Article on pages 13 - 14 of Dickon Independent issue 79

A Practical Meeting On Medieval Needlecraft - February 12

Saturday was lovely and sunny and for once it was quite warm in the hall at Upton Snodsbury. We started off with cups of tea which are always welcome. Pat Parminter gave us each a printed sheet explaining and illustrating some common embroidery stitches, which our medieval ancestors would have been familiar with.

We were then expected to try these stitches on pieces of felt! It’s years since I’ve done any embroidery but I managed to make them look a bit like the pictures. My best effort was chain stitch and fortunately that was what was needed! I shared a table with Mickie and Pat Hibbs, who both turned out to be very proficient.

The idea was to create some pennants for our 25th anniversary banquet in June, to help decorate Belbroughton Village Hall. So the next stage was to cut out a boar or sun in splendour, using Pat’s templates, then stick the silver or gold image onto a felt triangle (murrey or blue) using an iron. After fixing the boar with chain stitch (the suns were enhanced with gold thread), we could add white roses to the pennant. These will be hung back to back on wires in the hall on the 11th June. I took mine home so Bill could add boar features to it thus improving it no end! I didn’t bother with any white roses.

We managed to fit in another round of tea and biscuits, making it a very relaxed and enjoyable afternoon. What a good idea Pat - thanks very much for organising it and all your hard work in preparing the materials. No one wanted it to end!

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