Double Trouble - surprise speakers for our Christmas meeting - December 2016

At Marlborough & District Embroiderers’ Guild each Christmas we celebrate with a “bring and share” lunch and a “surprise” speaker. This year we celebrated our 40th Ruby Anniversary with a four day exhibition in April and we wanted to end with a grand finale. 

​About a year ago our Programme Secretary, Vernice asked if Jan Beaney and Jean Littlejohn would join us as our “surprise” speakers and to give the after lunch talk.  

Ann S (Joint Chair Marlborough), Jean Littlejohn, Jan Beaney and Clare Russell (Joint Chair Marlborough)

Just look at this "bring and share" spread!  A big thank you to everyone for preparing such a delicious meal and to my fellow Committee Members for their hard work in decorating the hall and clearing up after and of course to Vernice for asking Jan & Jean to speak to us.

 The Committee were sworn to secrecy so our guests and the remainder of our branch members, numbering over sixty,  were thrilled to see displays of Jan and Jean’s work and to hear them talk about how they have collected ideas and recorded them over the years.  They talked about their various trips abroad and how landscapes in Israel, Australia, the Grand Canyon and New Mexico had brought inspiration together with fossils on Charmouth beach, pot pourri jars, house renovations, craters on planets, the clock in St Mark’s Square in Venice and even the slime in Steve’s pond!

​Below is a selection of photos of their work which they kindly allowed me to take and some of the images from their presentation.  Sorry some of them are a bit skew!  Click on the first image to enlargen and then you can scroll through to see the details of their exquisite work.

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

Report and photos by Ros