What wonderful imagination children have! Two years ago, a simple landscape background attached to a free standing frame was made by Maria Fraser for the Avebury Festival to encourage children to have a go at some textile artwork. The results were a few stitched flowers and clouds. It came out of storage for the exhibition last weekend and suddenly took on a new focus for the young would-be textile artists. Having seen the eclectic art styles adopted by the adults in the general displays, the children were keen to stamp their own individual creativity onto the work resulting in a wonderfully imaginative softly, cloud-strewn and sunshine-filled world where mermaids and whales share a virtual landscape with sheep, unicorns, horses and foxes! Of course, this is now no ordinary countryside scene, and  has been recognised as such by its new name - “The Magic Garden”- which was given to the work by one of the would-be artists Eva Fraser (aged 10), who is also a member of the Young Embroiderers’ Guild

Rosemary has always enjoyed needlework from an early age. Her mother taught her to knit at age three, and a nun at her convent school taught her to sew and make Brussels lace. She now enjoys making quilts and all types of embroidery, and has been involved with the stitching of the Turkey work chairs at the Merchant House from its inception. She has also run an Embroidery Group for the U3A for the past 25 years. ​

Thank you Margaret & Rosemary for giving us these details.

​Photos by Ros

We were very grateful to Jan and Jean for making our Christmas meeting such a memorable one. 

Report and photos by Ros

Over 200 Embroidery Guild members representing 18 groups from the South West area gathered together for our annual Festival Day.  

There were two speakers, Cas Holmes and Patricia Godwin, a  large raffle, a lucky dip, competitions and displays.  

The winners of the 'Superstition' competition - 1st Lindsey  Sherwood (Red Sky at Night) Marlborough Guild, 2nd Jean Chisolm (Magpies)  Blackmore Vale Guild and joint 3rd Gloria Pugh (Bride & Groom) and Mary Clark (Every superstition) both from Malmesbury Guild.

Competition  entries from the host's guild Christmas competition 'Street Furniture' were exhibited.

The Young  Embroiderers had their own display and competition which was on by Lottie and runner up, Emily.

Under guidance of teacher Katie Griffin, textile students from Year 10 at St John’s School put on an exhibition. A project was organised for the Festival Day and students took digital photos around the school which were then printed on calico and then stitched - the results were amazing.

Festival  guest Jane Lemon, international embroiderer and creator of altar frontals at Salisbury Cathedral viewed their work and was delighted with what the students were achieving.

There was an  exhibition of quilts from Urchfont Manor.  The new owner  gave them to  Marlborough & District Guild and our chairman Yvonne  Miles thought it was  appropriate for them to be displayed as many of the members at the Festival had attended courses at the Manor.

Display of Embroidery Guild colour samples

Retail therapy gave everybody the opportunity of  stocking up their store  cupboard and hopefully all the traders considered it a  successful  day.   Our thanks  go to Art Van Go, Burning Issues (Margaret  Beal), Chrome Yellow Books, Indian  Bazaar (Tiggy Rawling), Cupcake Cottons of Burford, Mulberry Silks (Patricia  Wood), Silk Sacks, Simply Sequins  and Winifred Cottage (Myfanwy  Hart).  A representative from Bernina was on hand to answer questions and demonstrate their latest sewing machine.

Ann Hampton, the Chairman of the South West Region opened the day by  welcoming everybody followed by Terry Murphy, the Guild's CEO who talked  about the past year at  headquarters.

In the morning Cas Holmes gave the Madeira sponsored lecture - Urban Nature.  Her work relates to the natural and built world and she uses found materials, domestic  fabrics and gathered objects in her work.  Cas told us of the time she found a Bernina in a skip and carried it home on the underground and was thrilled to find it still worked.  We saw slides of her  installations and she explained the inspiration behind them and their construction.  Cas emphasised the importance of keeping a sketch book and said she likes time to reflect on drawings before using them in her work.  She was also promoting her new book Connected Cloth to be printed in September 2013.

In  the afternoon Patricia Godwin from the Palm Court Theatre gave a talk  entitled “Anything Goes”.  She entertained us with her tales of Edwardian elegance to the roaring 20's.  She was offered newspapers, magazines and periodicals by the owner of a stately home who also had an attic full of period clothes and accessories.  The Estate Agent recommended the price of £5 each so eventually she became the proud owner of a number of outfits.  As each garment was  displayed she read snippets from the papers relating to the time.  She had us all in fits of laughter as she read advertisements for Vaseline, articles about Edwardian meals, driving and one about kissing.  Each outfit came with its own accessories, stockings, hats, parasols and even a canary head and a motoring hat.

Next year's SW Region Festival will be hosted by Exeter & District Branch in East Budleigh.

Ros

Last week a group of us visited the NEC in Birmingham.  Our ticket covered three different exhibitions, Sewing for Pleasure, Fashion, Embroidery & Stitch and Hobby Crafts.  In addition to the retail therapy we enjoyed seeing our Macedonia Olympic postcards on display.

Brenda Hickinbottom also had her work on display.  As well as being a member of the Marlborough & District Embroidery Guild, Brenda also belongs to Meniscus Textile Artists, which are based in Rothley  Leicestershire.   The subject for their stand was "Iconic Women" and Brenda chose the ATA Spitfire pilots in the Second World War for her work. 

She tells me, her preparation included looking at photos of scenery and sky formations together with a lot of thinking time.  She then drew a rough sketch of outlines for the overall size.
 
Using  silk organza layers, trapping silk fibres and paper she free machine embroidered to  create the shapes and  textures.  Letting the machine needle and threads draw  the  design in her head as you would a pencil when drawing.

In addition to the individual projects each member of the group made an apron with a single word on it and when displayed it read:  "These aprons represent the traditional image of women but women are about more than this".

Ros