Serendipity, Austen Embroidery and Lady’s Magazine

Following retirement after 30 years of teaching Alison was able to follow her passion of 18th and 19th century embroidery on a full time basis, without the feelings of guilt many of us experience.

Serendipity stepped in in the form of an embroidery pattern discovered in a back copy of a 19th century magazine, The Lady’s Magazine. This spawned an idea for a book and years of research and collaboration with Jennie Batchelor. During this process, and following another personal interest, Alison discovered Jane Austen was an embroiderer and often referred to this in her novels. Thus developed their book Jane Austen Embroidery.

Alison introduced her talk showing artifacts of Georgian Embroidery she has seen in her own studies this enhanced a very detailed and interesting talk about the techniques and materials used in the time of Jane Austen and Alison’s personal discoveries as she researched the book. Alison’s skill extended beyond the research of the book into designing the front cover with embroidery in the style of the time.

For those interested in purchasing Alison’s book and seeing Alison’s other work click on the link below.

Alison Larkin Embroidery – Historical Embroidery in Full-size and Miniaturehttps://alisonlarkinembroidery.com/

Chairman Val began the meeting by welcoming everyone but pointed out how difficult it was to gauge everyone’s reaction so she would love to have feedback and ideas for how to start the meetings. She then asked Elizabeth and Deborah to share some of their thoughts on how to cope with the next few months. Deborah has really embraced colour during lockdown as a way of keeping up her spirits so watch out for pictures of her activities on the website. To quote her “Grey is out, colour is in”. Elizabeth reminded us of the importance of keeping up our standards and dressing up even for zoom calls and she gave us a lovely foretaste of what was to come by sharing projects she had done on Anne’s workshops in the past.

Anne then began her talk with a reminder that she had spoken to us a few years back and she was clearly impressed with the sales table. We will all be plundering that again as soon as we can! She gave a brief resume of how she started her journey, not in textiles but in art and her love of workshops and experimenting with all things new. Sound familiar? But gradually she started incorporating stitching into her collage work and eventually moved into using fabric. Harold the hare was a highlight with layered fabrics and stitching. She stressed the importance of not always having a plan but allowing the piece to grow naturally. This can be risky, but she insisted it is worth playing and giving yourself freedom to experiment. As a lover of all things Poppy I was fascinated by her 3D poppy head but as she pointed out this was a PHD piece (no not a higher level degree but her name for UFOs -Projects Half Done).

Since her last talk to us she has set herself the challenge of learning new stitching techniques. Not necessarily as a finished product but as a sample to be enjoyed in its own right. This is something many of us find challenging, needing to find a purpose for doing something but maybe lockdown has taught us the importance of doing things just for the fun of it and her strips of fabric on bobbins and miniature books certainly gave plenty of opportunity to experiment and explore stitching.

Anne is left-handed and pointed out that it is often difficult to find demonstrations for left- handed people so she feels she is filling a gap in the market with her videos on You tube. In ‘Sewing for the Soul’ and ‘The love of Stich’ she uses scraps of found fabrics as well as hand dyed fabrics and threads to create exquisite little pieces often incorporating buttons, Suffolk puffs, vintage lace and many stitches you may have forgotten you knew. Her website is full of examples and her You Tube videos are extremely easy to access from there and provide small weekly projects.(Just google Anne Brooke Textile artist) She demonstrates fabric books, a book in a tin, tags and circles of friendship all created using stitch.

Anne spoke of being part of a community of people out there who are stitching and enjoying it and I think we can all relate to that. By the end of the talk I certainly agreed with one of her quotes;“My soul has been fed with needle and thread.”

Links to Anne Brooke’s website below.

Anne Brooke’s website

Anne’s website has links to her You Tube #Sew the Soul and other projects plus the opportunity to join a Zoom workshop coming up soon.

Members’ Work

Susan B

I attach a picture entitled ‘July’.

It is one of a monthly series.

On the border I have used the names for July in the various languages of the UK and a Roman quote about sailing on the ocean. The main part uses Roman mosaics of sea creatures, with a nod to Asissi work, and the bright colours of modern Mediterranean mosaics to depict the mystery of the deep ocean, which is still a great unknown.

It is very simple. It is cross stitch, English star, and back stitch.

Deb D

Val W opened our January Zoom meeting with a discussion about her love of Colour. Deborah D showed these two colourful pieces hand embroidered with spiritual wording.

Diana

Diana’s sister has embroidered these napkins ready for a 70th birthday celebration. Everyone is hoping they will be able to meet in person for this important date.

Maggie T ‘You did say you wanted colour’

You did say you wanted colour!  This is my version of the Harry Styles jacket (with a lot of alterations)

Next Zoom meeting Saturday February13th.

Alison Larkin : Serendipity

Jennie, also known as the Calico Queen (UK) or Muslin Mistress (US) told us that whilst doing her son’s paper round she had a chance encounter with a lady who taught patchwork. Jennie was fortunate to have been offered lessons as long as she provided lunch, and bearing in mind she had been in catering business before, this was no hardship.  

