Our current special exhibition ‘Quaker Simplicity’ includes a textile wall hanging, celebrating the theme ’A Simple Life’. This is the result of an artist led community project to introduce new people to the Quaker Tapestry as well as giving children and adults the chance to explore different textile techniques both in groups and individually.
Artist Sue Rowland planned the textile wall hanging to include work from children from local primary schools, a local group and members of the community (locally and further afield) who attended sessions here at the Quaker Tapestry Museum.
The local primary schools involved were St Marks and Vicarage Park- the children did drawings of old Quaker clothing and drawings of what they thought of as a simple life. A selection of these were used for silk paintings on the wall hanging. The children first making resist outlines and then painting the designs, thinking carefully about the colour palette for the pieces. The children also worked on yarn techniques and some felt applique work. Most of the children hadn’t been to the museum before and knew very little about Quakers before the project.
‘A Simple Life’ wall hanging detail
The local art group involved was Space2Create – a group came to the museum and looked around and finished the children’s designs with silk paint. There were also several free drop in embroidery sessions where members of the community came along to discuss designs with Sue for the border and flag edging pieces. The 24 floral border pieces and 12 pieces of flag edging were inspired by the sampler by Hannah Paynton at the museum.
‘A Simple Life’ wall hanging detail
Using recycled linen fabric as the base for the embroidery and some plant dyed yarns and felt. Sue prepared examples and a pack for each participant. The individual pieces of embroidery were started in the drop in sessions sewing together, then taken away to complete by the community members at home. The colour palette was limited to subtle colours, so that all the pieces worked together. And each of the pieces had a stem through the middle which allowed them all to match up around the border. The participants enjoyed sewing as a group so much that we had to organise another meet up session! Many said they loved the project and doing something small that they could finish at home. One lady in London heard about the project from her brother in Kentmere where the artist lives, she wanted to be part of it so Sue sent her a pack and she sent back the finished piece.
Sue then collected all the work and painstakingly sewed everything together in her home studio, returning the finished piece for the exhibition.
The wall hanging is on public display, as part of the Quaker Simplicity exhibition, until Saturday 16th March 2024.
Quaker Simplicity Exhibition
The Quaker Tapestry Museum are thankful for the contributions to this exhibition from:
Art Fund
Arts Council England
Museum Development North West
St Mark’s CofE Primary
Vicarage Park Primary
Space2Create
Quaker Tapestry Museum’s Publication, Education and Display committee
Kendal Quaker Meeting
Scratch Creative
Stramongate Press
Manchester University Museum
Members of the community who volunteered their time and skill in embroidery
