A
most welcome guest.
At
our 2018 AGM on Friday 28th September the business was
fairly swiftly dealt with. The worrying thing being that the
Committee is much depleted and there is a lack of ladies ready to
serve as officers.
After
refreshments, the floor was taken by Bridget Guest our visiting
speaker and workshop tutor. She is a member of the Society of Friends
(Quakers) and her subject was the history and development of the
Quaker Tapestry.
Her
power point presentation was a fascinating mix of pictures, sound and
personal input. The Quaker Tapestry was the inspiration of a Somerset
lady, Anne Wynn-Wilson, who was studying the Bayeux Tapestry. In 1981
she had gathered together a team of people with the necessary skills
and work was started on a series of 70 panels, united by the use of 7
selected stitches, worked on a specially woven woollen background
cloth. She wanted the work to be contributory, especially by
children, who were encouraged to draw designs and sew parts of the
panels. News of the project spread round the world and some panels
were created by Friends as far afield as Australia. The collection of
panels was complete in 1996 and it is housed in Kendal, the Lake
District (Westmorland) being where George Fox, the founder of Quakerism first
started preaching.
Quakers have been behind so many aspects of life both in the past (prison reform, abolition of slavery, chocolate!) and more recently in fields like astrophysics, and the panels depict these many aspects in wonderful detail. As well as being a feast for the eyes, they are a rich source of information.
 |
| An example of a tapestry panel. |
The
workshop, on Saturday, was well attended and Bridget provided a kit
and a mandala design, which she had created especially to use each
of the 7 stitches as in the Tapestry. Particularly interesting to
learn was the Quaker Stitch, which was invented by Anne Wynn-Wilson specifically for the lettering on the panels.
It
was a well-structured class, in that a small section of the design
could be completed using one of the stitches, before everyone moved on
to learn the next stitch. We even had a Skype link-up at 2pm with a
class taking place in Kendal and working on the same piece. We were
pleased that both classes seemed to be at the same stage of progress!
Most participants still have quite a bit of work to complete the
design but it is unlikely that the pieces will remain UFOs for long.
