the houses in Epworth about what’s going on at the Old Rectory
now that it’s re-opened after lockdown.
On Monday, six of the Grasby Embroiderers group met at Epworth Old Rectory to hang our long overdue exhibition. It’s quite a different sort of space from our usual exhibitions. There are nine rooms in which to place the work, rather than a stand at a sewing exhibition, such as our display at “Sewing for Pleasure” at the NEC, or the “Fashion and Embroidery Show” at Harrogate, or Grasby church or Village Hall, or a white gallery space.
The Old Rectory is the home of the Wesley family, Samual and Susanna Wesley and their ten children, two of whom John and Charles founded the Methodist movement. Susanna was ahead of her time and educated not just her sons, but her daughters too.
The work was grouped into themes that had some relevance or connection to a particular room. Lorna’s vegetable books, Jessica’s piece that had a connection to honeycomb, and my “Just hanging out” all have domestic connotations, so these are all in the back kitchen. Some were grouped by colour or scale.
On the table in the kitchen are the nine “Lockdown Challenges”, each one grouped and linked together, so the different ways each of us works and the variety of responses to each challenge can be seen. Unusually, this work can be handled and examined by visitors.
The rest of the work is not for touching, as with most artwork. Touching is often very tempting with textile pieces, as fabric and thread by their very nature are tactile and beg to be handled. I often going round quilt exhibitions with my hands in my pockets to stop me from touching. The work would soon get grubby, if everyone fondled it as they went past.
“A host of angels” is part of the body of work that was done specifically for the house. We were all given the same wooden frame, the same size to work with, except as normal it was too small for Mary! Her frame does match the others, but is larger, and very beautiful it is, too. Ordinarily, we would have seen the work progressing month by month, but instead we had a big reveal date to send each other our finished framed pieces. It was a fairly even balance between neutral colours and predominantly blue, with a variety of techniques being used.
My angel is 3D, made with a pipe cleaner armitage, then wrapped in yarn, that was covered with stockinette. I then made a dress that was stitched in fine gold threads which hang loose at the bottom. The wings were cream long stitches that I had initially intended to weave, but once they were done, I decided I liked them as they were. Long straight stitches in gold for the halo finished it off.
We all also did a flower or flowers specifically for Epworth, and I chose a tulip. I again wanted it to be 3D. I had lots of drawings, sketches, paintings and photographs from real tulips on the kitchen table over the space of a week or two for each bunch. Working from when they were tight buds, gradually opening up, going through an ugly stage and then becoming beautiful again, as they start to curl and dry, and the vibrant colours fade.
I had also taken loads of photos of the tulips in the garden last year when even that was tricky with my broken arm. But these proved invaluable when I was trying to capture the detail of the stamens and stigmas for my solo tulip.
I used red velvet for the petals, and embroidered the stamens. This was a bit trial and error as I wanted them to be loose and look realistic. After several attempts, buttonhole stitch and wrapping gave me the effect I wanted. I did a pattern for the leaves from one of my drawings, and looking at a tulip in front of me, it looked strange flat, as that’s not how we see them, so I wasn’t convinced it was quite right. I gently took apart one that had basically had its day, placed it over my pattern and much to my surprise it was almost the same.
I used some fine green silk fabric for the back (inside) of the leaf and some ”fabricky” tissue paper that I’d saved from a bunch of flowers, which I machine stitched together. I did the stem with a rouleau in the silk, another pipe cleaner, and once the leaves were wrapped around it they all moved in a fairly realistic way.
My “I am little” body of work was put in the nursery, as it is based on my sister and me, when we were three or four, and five or so.
Also in there is the alphabet quilt, a joint piece that we all did a couple of letters each, stitches echoing the printed design before lockdown, passing it on when we’d finished. The plan had been to do another round, but Covid put a stop to that, and Mary had the “parcel” when the “music” stopped, so she finished off the rest of the letters. At our first meeting we all discussed how it should be finished off. Lorna put the backing on and tied it together, and printed off a fabric label to go on the back.
As a gift from our group, it was presented to Gillian (the Rectory Curator) at the end of the day when we had finished hanging all the other work. She was really chuffed with it and told us that Susanna Wesley had all the children learn the alphabet on their 5th birthday.
At the moment you need to book in advance to go to the Old Rectory and the exhibition, but it’s well worth a visit and not just to see our work. however, there’s much more than I’ve written about.
debbidipity 