Special May Evening Event: Talk with Slides for the Solent Branch of the Embroiderer’s Guild

It was a special evening in Titchfield on the south coast of England on Monday 16th May. The event included a talk with slides which explored display techniques and featured Create Display textile art. The talk was presented by Amanda Howse.

The location was the pretty rural village of Titchfield at The Parish Rooms, High Street, Titchfield, Hampshire PO14 4AQ

Ms. Mainwaring is the leader of the Solent Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild and their blogspot website describes the club as

“..a small group of people who meet in the Titchfield Parish Rooms in a beautiful part of the Solent area, Hampshire. Our group has been running for over 15 years and we have about 40 members.”

The Embroiderer's Guild website gives more detail about this regional branch of the creative arts society and their vision:

“We are an informal,supportive and multi-talented group of enthusiastic stitchers. We have inspirational speakers covering a wide spectrum of stitch related art. Our workshops are always accessible to all levels of skill and encourage personal development of ideas with the opportunity to try out new techniques. Friendship is an important aspiration.”

This event was created as part of a calender of events for the Solent Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild that includes meetings, talks and workshops.

The members of the Solent Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild attended their May gathering which was chaired and introduced by Ms Mainwaring who covered the latest in branch news and updates.

Amanda was then invited to speak about display techniques and textiles and her creative work on display at Create Display upstairs in Bosham Walk Art & Craft Center in Bosham harbour in West Sussex.

The talk with powerpoint presentation lasted about an hour and Amanda showed everyone both photographs and drawings. She talked about her retail background and what she had learned about displaying home furnishings with well known quality department stores in London's Oxford Street.

Howse then covered some techniques used in display to highlight and promote products successfully and discussed some relevant creative freelance shop design and display projects.

The spacious and historic village hall gave a perfect backdrop for the talk. On the walls hang a collection of magnificent hand stitched fabric wall art applique pieces in all colours of the rainbow that have been made by the Solent Embroiderer's Guild to mark 100 years of the village hall in the year 2000.

In the next section of her talk Howse shared a selection of Create Display fairs and events in Hampshire and Sussex.

In the final part Amanda explained how her work in textiles art was progressing this year and a little about her work practice.

Inspired by the picturesque Bosham harbour, Howse described how she enjoyed Create Display being part of the established Bosham Art and Craft Center. She mentioned how positive it is to share a gallery and shop space with other local artists and craftspeople.

Howse concluded with talking about the trend for multichannel retailing and spoke about the launch of the new Create Display online shop at etsy.com.

The Solent Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild where very friendly and enthusiastic and asked some great questions about product packaging and displaying fabric and stitched artwork in a public space.

Amanda was happy to speak with people in the club personally afterwards. The guild members were very kind to share several excellent tips for creating wonderful textile artwork and fine embroidery pieces.

All who were present agreed that it is a challenging and important project, to arrange all of the creative embroiderer's current colourful and diverse finished work, in one space.

So there is much excitement and anticipation surrounding the forthcoming Solent Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild exhibition. Entitled “The Solent Shore” the show takes place 22-Jul-2016 to 09-Aug-2016 at The Westbury Manor Museum, West Street, Fareham, Hampshire.

The event is free and there is more information via the link below.

It is a warm week and we were charmed to be the first customers to order a chocolate frappe drink in the pretty cafe named 'Memory Lane' in the middle of Titchfield High Street. This May Monday night was definately one we'll remember as friendly, fun, inspiring and memorable.