Alison Hulme

Alison will be our speaker this month. She is a well known screen printer who makes and sells screen printed aprons. You may have seen her at the Knitting and Stitching Show. Alison gives a lively and informative talk so come along and join us for the evening. Visitors pay £6 and this includes tea or coffee and biscuits. The doors open at 19.30. We meet at The Soltau Centre which is the church hall behind the church of St James the Less in Stubbings which is on the outskirts of Maidenhead and easily accessible from both the M4 and M40 via the A404 (M). There is plenty of free parking and the wildflowers in the churchyard are wonderful.

Michele Carragher

Michele is the principal costume embroiderer on HBO's Game of Thrones. She was our May speaker and what a thrill it was to hear about her work on GoT and other productions.

This year the  SEW Regional Day will be hosted by Oxford Branch at Our Lady's Senior School Abingdon, OX14 3PS on April 16 . Tickets cost £25 each and include refreshments on arrival and a buffet lunch. Speakers will be:

Diana Springall and Michele Carragher

On the weekend of 10th to 12th May our Joint Presidents Jan Beaney & Jean Littlejohn gave a very well-attended lecture on the Friday evening, followed by a two-day embroidery workshop in Louth, Lincolnshire.  They were made very welcome by the organisers and everyone thought it had been a very successful weekend.  Until, that was, they came to pack away and discovered that a number of stitch samples, sketchbooks and artworks were missing, and it also appeared that some of their books and DVDs could not be accounted for.

Anyone who has attended one of their talks or workshops will know how generous they are in allowing participants to examine their completed embroideries, samples and sketchbooks, many of which have been photographed and used to illustrate their very popular range of books. Before this incident they have never been subjected to apparently methodical theft of this magnitude and find it very difficult to comprehend. They will take more precautions when sharing their work in the future.

Obviously these valuable works took Jan and Jean many hours to create over a number of years and they use them constantly in their teaching. As you can imagine they are very upset about this, especially as they had enjoyed working with the group.  When Jan told our group about the losses there was a stunned silence, but we were aghast when she told us that some of Jean's sketchbooks, were stolen including one from a teaching trip to America that is totally irreplaceable as they don't anticipate returning to the area where the drawings were done, we were amazed that someone could be so callous as to take the source material Jean would have used to produce new work; of what possible use could these books be to someone who had not created the sketches?

The police are now involved and are actively investigating this incident, so if you attended any part of the weekend and saw anything suspicious, please contact the Louth Police.  Alternatively, there is a possibility that the works were taken in error and if that is the case they can be sent, anonymously, to Double Trouble, 25 The Crescent, Maidenhead, Berkshire, SL6 6AA.

Please send a link to this article to anyone you think may be able to help publicise the loss or post it to your Facebook or other social media. Alternatively, if you are offered them or see any of the pieces for sale, please contact the police or Jan & Jean at the above address.

Let's help in any way we can to recover these items!

We are a branch of the Embroiderers' Guild and as such are committed to education about all aspects of the history and practice of embroidery and textile arts.

Are you interested in embroidery or any aspect of textiles? Just want to find out more about what we do?  Why not join us at one of our friendly evening meetings, usually held on the second Tuesday of most months at 7:30pm

at:-

The Soltau Centre,

Behind the Shurch of St. James-the-Less,

Henley Road,

Stubbings,

Maidenhead,

Berkshire SL6 6QW

You need to have no special skills or even be an active stitcher, with us you will find plenty of inspiration and people to teach you if you want to learn new skills.  

We normally have a speaker who brings a presentation and examples of their work or pieces from their collection. Alternatively we organise a mini-workshop evening for those attending to try new materials and techniques and these are sometimes combined with social evenings.  See our programme page for more details of what is planned for your intended visit. 

In addition, membership brings the opportunity to join our other activities such as Saturday Schools, Visits, Design Days, Exhibitions and Group Projects.