Coming up in September

We begin our September meeting with a talk "Journey into the Unconventional" by Jessica Grady. This will begin in the morning at 10:00am.
The talk is followed by a Jacob's Join and the AGM

July's Meeting

The end of June and the month of July has been a very busy period for our Guild. After last month's meeting we prepared and hosted the Grassington Embroiderers' Guild Exhibition at Church House in Grassington as part of the Grassington Festival Programme.
A huge variety of creative sewing was on view to the public for two days. We had national and international visitors that left very complimentary comments in our visitors book and spent considerable time chatting with our members about the variety of work and different techniques on display. In fact, as a member, it is wonderful to have a chance to see the talents of our members and to view work we have not seen at the workshops. It never ceases to amaze me how much talent we have in this small friendly Dales Group.

A second room at the exhibition was used to display the late Carol Brown's work. Carol was one of the founder members of our Guild and an inspiring and talented needlewoman. Her family decided to sell some of the items and the proceeds from the sale of these is to fund an annual Grassington Guild Needlework Award. 

During these two days we held drop-in stitch workshops to celebrate the National Day of Stitch. Those attending the stitch sessions took home a decorated needle case.

The July workshop was "Stump Work", a highly decorative technique of raised embroidery which became popular in Britain during the seventeenth century. Today we have numerous tutor books produced which have caused a revival in this technique. I picked up "Stumpwork, Historical and Contemporary Raised Embroiderery" by Muriel Best in a charity shop just before the workshop and gained a bit of insight into this detailed stitching. Two other good tutor books that I have managed to borrow are "Stumpwork Embroidery" Jane Nicholas and "A-Z Stumpwork" inspirations books. Both seem indispensible for coaching through some more of the intricacies of stumpwork techniques.

Alison Larkin was our tutor for this fascinating day of learning the basics of this wonderful craft. Alison provided a little kit for each participant and we tackled blackberries or dragonflies. Padding, wiring, tiny button hole stitch, beading, stem stitch, couching, stab stitch, stem stitch.............were just a few of the details named on the instructions! As a novice in this field of embroidery, Alison calmly led me through the labaryinth of stitch work and I completed my kit by the end of the day. What a thrill and I have since been shown the most exquisite stump work chest by one of our members. I do hope that with the introduction from Alison and guidance from the more experienced members of our group, YouTube and my newly purchased books, I will be able to create a special stumpwork piece to hand down to my family.

Our Annual Embroiderers' outing on 10th July will be to Hoghton Tower and Abakhan looking at all things fabric. August is our summer recess and we commence again in the Autumn.