Embroidery as self defence

Wuthering Heights, Catherine and Heathcliff - and embroidery.... following thoughts on the film, read in The Subversive Stitch (Rozsika Parker) that Charlotte Bronte (sister of Emily, author of Wuthering Heights)

"... deliberately reveals the curious contradictions in femininity through embroidery. In her work, embroidery, and thus femininity, emerge as both self denial and self defence, as a means of establishing an inviolate female space and announcing female subservience and availability."

Interesting! As pictured below.... Heathcliff (right) bursts into the living room. Cathy's embroidery/tapestry is between him and the feckless Mr Linton (her husband) standing behind her.

Boxing not embroidery...

A (possibly)  little-known fact: quite a lot of our embroidery classes this year are funded by Faiths in Action (through Communities and Local Government).
The aim: to bring people of different religions together through a shared interest i.e. embroidery.
Filmmaker Lea Gratch has emailed a link to her short internet film documenting the same process - i.e. bringing different religions together - but through boxing. She films 20-something Jewish and Muslim boys

'going to see a boxing match and having a great time - as Howard Jacobson, Mann Booker Prize Winner this year says:"Most hopeful thing I've seen in years.Young Jews and Muslims laughing and rapping together. Half the time you don't know which is which. Wonderful."'

I love it. Viewable on http://www.76seconds.blogspot.com/
(Do not be alarmed by the impression that you need to wait 10 minutes for it to download - you don't.)

Saving the dates ...

We're planning lots of embroidery workshops and classes this autumn. We'll also be at the Knitting and Stitching Show again this year. An easy way to keep up to date is by signing up for our newsletter.  (The link takes you through to the Contacts page on the Bridging Arts website. We don't send out floods of emails - only when absolutely necessary.

Tooting embroidery places snapped up

A quick update to say that all places on the embroidery course at the Furzedown Project, Tooting, have been snapped up. It has proved very popular.... However there will be other opportunities later in the year. One way of keeping up to date is by signing up to the Bridging Arts newsletter via the Contact us page on the website.
Otherwise, please watch this space....

Embroidery kits for the Asian Women's Resource Centre

Meherum Ahmed very kindly arranges for me to drop into the Thursday morning Yoga class at the Asian Women's Resource Centre, Harlesden. Am keen to let women at the Centre know about our planned catwalk collection, in collaboration with sari retailer RCKC. Lots say they are interested but haven't done embroidery for a while and don't have the wherewithal to create a sample.
So put together some very simple kits in the office and bike them over later.

A hot day in Wandsworth and new plans

A meeting at the Islamic School in Tooting, south London. We discuss plans for the embroidery classes at the Furzedown Project, starting in July.... And meet with an enthusiastic response!  A good start to the morning. 

Then over to Mantle Court in Wandsworth, to see friends at the Asian Women's Association. 

Am very lucky to be invited to lunch.

Spinach, black beans and halva. 

 And a wonderful surprise from Zubaidah Shah, who has embroidered two more, exquisite, swatches for the Stitch Roadshow. She is 83.  The day ends with some very good news. We hear that we have been part-funded by Hammersmith and Fulham Fast Track Grants to run a short series of embroidery events and a tea party in a local residential home.

Jane Austen and embroidery ...

Whizzing through Sense and Sensibility on a sunny weekend in Cornwall. A lot of sewing and embroidery. Had forgotten how incisive, if not caustic, Jane Austen can be. Our heroines arrive in London and are immediately

"put in possession of a very comfortable apartment. It had formerly been Charlotte's and over the mantelpiece still hung a landscape in coloured silks of her performance, in proof of her having spent seven years at a great school in town to some effect."

And later, an intriguing present is given to each of the two Miss Steeles by the unappealing Mrs Dashwood ...

"a needle book, made by some emigrant". 

Will have to find out more. (Picture: The Linley Sisters by Thomas Gainsborough)

Stitch embroidery pack course - places available this July

Just announced - details of the course we'll be running this July around our Stitch embroidery packs. The classes will be completely free. They will be at the 91/93 Furzedown Project, Moyser Road, London SW16 6SJ. A few places are available - please email info@bridginga-arts.com if you would like to book. BOoking is essential.
They will be from 2-4pm on
21 July
28 July
4 August
11 August
18 August
25 August
At three of the sessions, there will be tutors from the Royal School of Needlework teaching
- surface stitches
- blackwork
- goldwork.
At the other three sessions, the work will be followed up by a class co-ordinator, with volunteers, and information given about the background to the stitches.
Packs for the three sessions will be free and places, of course, will be limited. At the first session, therefore, we are asking people for a small deposit (£10) showing that they do intend to complete the course. That £10 will be refunded on completion of five of the sessions.

A team for the new catwalk collection

A meeting in Wembly with Amit Rastogi of RCKC and Jessica Aldred of the RSN ... We're putting together a team of embroiderers to create the new catwalk collection (designed in India, embroidered here - complete reversal of the usual process...).

So - if you are interested - the first step is to submit a sample of your work for Amit to look at. He asks for anything that you think might be relevant. Please send it to Susan Roberts, c/o Bridging Arts by 21st June -

Bridging Arts

370-376 Uxbridge Road

London W12 7LL

Please enclose return postage to ensure it can be posted back to you - I am not sure how much more registered post is, but it is probably worth it.

All very exciting! Amit will look at all samples submitted in the following week and put together a team...

A call for keen embroiderers....

