Talk - ‘Flights of Fancy – Butterflies & Beasties’

This afternoon we were delighted by Jan Reid and Lynn Gourley giving a talk and slide show about the exhibition Flights of Fancy – Butterflies & Beasties’. This exhibition was held at Perth Museum and Art Gallery in September 2017, and was a project to mark the 25th anniversary of the setting up of Perth and District Embroiderer's Guild. The ladies wanted a project that they could work on individually, unlike for example, the Great Tapestry of Scotland, or a journal, which had to be passed around from person to person.

The museum had a collection of butterflies and insects, and this proved to be the inspiration for the project. Something small enough to be worked on individually, at home or together, and offering a huge scope for imagination, using different techniques, and freedom to use whatever media each person favoured.  Over the course of a year the myriad of butterflies hatched and flew, with techniques including stamping on organza, gold work, blackwork, Hardanger, stump work, devore, shadow work, machine embroidery, cross stitch, burning and cutting back, angelina, beadwork, the scope was endless. 

The creatures were displayed in cabinets in the museum, with the bugs crawling across the floor or the cabinet, and the butterflies either displayed in collector's boxes, or strung from invisible thread from the roof of the cabinet to make a great cloud of gorgeous wings in flight.  Children from five primary schools (Coupar Angus, Abernethy, Blairingone, Abernyte, and Viewland in Perth, enthusiastically took part, making caterpillars and butterflies, which were also on show. 

Below is a selection of the creatures that Jan and Lynn brought along, all displayed on a table, we could only imagine what they would have looked like in full flight. The embroidered bug rug was beautifully done, and also sported a march of  3D beetles (my favourite was the dung beetle!), all in glorious colours and exquisite detail.

We think it was a lovely project for a group of stitchers, and hope that Jan and Lynn will give us a day school in the future.

Below are some photos which I took, sadly we have none of the actual exhibition at Perth, or the children's contributions, but for those on Facebook, Perth & District Embroiderers Guild has a selection of other pictures of the beautiful work.