After Sandie and Dee welcomed everyone, and our speaker Sue, the presentation began.
Sue explained she had always had a fascination for vintage clothes and antique embroideries and her love of stitch as an art form helped her to develop her ideas. She collects pictures and photographs along with fabrics, trimmings, threads and sketches to create mood boards in the colour of her anticipated pieces.
After the raffle (thanks to the committee for their donations) tea, coffee and biscuits were served and time was spent admiring the display of Sue’s work.
Eighteen of us with sewing machines at the ready listened as Sue talked through possible ideas and techniques we could try out during the day. Applying sheer fabric with a simple straight machine stitch and then overlaying with a doodle stitch would add an extra depth to the design and hold the lace together.
Eagerly we gathered our ‘inspiration’ from photos, pictures, real flowers and colours of materials and threads that we had brought with us and our journey began.
At 3:00pm Jack Morton and his family came to visit and present the winner of the Chairs’ Challenge with a sampler of Wessex Stitchery which Kath had made. Jack’s son expressed the delight of the family that the Guild had agreed to award the sampler annually as it showed the love, friendship and appreciation of Kath’s work and that her memory would continue within the Guild.
At lunch time it had been Sue’s task to judge the ‘corsages which were the theme of this year’s Chairs’ Challenge’. As we awaited the announcement of the winner Sue explained her choice and said it had been very difficult. Several techniques had been used from felting to machine embroidery, needle lace and appliqué.
Don’t forget to tell friends, colleagues and family to visit Barton Grange between Tuesday 16th September and Monday 22nd September (10:00am-4:00pm) for our exhibition ‘Follow the Thread’.