#needleworkmonday | Embroiderers Guild, Game of Thrones, no-sewing-up coat hanger covers and crochet bullion stitch
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?
Now look me straight in the eye and tell me you didn't pose your desk for the photo?
Can you tell me what the picture of the bridge is please? Is it a photo ?
Oh, and your backcloth I forgot to mention before is very Thai in its design.
Save me a chip please :-)
Hehe - I did make the cup of tea and put @adetorrent on the laptop :) but otherwise it's pretty much what it looks like most of the time. I even refrained from moving the pile of obsolete (work) papers.
The picture is a digital photograph that's been edited to look like a painting. It was done by a local guy who had a little exhibition near where I had the bookshop. It's quite delicate, you have to keep it out of direct sunlight.
It's actually moorings for a boat in a river, I believe in Suffolk, but I can't remember. I bought it because, for many years, my mum had a boat on very similar moorings (ramshackle and held together mainly with willpower) on the River Stour in Kent. She loved it out there, about twelve of them were moored alongside land belonging to Pfizer's, other people lived on their boats. They had a long court battle to keep the moorings (and the little gardens that everyone had made), but Pfizer's won in the end. It was treacherous - you either had to flounder through mud up to your knees at low-tide or swim to the boat at high tide!
The cloth is best IKEA from exotic Coventry :)
very nice to know that needlework does not disappear from human society !!!! in many countries, people are not at all interested in this art. I like the work of Janie Crowe - amazingly beautiful !!!!! you have a very convenient place to work :)
So true :) Glad you like Janie Crow's work, I thought it was lovely.
Ohhhh I can already see it: first the @needleworkmonday collection, later a museum and some nice bust of the founders .... and afterwards - world domination (I do not know, why I always end with this plan)😆😆😆
The Embroiderers guild is really great, I would love to see all the books and manuals :-D (I have a little book fetish...) and the white walker is amazing. I think Game of thrones with all its historical allusions is a perfect theme for embroidery (or sewing).
And with the other links. I once tried bullion stitch (for my fiber sculpture "It's molten Henrietta, run) and I loved it, because of its plasticity, and it is very cute, like a small organism. Will you use the stitch in your Picasso work?
Attic 24 was one of the first blogs I found about crochet. And everything is so wonderful, her workspace, her home, the colours... sadly our home is not neat enough or such a colourful decoration, although I love it.
I'm not sure yet about the Picasso project, I have been researching and experimenting with other ideas. But now I have become distracted with Inktober!
competitions - I was referring to that thing you entered but we must not mention, that is why I am writing very quietly
AHHHH my brain (I write in brackets, because so nobody will read it :-D...but I
am unsurehave no idea what that thing is, I entered but nobody must mention, I am so soryyyyyyy)I love your workspace! The Hardhome Embroidery is cool too! Is it all literally embroidered? O: That's awesome to have a group like that.
Thank you 😊 The whole panel, as well as the figure, is made of a whole variety of textile skills including digital printing, hand and machine embroidery, beading, quilting and applique. Apparently, it is touring now and I believe there are plans for it to come to the States for the launch of the latest series on dvd. It's quite a coup for the Guild to be associated with such a popular drama (revitalising), and they've been approached to do some other things.
Awesome 😎
Love the vintage (faux vintage?) radio ok your desk. And the “netbooks” 😂
Hello @adetorrent, thanks for coming by. The radio is a Roberts, they make very good retro models. The sound is excellent as well 😊 Love your photographs of London, by the way.
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