Several other chance encounters happened in that she applied to teach evening classes, was accepted and on the back of that, was offered a job on a shopping channel and Quilting Classroom came into being which was broadcast at 8am on a Sunday morning. She says that the producers trusted her as they left her alone on set for 30 minutes whilst she demonstrated her craft.

Jennie continued her talk with a variety of demonstrations, on how to make trumpets, triangles, partial seaming, crackers which then could be used as placemats, posh crackers,  bags, bowls (which could be used as a hat if it snowed), taking 60 deg diamonds to make into a star, bunting, fabric flowers just to mention a few. She has a catch phrase ‘nipping and tucking, twiddling and fiddling, manipulating and manoeuvring material’ which makes me smile everytime I hear it.

Her first book, Tucks Textures and Pleats, written as a result of a dare, established her as the fabric origami expert travelling the world to teach, up until Covid and lockdown.   Several books followed and all contain detailed instructions as to how to make the items as well as humorous stories of events in her life. 

As a result of the lockdown in March, Jennie has written her most recent book, Material Magic which contains instructions as how to fold a square into a flower which she then demonstrated to us.

Jennie’s final story of the afternoon was to tell us that her three grandchildren came to visit just after she moved house three weeks ago, she took them shopping into the local supermarket which has the Post Office attached.   On her shopping list was a bottle of gin for her elderly aunt and to save time she gave the grandchildren the shopping, her payment card and asked them to go and pay for the items whilst she went to the Post Office.    A few minutes later there was a loud ‘We can’t serve them’ and when she went over to find out why, the assistant said the grandchildren ‘Were too young to be served alcohol’.   They are 10 years, 8 years and 6 years!   She is now known in her local area as being an alcoholic as well as being totally nutty.

This was an excellent talk and I have struggled to limit the number of the highlights of the talk as there were so many.  

Maureen B

EYES Thoughts Sheila F.

November 14^th, second Saturday in the month, it must be EYES this afternoon. But we’re in lockdown again, we need to stay at home as much as possible. So thank you Val W and Sarah S, for there was an EYES meeting after all. I’m lucky, I have access to a laptop or an iPad, and the Zoom app is free. Sarah had emailed us beforehand giving us an ID and a passcode. I was worried but actually it was straightforward. I was quite early logging in so saw Sarah invite many familiar faces – forty-five in fact including Margaret Booker from Norfolk. Eventually my laptop settled on four faces and mine across the top of the screen leaving room for the main speaker. We were all muted by Sarah ( a seemingly easy task! ) and then Val welcomed us to EYES via Zoom.

Jayne G spoke first and gave us a talk on making Christmas cards, actually one design but many variations. What a difference a bit of calico makes or a different colour or pattern. It looked great upside down too. Actually, at it’s simplest level I could make a card with my 5 year old grand-daughter then maybe move on myself to something grander one day – or maybe not! Jayne will know when she gets her Christmas card from me this year. A simple but necessary tip from Jayne – photograph your completed work then you have the pattern for next year. Thank- you Jayne.

Annette spoke next and tried to answer the question “What did you do during Covid Grandma”? and added David Hockney’s A Bigger Splash as a subtitle. She was away on a cruise when it all began so came back with Christ the Redeemer, black-necked swans, South American mountains and the sea in her head ready for a quilt. She had taken two lovely hand-made bags with her so it was good to see those unpacked. Her next job was more urgent but not quite so lovely – like many of us Annette set to work making face masks for family and friends and then scrubs for use in hospital. ( I think she’s still looking for Giant Bradley to model the prototype. ) Then there were a few things to finish off: some embroidery, a kit bought in Harrogate and then the quilt, a wonderful reminder of her cruise. Thank-you Annette.

Val W was next with her Cheeky Robin. Seemingly easy to make from three squares of felt and help from grandchildren, this robin could be made more elaborate by adding legs before stuffing or even a flap/tail to make it a mobile phone/tablet stand. Again a different colour and a comb and we had an Easter chick.           Thank -you Val.

Sarah Perkins concluded our talks by giving us a good use for that jelly roll we’ve all got somewhere.

Sarah moved in to her windmill home only to find floor to ceiling pipes in the sitting room. Box them in, was the obvious answer, but how? She started by hanging a long length of white muslin-type fabric over the pipes. Then Sarah started some pulled thread work and some embroidery stiches but she was hardly making much impact on such a length of fabric. Then followed a stump work windmill, beautifully embroidered sails, a wall, flowers and a hint of the sea in the background, but still only a third of the hanging was embellished. A history lesson and a timeline followed and the bottom third of the hanging was complete. Then the jelly roll was remembered – beautiful colours and a picture in itself as it cascaded from mill to timeline. Finally a very handsome  stump work millerwas added. Apparently it took Sarah nearly four years to complete her masterpiece but most of that was thinking time – we all know that feeling.                                                    Thank- you Sarah.

So, there you have it – my recollections and views on the EYES meeting of November 14^th. I think you’ll more from the photographs that the contributors will be putting on the website but I urge you to join us next time on December 12^th. It is fun and you never know what you might learn.

As Sheila said, December; Jenny Rayment, January Ann Brooks , February Handmade, Alison Larkin, March Angie Hughes. Details to follow.