Review - A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery at the British Library - 6 June 2015

I went to a great day-long event at the British Library themed around the new art work by Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery).

"Fabricated by many hands, from prisoners and lawyers to artists and barons, Magna Carta (An Embroidery) replicates in stitch the entire Wikipedia article on the Great Charter as it appeared on the document’s 799th anniversary in 2014" (www.bl.uk/events/cornelia-parker-magna-carta-an-embroidery)

The piece itself was really impressive but more of that later. First to the event on the 6th of June 2015 called A Stitch in Time: A Day of Embroidery.

Karen Nicol

I have to jump to my immediate excitement at having met Karen Nicol who had a stand and was showing her famous sample 'sketchbook'. It is literally a set of A2-sized fabric 'pages' onto which she loosely pins a movable feast of her latest samples.

Karen Nicol's 'sketchbook'

She explains this all very well in this Embroiderer's Guild video. Also in this justhandson.tv video. I got to see her resin raindrops in 'the flesh'.

She also had many of her Lace series on show and it was priceless to be able to see them close up and touch and feel and look at the back. Above all she was very generous with her time, explaining some of her techniques and she literally talked me through every single page of her samples.

I really admire how she pushes the boundaries of surface creation. She said she sees things and wonders how she could replicate them in materials and then just experiments. Namely the resin raindrops (see videos above) and plastic bags cut into glistening fringes, the stuff magpies like me flock to. The other thing I really noticed is how often she pushes scale to extremes, for instance fly stitch and French knots with thick ribbon.

Her pieces are playful and humorous and make you wonder what goes on in her mind and how much fun she must have. Each one is also a lesson in textiles imagineering.

Jacky Puzey

I also spent a long while chatting with Jacky Puzey who demoed the digital embroidery programme she uses. Her work is really striking and her current theme is centred on tattoos.

Raven included real feathers and the scale of it (about 4' high) makes it a remarkable piece. I loved the textures and colour in her Shade suits too.

Raven by Jacky Puzey

Cushion cover with tattoo theme by Jacky Puzey

She is also a great example of being a good businesswoman as well as an artist. She detected a gap in the need for digital embroidery processes, especially for students leaving college and not yet set up with the expensive equipment.

Several other textile artists had stands including Adriana Tavares, a rug designer, and Jess de Wahls whose pieces I find disturbing (not being a fan of dolls, which they resemble) but she is an interesting artist.

Workshops

There was a wide variety of free and inexpensive workshops. You could be part of the over 7,000 people from all over the world who have contributed to the World’s Longest Embroidery.

The World’s Longest Embroidery - the Guinness World Record-breaking embroidery from The Embroiderers’ Guild

The World’s Longest Embroidery shown hanging in loops from the ceiling above the day's goings-on

In the Stitch a Word workshop run by the Embroiderers' Guild you learnt basic stitches to replicate words from the Magna Carta.

My satin stitch had an independent mind of its own

A tip for perfect Satin stitch is to run a Split stitch all along the border/edges of the intended piece (a bit tricky on the one above as it was so small) then do your Satin stitch around this stitched border, angling your needle around the thread. I will try that out on a piece I'm working on and show you results.

I also took Blackwork and Goldwork tutorials run by the Royal School of Needlework and by Hand & Lock respectively.

Blackwork: the exemplar on the left, the reality on the right. I have discovered that I don't mind counting at all, it's quite therapeutic

I was introduced to the renowned method of unstranding your thread and rejoining the strands. And no licking the ends to get them through the eye of the needle!

My Goldwork effort: I angled my gold in the wrong direction and the borders were a bit scrappy but all in all I'm not unhappy with it

Magna Carta

Back to Cornelia Parker. The embroidered wiki page about the Magna Carta was impressive in scale and I loved being able to see some of the back via mirrors set up underneath it.

Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery)

Detail of Cornelia Parker: Magna Carta (An Embroidery) showing, top, an 'image' stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild.

One of the 'images' was stitched by Anthea Godfrey of the Embroiderers’ Guild. She said it took her 450 hours using techniques from the C16th. The image above (as well as the one taken for the Guardian article, top of the page) doesn't begin to do it the least justice; it was glistening with gold.

The exhibition is on until the 24th of July 2015.