In February this year, Susi Bancroft spoke to the Guild about the Brunel Broderers and said she would be pleased to return to organise a workshop on Kantha work.
She started the day by explaining where the art form originated and showed us some wonderful examples. Although it is basically a running stitch we learnt that it can be done with varying tensions, using a variety of threads and in a variety of forms, not just straight.
By the end of the day everybody had lovely samples showing the possibilities and we all enjoyed the relaxing atmosphere and agreed that it was something we could pick up and put down whenever and wherever we wanted.
From a personal point of view it was so interesting to see examples the following day at the Fabric of India exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum and it made me realise that Kantha work had been stitched for many hundreds of years.
Report by Ros