'the Major's Wife' Spinning Chair' - talk by Sue McNab

Such an intriguing title, we didn't know what to expect, but it turned out to be a fascinating story, sprinkled with humour, of Sue's life journey starting with working in hospitality and ending up running her own soft furnishing and upholstery business. She moved around a bit, and in Marlow met her husband, who was in the Royal Drgaoons. This entailed more moving around, a placement in Düsseldorf, and then Deepcut, Dunfermline and Scone.  During these meanderings she took a City and Guild course in soft furnishings, learning how to make curtains etc. along with that course she did upholstery, and it became her principle love. She made the Victorian footstool below for the course, the fabric being crazy patchwork.

She particularly delighted in the old ways of the craft, using horsehair and tacks rather than foam and staples. The squab cushion below demonstrates how a piece of material can become a solid item when stuffed with horsehair and lots of stitching. Sue had brought along some of the tools of the trade.

Below are some unique chairs, the green one has a lozenge in the top of the frame which Sue replicated on the seat with trapunto.  The white chair is the subject of the title. It is a spinning chair made with scraps from bridal gowns, and the tacks are all covered with pearls. There  are two rows of pearls, as a nod to her husband's promotions, as apparently a captain's wife can wear a single string of pearls, but a major's wife can wear a double string!

Sue continues to run her soft furnishing and upholstery business, and also teaches upholstery.

'Terrific Transfer Printing' - day school with Gillian Cooper

 Twelve of us attended a creative day school about transferring painted images from paper to cloth. Gillian was an enthusiastic teacher and had brought lots of her own work to show the possibilities of this technique, and the paints and equipment to use ourselves.

The transfer paints were mixed from powder with water, and we used a basic range of colours to mix our own. The paint is applied to cheap copier paper, and we all experimented with mark making, and using various things to imprint and add texture to the paint. The paint looks very dull on the paper, and it is only when ironed onto synthetic fabric that they magically become bright. The fabrics have to be synthetic as the paints will not work very well on natural fibres. We all played at being 5 years old again, splashing the paint around with abandon on the paper, and making our table’s uncharacteristically messy!

Then we learned how to iron the paper onto various fabrics between sheets of silicon, and to use things such as leaves and feathers as masks. Layers could be built up with different papers, papers could be torn and arranged for different effects, and there was quite a bit of serendipity involved. The possibilities Gillian showed us were endless, with only imagination the limit. 

We didn't get round to stitching any of the fabrics as we were so engrossed in the painting, but we all went home with lots of bits of coloured materials to work on when we had peace to think about it. The photos below only show the prepared papers and the initial transfer printing, it would be nice to see finished items made with the painted fabrics. The green feather is Gillian's piece, so shows a finished work.

The Prison Embroideries of Mary, Queen of Scots - a talk by Muriel Banucha

When Lockdown happened to us all and we were all restricted and confined to our homes, Muriel began to develop an interest and empathy to the situation of Mary,Queen of Scots, during her long incarceration. As a stitcher she also used her time on embroideries, as did Mary, and as did many of us.

We are familiar with Mary's story, how she was sent to France at the age of five to marry the Dauphin, and how she came back to Scotland when he died. It was while she was in France that she learned to embroider, probably from her mother-in-law Catherine de Medici. Printed books were becoming more available then, and many illustrations provided inspiration for the designs. Also steel needles were being made in greater quantities, the best ones from Spain and probably introduced by Catherine of Aragon.

The types of embroidery common then were such as blackwork and canvas work, which could be worked in small pieces that could be held in the hand, and joined together to make larger hangings and other household items.

We know the story of Mary's disastrous marriages, and how she eventually ended up being imprisoned for twenty years in various castles and houses, all halfway between England and Scotland and away from the sea, so she could not be rescued. Many of these were owned by the very wealthy Earl of Shrewsbury, as he was chosen to guard her because he could afford to support her and her large household, numbering up to 60 staff, including her own chef and embroiderer. Mary had her own income as Dowager Queen of France, but she refused to spend her own money unless she was freed.

She had a comfortable life, with her own apartments, and she was able to afford the best silks, satins and threads. Initially she was allowed visitors and some freedoms like riding, and even allowed to go to Buxton when unwell, to take the waters. Later her imprisonment became more onerous, and her embroideries were a great solace to pass the time.

 The fabrics were linen and canvas, and the threads she used were wool, silk, gold, silver and silver gilt. Natural dyes enabled the threads to last longer than our modern chemical dyed threads (that was an eye-opener!). Most of her threads came from France.

Her embroiderer took designs from books and transferred them to canvas for her to work in cross stitch and tent stitch.

She often stitched hidden meaning into her work, for example the ginger cat below represented Elizabeth I with the paw on the tail of the mouse, Mary.

She signed her work with a motif, which showed her as Queen of Scotland and of France, and left a large body of work until her sad end. 

'In my end is my beginning'.

'Sparkling organza Gingko Leaves' - day school with Susie Stehli

 We had a lovely sunny day for our class, and the gorgeous array of sparkling yellows and greens of the vast array of organzas Susie brought made us feel that Spring is nearly here. Susie brought a large picture of gingko leaves she had made (first photo), and we made a more modest picture using either hand or machine embroidery. Susie had brought our chosen colour of background along, all ready cut to size and prepared with backing, ready to go in the frame she also supplied.

We selected paper templates of the leaves, which we drew around on the background fabric, and then arranged little snippets of various fabrics in the outline, to make some texture and shadows. We added pieces of larger organza in layers to build up the form of the leaves, pinned it on and then stitched the edges and a few of the veins. Once this was done we could use different threads to build up texture and tones to create the leaves. The machine stitchers had the advantage of greater speed than the hand stitchers, and one or two people actually got as far as framing their picture. The photos below show some of the stages of building up the piece, and some near completion.

It was a lovely day, thank you Susie, and thanks to the ladies who brought fruit cake and homemade biscuits!