Registration is now open for our Online Studio class A Love of Christmas with Kim Beamish!
In A Love of Christmas, students will create a seasonal needle set that includes pin cushion, needle book and scissor fob. The center heart is complete in a Pulled Thread filling known as Chequer filling. This gives dimension to the heart. A holly, pine and berries border surround the heart. The berries and Holly leaves are complete in a way to add dimension to these shapes. Gold thread is used to complete the borders and gold beads are added as a final touch to the design.
Written lessons will be step by step, creating the outline of pieces, completing the Pulled Thread embroidery, completing the Surface embroidery and finishing the pieces. The project is completed using silk threads but a DMC alternative will be given.
Registration closes on October 4, 2023. The PDF Lessons for the class will be posted to the class page weekly starting December 6, and the following lessons will be posted on December 20, 2023 and January 3, 17 and 31, and February 14, 2024.
Click here to register for A Love of Christmas
Here’s a quick rundown of how our online classes work: Students get access to the class content based on the class schedule and to a class discussion forum where the teacher will answer students’ questions and where students can post photos of their progress and communicate with each other. Lessons can be downloaded at any time up to two months after the last lesson is posted. Please check the details for each class to see if the class format will include video instruction.
Online Studio Classes coming soon!
Hummingbird in Silk and Gold with Lizzy Pye
Learn how to handle traditional silks known as flat or filament silks, which are untwisted. Stitch silk shading (long and short stitch), satin stitch and stem stitch to create splashes of color amongst the gold. Learn to create smooth felt padding and embellish with traditional goldwork techniques of couching and colored couching, pearl purl, invisibly stitched twist and chipping. Registration: October 4 – November 1, 2023. Class schedule: February 7 – March 27, 2024. Sign up for a reminder!
Trevelyon’s Needlebook with Kathy Andrews
Sweet flowers and fresh, green leafy vines stitched on creamy ivory linen combine in this delightful needlebook. Its design is inspired by the Trevelyon Miscellany of 1608—a book that’s more than 400 years old—compiled at the end of the Renaissance. Together we will embroider this design using satin stitch, stem stitch, long and short shading, leaf stitch, and trellis work. Registration: February 7—March 6, 2024. Class schedule: May 1, 2024–May 29, 2024. Sign up for a reminder!
Mandala Hoop Embroidery with J. Marsha Michler
Use many different embroidery stitches to create a mandala-style design within a 6″ (15.24cm) circle. Begin the design at the center and allow it to grow by adding on. Observe the design emerge as you add to it! This design class demonstrates a form of freestyle embroidery. Other mandala-type designs will be presented within the class, showing how an endless variety of designs is possible. Registration: May 1 – June 5, 2024. Class schedule: August 7 – 21, 2024. Sign up for a reminder!
Lightning Rounds
We have 5 new GCC Lightning Rounds available for registration through November 30, 2023. These are a selection of our Group Correspondence Courses that have been hand-picked by our Education Department and made available for individual EGA members to register without a group for a limited time. Click the pictures below to learn more about each course.
Virtual Lecture Recordings Now Available
Recording Now Available: Making My Bed: Creating imaginative worlds with 3D embroidery with Salley Mavor — Artist Salley Mavor will talk about her 40+ year career creating imaginative worlds with 3-dimensional embroidery. The presentation will cover a wide range of artistic adventures, from illustration to doll-making to stop-motion animation, all done in her signature hand-stitched style. This is an opportunity to take a behind the scenes peek at Ms. Mavor’s innovative process, which incorporates embroidery, fabric, and found objects. Get access to the recording!
Recording Now Available: Elizabethan Embroidery And The Trevelyon Miscellany Of 1608 with Kathy Andrews — Thomas Trevelyon, a London craftsman of whom little is known, created his miscellany in 1608 when he was about 60 years old. Join Kathy Andrews for a brief overview of the concept of a miscellany. We will see a facsimile of the Miscellany and explore the embroidery designs within. Participants will see both period and current examples of embroidered pieces whose designs are inspired/taken from the Miscellany. Get access to the recording!
Recording Now Available: How to Research an Antique Sampler with Cindy Steinhoff — An antique sampler reveals some of its physical characteristics and often some information about the girl who stitched it, but what else can it tell us? Cynthia Shank Steinhoff will discuss how she learns more about the samplers she collects and researches. The result is a full documentation of a sampler’s appearance and history. Many of the characteristics that she identifies for older samplers can be used to provide a full description of a needlework piece made today. Get access to the recording!
Recording Now Available: Linen: The Journey From Seed to Cloth with Ellen Phelps – What do you really know about the linen cloth you stitch on or linen thread that you stitch with? In order to gain an appreciation of the linen thread that we use in our weaving, the Frances Irwin Handweavers Guild set out on a 2-year journey to learn about linen. From preparing the garden and growing, reaping, and preparing flax to be spun into linen thread and woven into cloth, guild members experienced these processes literally from the ground up! Come along with us on this journey as we share our experiences with you so that you, too, can learn more about the linen you hold in your hands. Get access to the recording!
Virtual Lectures Coming Soon
Coming Soon: ‘Este dechado’: Mastering Needlework in Mid-19th Century Mexico with Dr. Lynne Anderson and Dr. Mayela Flores Enriquez — Drs. Lynne Anderson and Mayela Flores will introduce the world of Mexican sampler making, showcasing the unique features of Mexican “dechados” and discussing the important role of needlework in Mexican female education, including how this changed over time due to historical, cultural, and religious influences. Live Lecture Date: Saturday, October 14, 2023 1PM Eastern Live Lecture Registration: September 18 – October 12, 2023 1PM Eastern Get a reminder!
Coming Soon: Stitches in Time: Textile Conservation for the Needleworker with Newbie Richardson — Stitches in Time: Textile Conservation for the Needleworker will focus on the unique needs of needlework, quilts, and embroidery in terms of preventive conservation, stabilization, display, and repair. Newbie will provide information on hydrating, mounting, framing, wet and dry cleaning, and some repair techniques you can do at home. She will show some real-world examples of damage and solutions with common sense explanations for what you can do to save your precious family heirlooms for the generations going forward. Live Lecture Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023 1PM Eastern Live Lecture Registration: October 16 – November 9, 2023 1PM Eastern Get a reminder!
Coming Soon: Reviving the art of embroidery: Lady Victoria Welby and the founding of the Royal School of Needlework, 1872-1881 with Lynn Hulse — Lynn Hulse explores the early history of the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) through the lens of its founder, Lady Victoria Welby (1837-1912). Welby is better known today as a philosopher of language, but during her lifetime she was credited with reviving the art of embroidery, brought into disrepute by the ‘uselessness and ugliness’ of Berlin work, the most popular type of fancy work in the early Victorian period. Founded in 1872, the RSN, or School of Art Needlework as it was originally named, set about restoring embroidery for house decoration to the level of the other decorative arts, and through its revival, provided suitable employment for distressed gentlewomen in reduced circumstances. Live Lecture Date: Sunday, December 17, 2023 1PM Eastern Live Lecture Registration: November 13 – December 15, 2023 1PM Eastern Get a reminder!
