Wednesday 1st May
Wessex Stitchery Workshop
Nine stitchers enjoyed a very interesting day with Gail Marsh
looking at the samples of Wessex Stitchery from the Textiles Collection at Gawthorpe
Hall. Some of the samples were enclosed in
Melinex so could be handled with care, the others in a large fabric sample book
had to be looked at with care and white cotton gloves worn to carefully turn
the pages.
A page in Mrs Margaret Fosters sample book.
After an introduction by Gail about Mrs Margaret Foster,
the embroiderer who created the Wessex Stitch. Mrs Foster’s work was not
discovered until she was 90 when she had a large exhibition of her work at The
Medici Galleries, London, in 1934. There
were reviews in the Times newspaper and Embroidery magazine
Two samples from Mrs Foster
Morning was spent looking at the samplers (worked over a
period of thirty years by Mrs Foster) then putting pencil to paper and plotting
a design onto graph paper.
Examining the samples
deep in concentration
Gail had made some samples in a larger scale, making it
easier for students to see the designs more easily.
Some of the beautiful Wessex work prepared by Gail
Once some their designs had been carefully drawn the
students started sewing their samples after lunch. I hope we get to see some of the final
results of the course at some time in the future.
Students design work in progress
