Early English Needlework Maidstone Museum August 27th

A new date for your diary. Mary Brooks will be talking on Early English Embroidery at Maidstone Museum on 27 August 2009. There will be a display of the lovely early English Needlework from the museum's collection. Following the talk there will be a hands-on session on detached buttonhole suitable for all skill levels. Telephone to reserve a place: 01622 602838.

Another School Find at Ipswich Museum

Another piece of the jig-saw came into place today thanks to the release of The Goodhart Samplers. Ipswich Museum has reported a sampler (acc. IPSMG: 1947-33.11) which is a dead ringer for MON/G/094 (page 181) and T1-2000 in the Fitzwilliam Museum. This new find is in lovely condition with fresh colours.
Looking at any of these samplers in isolation one might have thought one was looking at a family home. Now we have 3 exemplars we can say with certainty that we are looking at a school. And there may be others waiting to be found....
This is one of the reasons why Needleprint was set up - to give access to sampler images and so enable research. A good day!

If you go down to the Museum on Saturday

You'd better go well prepared. Take some stitching for yourself and a few little items of stash so other people can have a go. Stitching simple intitals is always fun for beginners and can easily be accomplished with just a small amount of thread and fabric - and don't forget some spare needles!

Find initials in your favourite pattern book like the Ackworth School Pattern Book. (Out of print but available as a pdf download.) Or make up something simple, fresh and slightly quirky of your own. Have fun with new friends!

Samplers at Kontich Museum near Antwerp

Kontich Museum near Antwerp in Belgium has a number of lovely samplers, some of which were purchased by the same peron who bought for the V&A. To see three of these samplers simply follow this link:
http://users.telenet.be/guido.theys/fotos.htm