Embroidery has moved on since the days when great granny stitched away the evenings making cushion covers, intricately smocked clothes and sewing their family initials into serviettes.
And there is no better place to see what ‘embroidery’ means for today’s stitchers than a meeting of the Marlborough and District Embroiderers Guild.
They meet twice a month at the Kennet Valley Hall, Lockeridge – on the first Monday they will have their monthly meeting with a talk or demonstration, and later in the month they have a ‘stitch day’ when they come and work at their designs. And such is this Guild’s reputation that they come from miles around – and one or more new members join every month.
When MNO joined this month’s meeting, there were fifty members having a ploughman’s lunch, welcoming new members, showing their current work and demonstrating what the Guild’s specialist sewing machines can do. They came from Swindon, from Calne, Box and Pewsey – from all over the Marlborough district.
Waiting to see a doctor is usually a matter of staring at the wall or thumbing through two-year-old magazines. At the Marlborough surgery you can gaze at local embroiderers’ detailed vision of Marlborough town – in its multi-coloured textile glory.
This was made by Guild members in 1997 for an exhibition being held in Devizes. Afterwards it was donated to the surgery.
Now it’s in need of a little TLC. In the words of the Guild’s current chair, Yvonne Miles: “We’re not changing it – just renovating it. We need to smarten it up a bit.”
Not many of those who worked on the textile picture back in 1997 are still stitching. One who definitely is still stitching is Margaret Gardiner (now in her 80s.) She has been a Guild member for about 40 years: “Right from the start.”
She explains that the Guild first met in Marlborough library because the librarian, James Young, was interested in their work. In fact he contributed to the textile picture that hangs in the surgery waiting room.
As it grew in numbers, the Guild moved from the library to the Scout Hut, then to the Bowls Club and has now found a home it really appreciates in Kennet Valley Hall. And they have given the hall their large and wonderful textile depiction of the Kennet Valley – complete with a pair of circling buzzards. [photo below]
Margaret Heath led the work on that major enterprise made between 2006 and 2010 – helped by contributions from local schools.
For new members and those wishing to use new methods, Chris Cook runs a six month course called Design to Stitch. A feature of the course is the use of modern sewing machines.
To provide members with some external inspiration the Guild organises trips to the Knitting and Stitching Show in London, the Quilt Show in Birmingham and, this summer, to the mammoth Art in Action event near Oxford.
One of the mysteries of modern embroidering is how stitching can seem almost like paint or drawing – making curved designs across the base material.
The secret is that the sewing machine must have teeth that can be retracted freeing the cloth and allowing it be moved in any direction. Not at all like great granny’s old treadle Singer.
The Guild owns various sewing machines and an incredibly simple but practical pleating machine that produces smocking which would have taken great granny weeks of patient, eye-straining hours to produce. Members can rent the machines for a small charge.
The Guild’s Christine Hill runs a thriving junior section with 17 six-to-sixteen year-olds who attend workshops in the school holidays – and they can work at home on tasks they have been set. They produce some very surprising and elegant designs.
It may seem invidious to show any one piece of the Guild members’ textile art. But here, selected at random, is a vibrant piece by Diana King from Calne. The design of hanging flowers is based on calico, with a dye-painted background, it involves several layers of silk, wool and sheer gauze.
It is difficult to capture the 3-D effect in a photograph, but it certainly catches the eye. It was, Diana King explained, her third attempt to get the exact feel and colouring she wanted. How embroidery has changed!
Find out more at the Guild’s website. [Click on photos to enlarge them.]
