulous websites. I've chosen a post from each:
Janie Crow: New Found Love - Bullion Stitches
Source Aren't these crochet bullion stitches beautiful? The blog post shows how to make these - a wonderful addition to free-form crochet.
Attic 24: A Crochet Coat Hanger (with no ends to sew in)
Source: I knew as soon as I saw this crochet coat hanger with no ends to sew, in fact, no sewing at all, that it would appeal to some members of #needleworkmonday!
By the way, here's a picture of my workdesk. I was going to have a new studio, but it was claimed by someone else and now I have a corner in the living room. Actually, it's very nice and I can see the trees in the garden.
And just to finish, we were talking about notebooks - here's mine. Two of them are full, the rest are works in progress :) Do you use notebooks? Do you have a picture to share?