Exciting news... Amit Rastogi of sari retailer RCKC (who produced the winning British Sari Story saris last year and will also have this year's winning entries made up) is keen to have a catwalk collection designed by one of his designers embroidered here in the UK. So ... we are sending out a call for keen embroiderers who might like to become involved. If you feel that you could come on board please do get in touch (please email info@bridging-arts.com). Initially it would just be a question of getting some examples to your work to Amit (who will be based at RCKC in Wembley this month) so he can see. Then we'll get a team together.  We don't anticipate a huge amount of work - this will just be for sample garments for the catwalk show.
Amit would like to start on this as soon as possible.
This is really an exciting development. Currently the vast majority of embellishment and beading for London catwalk shows is done in south Asia. We're keen tostart to change this. This first idea is a small move that could be important. This new collection will be designed by an Indian designer but embroidered by a British team....

Snow, research in Southfields and embroidery

A meeting at Southfields Library with Sucheta Samant (Library Manager) and Chris Dobb, who has been working on the project almost since the start. Sucheta is wearing an embroidered salwar kameez.

We make plans for the exhibition to open here after Easter. And wonder whether we can find funding to run another embroidery course, this time for eight weeks, during the show.
The roads pleasantly clear because of the snow, still throwing the country into chaos.
But the weather has hammered home something I was thinking about earlier in the week - the loneliness and isolation of so many older people in modern Britain and their too often insular- if not imprisoned -  lives in residential homes.
Many are literally stopped from venturing out at the moment by icy pavements.
Read the Baring Foundation's report Aging Artfully on older people taking part in arts projects (Stitch is mentioned).  A lot of interesting observations generally on aging. Notably that isolation is now known to have adverse effects on health. And an explanation of the terms 'Third Age' and 'Fourth Age'.
And finally - a record-breaking performance, surely, from the Royal Mail. A delightful Christmas card arrives from Margaret Andrews of the Institute for Germanic and Romance Studies, thanking me for inviting her to the launch of the British Sari Story in Brent in October 2007.  (I first met Helen Scalway, a key partner in the British Sari Story at the IGRS at a conference organised by Margaret). It takes me a while to work out what has happened - but the post mark reveals all. Margarget posted the card on 22 December 2007. It has taken just over two years to arrive....

France and Madras - the embroidery connection

A blog reader spots an article in Le Figaro about Jean-Francois Lesage, a scion of the famous French haute couture embroiderer Lesage, who has an atelier producing embroidered home furnishing fabrics in Madras, India.

Lesage, with its illustrious 150 years plus of history, has been frequently mentioned during the Stitch project. We have no equivalent to Lesage in the UK now. An interesting article in the Wall Street Journal in October 2009 shows that even the great French couture industry is feeling the pinch....Lesage was one of several companies recently bought up by Chanel.

Without ateliers like Lesage, Chanel couldn't make its most elaborate clothes. "This is not an act of charity," Bruno Pavlovsky, president of fashion at Chanel told the Wall Street Journal.

The companies Chanel bought are allowed to do business with other high-end fashion brands, even though Chanel requires that its own products are all sourced in France.

Francois Lesage, creative director of Lesage, says that while all his designs are created in Paris, he has been outsourcing about 15% of the ready-to-wear orders the company gets to Madras, India, since the late 1990s. "Does the master chef peel the vegetables?" asks the 80-year-old Mr. Lesage.

Wall Street Journal

Royal embroidery in Battersea

A great day today in Battersea with Maureen Markham, embroiderer of many Royal gowns, who helped to launch the Stitch Wandsworth exhibition at York Gardens Library. Miss Markham trained with Norman Hartnell, the Queen's favourite couturier, and over several decades worked on fabulous ceremonial and evening gowns. A large crowd to see her demonstrating her exquisite work. Including women from the Asian Women's Group and Restart 50+ who created embroidered panels for the show reflecting scenes from their lives and other patterns, inspired by the project. A team photo.

Countdown to the new embroidery pack launch

In Cornwall, writing and editing the embroidery pack for the first classes (back in London next week). The weather is atrocious. In between calls to David Cross, our designer in Ealing, am driving to meetings on our I Packed This Myself project on migrant workers...

The Asian Women's Group visit the Knitting and Stitching Show

The show opens. And the first visitors from Wandsworth are the Asian Women's Group who are delighted to see their embroidery. Centre of this picture is Safia Qureshi who (with her sister Zubaidah Shah) loaned rare fish scale embroidery which fascinated many visitors. To her right is Violet, who works daily with the group.

Picking up the exhibition pieces

Picking up the exhibition pieces from Restart 50+. Ferdous Rahman with her piece inspired by a tile she saw on holiday in Istanbul. Amina aziz with her fabulous free-style flowers racing over the pencil border that she originally drew for herself, ignoring a second, embroidered, border and looping right to the edge of the fabric.

Pulling out the stops in Tooting

The first focus group and we're dazzled. The room at the community centre, where the group meets, is filled with suitcases, bags and bundles. It's the first time I meet Jessica Aldred of the Royal School of Needlework (who throws herself into the project with a passion) and in one sense we don't know where to start. Such is the variety of pieces brought in, the stitches and the background. We take as many photos as we can. We make a list of the stitches, some regional that Jessica has not seen before. People tell their stories.
We're lucky with the light. There is just time to take photographs in the street as the sun sets.

First steps -patterns and place

How did it start? In Willesden Green, during the British Sari Story exhibition. Had a coffee with Matt Stringer, Wandsworth Council's Senior Arts Officer. We'd been creating patterns for the sari in the British Sari Story - why not think about Islamic patterns on traditional clothing? Matt suggested. Particularly the hijab. Why? To work with Muslim and non-Muslim women to increase understanding of different traditions of Islam through a common interest - embroidery.
The next step - as always - was the quest for funding. But such had been the interest in the British Sari Story, that we were sure that the idea of looking further at pattern, place and heritage would strike chords somewhere.
Above - Rahiet Ashfaq of Fife with her Sari for Scotland, reflecting the traditional damask patterns of her native town, given a contemporary twist in her sari.