FIFTY STITCHERS

To celebrate our 50th anniversary year, 2010,
we will post a profile of an EGV member
every week, for 50 weeks.

DOROTHY MORGAN

Guild President 2002-2004, and curator of
"Flowering Needles; embroidery from Elizabeth to Victoria"
our 50th anniversary exhibition at The Johnston Collection, Melbourne.

I inherited my love of embroidery from my mother. As a girl she was far more inclined to be found sitting stitching rather than out riding bikes and climbing trees with her younger sister. Before her marriage she had won prizes for both her embroidery (surface stitchery peacock on linen, which I still have) and her knitting (a black two-ply evening jumper with a large multi-coloured parrot on the front, which I vaguely remember but which disappeared long ago).

As a young mother she had little time for embroidery. However enforced rest during her pregnancy with my younger brother, when I was five, gave her time to finish a picture of an exotic wild duck worked entirely in solid rows of stem stitch in one strand of stranded cotton. It's the only other piece of my mother’s early embroidery that I still possess. Of course I had to do what Mum was doing, so this is where my life as an embroiderer began.

What I stitched first I have no idea, but the following years saw various pieces of canvaswork and school cross stitch on gingham projects, none of which still exist and only one of which I remember in any detail.

It was a Swiss mountain chalet set among snow capped peaks stitched in wool on canvas and which my father framed and hung on my bedroom wall, where it stayed for years. I have no idea what happened to it but possibly my mother gave it to the same jumble sale that received my Beatrix Potter books, several years after I moved to Melbourne from the country.

That brings me to the second great influence on me as an embroiderer. At the same time as I was watching my mother stitch that wild duck I was reading about those mice finishing the beautiful embroidered waistcoat being made by the Tailor of Gloucester and - best of all - looking at the pictures. I think my love of beautiful old embroidery has always been greater than my ability or time available to recreate it. I know most embroiderers have lots of UFOs, and possibly my excuse is that nothing ever really lived up to the magnificent flowers on the tailor’s waistcoat.

I first became aware of the EGV in my early 20s while living in a share house opposite The Isobel Younger Ross Hall in Carlton, where the Guild held at least one of its early exhibitions. That exhibition reignited my desire to create beautiful embroidery. However it was not until my early 30s, with two small children, that I actually got around to joining the Guild. Once the children were at school I was able to do lots of classes, extending my repertoire beyond cross and tent stitches.

Two tutors in particular stand out from that time: Win Saunders opened up greater possibilities in canvaswork with her little trees and garden pincushions and Val Landman was the first person who ever managed to teach me to do a half decent French knot and bullion knot. Since that time I have continued to learn new techniques. By the time the children were in secondary school I wanted to design my own work, so I embarked on the Art for the Stitch course at the Guild and then the City and Guilds course, which really stretched me, made me think, and got me handling art materials with confidence.

I cannot say that I am an obsessive embroiderer. Weeks can go by without touching a needle, but then I will have a great burst of activity. It is so relaxing to sit for several hours and stitch, particularly if there is time to do that on a regular basis over a number of weeks so that real progress is made. I do believe that stitching does something to the brain patterns and that if more people embroidered there would be less need for counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists in this world!

My current interest in embroidery is largely centred around Japanese embroidery. This extremely meticulous technique is time-consuming and demanding, but the silks are gorgeous and some of the designs really appeal to me. I am still very much a beginner, but I am already designing in my head the projects I want to move on to once I have learnt a few more of the Japanese techniques (cranes and plum blossom will feature heavily).

Harking right back to my early years as an embroiderer, I usually have a piece of canvaswork on the go, often a Beth Russell version of a William Morris design, and I try to have something more creative in the works for whichever exhibition is next on the calendar. I have started my first proper quilt (very slow progress so far) and think I can feel more quilts in my future. It is very satisfying to find a UFO I love but had forgotten about lurking in the back of a cupboard and to get back to it, even to finish it, but I am afraid there are a lot which will never see the light of day again.

Along with the enormous amount of pleasure the act of embroidery and creation has given me over the years, it has also given me the opportunity to meet, work with and become friends with a great array of wonderful, inspiring and simpatico women, people I may not otherwise have met. That is to me, and I am sure to many embroiderers, one of the greatest pleasures of embroidery - being part of the long and continuing tradition, the sisterhood of the needle.