AGM and Quaker Tapestry Talk and Workshop

                                                       A most welcome guest.

At our 2018 AGM on Friday 28^th 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.