Travelling Books - Introduction

The Oxford Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild has embarked on a new venture this year, Travelling Books. It is in effect a 'round robin' but the 'robin' in this case is an A5 sketch book. For now we are working in groups of six, each member of the group has two books, a Travelling Book and a Home Book. You have one month to create a page for each book; at the end of the month, you pass the travelling book to the next person in your group. The first month both pages go into your own books; in subsequent months, one page is for your home book, the other for the travelling book currently lodging with you. When your travelling book has done the round and returns home, you will have six pages by six different artists.

The phrases 'Japanese Embroidery' and 'rush job' are rarely found in the same sentence but ... with so many things vying for my attention, I did not begin working on my first pages until last Friday. Although I had decided on a small design, I had put myself under considerable presure time wise, especially as I was demonstrating Japanese Embroidery at the Stitching and Creative Crafts show all weekend.



I don't do my best work under pressure, and the stitching is not terribly good but I certainly did not have time to redo it. I finished stitching late on Tuesday night; I began making up the page in the Travelling Book on Wednesday morning.


I finished it after work on Wednesday before going directly to our branch meeting and exchanging books 30 minutes later. I have a tendancy to leave things to the last minute but that was too close for comfort, even for me.


Although the stitching is less than perfect, the page is as I envisaged and I am reasonably happy with it. I am trying to keep in mind the ethos behind this project; the intention is not to create perfect works of art but rather to stimulate our own, and each others, creative juices.

I only had time to complete the travelling book ready to pass on, I hope to complete the home book this weekend so that it does not fall behind. My travelling book has now begun its journey and I will not see it again until it has completed the round. How exciting is that. Unfortunately, the lady who passes books to me was unable to attend this evening's meeting, she will post her book to me, but I intend to give myself more time to work on the next pages.

Happy Stitching