The story sew far

I have spent a couple of days thinking about and exploring ways of sewing all the signatures together. It is hard to plan too much in advance with collaborative projects like this, you can never be certain, how many people will actually be involved.

To date we have 216 with possibly 50 – 75 more to come from numbers of packs that have been collected from Touchstones. A few of the Begum’s I have spotted so far.

It is interesting as I reflect on the early sessions now looking at all the signatures. I decided from the outset I would include all the sewing no matter whether it is legible or well sewn. If you begin to mess with one in anyway, where do you stop? The range is amazing, from styles of writing to skills in embroidery.

I have photographed a number of compositional ideas and as I am on holiday for 10 days I am going to mull it all over before a final decision of the format of the cloth. Quite  a responsibility, everyone will want to see their signature and it needs to look good too.

Found a signature I photographed from the 1895 quilt – compare styles.

Littleborough – Ebor studios

The last session collecting signatures took me to Littleborough. For a change I decided to take the train, passing my favourite map in Victoria station.

I popped into the Littleborough Museum on the station, home to some lovely artifacts including war memorials. I also called in at the charity shops on the way to Ebor Studios and picked up a cotton pillowcase for the project, they are pretty hard to come by these days, so many are poly cotton.

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Cheryl who runs the monthy craftanoon at Ebor hosted our sew in and provided tea and cakes for everyone. It was a busy session with lots of enthusiastic sewers, including two lots of sisters and a few family groups.

One of the ladies had actually been to school in the building that is now the studios, previously known as Jubilee Hall.

She said the main school was across the road but they came to the hall for dinners and the older children did crafts and work there. She recounted doing some knitting and being mortified when the teacher told her to ladder it to make a pattern.

Heywood Sports Centre

The latest venue for collecting signatures was the sports centre in Heywood. There were two tables and lots of chairs which did create a nice working environment. The feeling was very different to other sessions and lots of children and families came and chatted. A few staff came and added their signatures to at the end of their shifts.

As the project is only open to adults, the children sat and sewed their parent’s signatures or I gave them ones that had not been sewn which they stitched with relish.  

There  was overall a very positive response to the project and again, people who had classes and so were not able to sit and sew, donated their signature to the quilt.

Knitty Gritty

Back in Touchstones for a session to coincide with the monthy knitting group. Alison Slater came along and shared some of her findings on the historical quilt with the group.

As usual people came and went, I sewed a couple of drawn signatures.

Alison Cooper was back from holidays too, so we went up to the gallery and discussed ideas for the exhibition space. I also went and rummaged with Alison Slater in the charity shops for more pillowcases, as all the fabric packs at Touchstones have gone. I bought two white and also a couple of lilac ones. Not too sure about the colour but it can be a stand by if I can’t find more white/cream cloth?

Touchstones

Saturday saw us in the cafe area of Touchstones, it was actually the first session in the gallery and great to see that word is spreading about the project. All the sewing packs I left on the desk have gone and a few were waiting for me to collect.

It was a lovely afternoon and despite the hot weather we had a steady stream of participants. I have to say getting people to sit and sew and here some of their stories is wonderful.

Karen a graduate of mine from the Embroidery degree at MMU came to help and was, as ever, brilliant. She instructed the novice sewers and her enthusiasm is inspiring. James, a local councillor came and took to the cause with aplomb, he  sat and sewed his signature along side several women from the local Embroiderers Guild group.

Another modern signature cloth was identified in Rochdale, last seen in Springhill Hospice, I will contact them and see if it is still on view? It would be lovely as well to have some signatures from those involved in such a valuable institution.We also had some older ladies who had lived in Rochdale all their lives, Winifred told me of her dad coming to Rochdale on a cart from Pendelbury where he had worked in the mines.

We were also joined by a beautiful couple from Tehran and a lady and her daughter who’s parents moved to Rochdale in the early 1960’s from India. She decided to sew all her family members names in the same colours, so that they could be found, where ever they were situated across the quilt.

Clifford came in and asked for my website details to send to a relative in Vermont who is a quilt maker. He added under his signed name, a code which I think he said was his CB radio tag?

Sew your own

Trying out a few ideas now that I have a substantial number of signatures to play with. Always a nice challenge, exploring different compositions and permutations. The vast range of  signature cloths I have researched in museums come to mind and all the possible configurations. Debating at the moment between lists and circles, both used in the composition of early signature cloth. The circle reflects the round robin in petitions where circular formats were used so no one signing was singled out as the ring leader.

The last few open sessions are coming up – Sat 27th July at Touchstones 12-4pm and Tues 3oth July 1.30-3.30pm and Sat 3rd Aug 2-4pm at Ebor Studios Littleborough. I am hoping to get to the Rochdale canal festival as well.

If you can’t make a session, here is a “how to” create your own sewn signature – you must live in the borough of Rochdale to take part. Fabric and thread is provided by Touchstones – please collect from their reception desk anytime until the end of August. You can use your own material and thread as long as its 100% plain (bed) cotton and colour fast.

1. The dimensions of the sewn signature need to fit within a standard postcard size, (6 x 4” or 15 x 10 cms) leave room for a border so we can sew them all together

2. Ideally it should reflect  your signature, it does not have to be readable – we are collecting names of everyone involved to display alongside the quilt.

3. Draw your name with the water dissolvable pen (if this is not available to you in pencil so it can be erased)

4. Stitch your signature in embroidery thread, anything you like as long as its colour fast. A back stitch, stem stitch or chain are ideal so the line and form of the signature is retained.

5. Hand it or post to Touchstones by the 3^rd Sept 2013 with your full name and place of birth

6. Come and see the finished cloth from 14th Dec in Touchstones Gallery.

Middleton Library

My afternoon was spent in Middleton, the area feels very village like. The Old Boars Head opposite the library dates back to the 1600’s and the church is perched on a hill behind. The wooden tower on the church is unusual, almost like a tree house, I will have to find out about its origins.

Again Lee Rigby’s memory is all around, the book of condolences was open on the table downstairs. It was nice to talk to people about the project and hear their stories. Sewing the names myself, reminds me of the signature quilt in the Rochdale archives and how we suspect it was all worked by a few hands – you can tell from the style of stitching.

A descendent of Samuel Bamford signed his name and then provided me with lots of books on this famous son of Middleton who was key to the events at Peterloo. I wish I had gone to see the Masque of Anarchy at the MIF and then I would have been better informed. Maybe a trip to the Working Class Movement Museum would be good. I ventured up the hill after the session and found his monument, a moving experience.

A signature from a young man studying in the library confirmed that a few of the signatures I have collected from younger people are more like monograms/tags.

Darnhill

Yesterday I made my first visit to Darnhill near Heywood, my Greater Manchester A-Z proved its worth again. I know a sat nav would be a great help, but I do love pouring over maps. The places names tell you about the landscape around Darnhill – Summit, Back o’ the Moss, Top of Heap and Heady Hill, fabulous.

As ever there was a warm welcome from the group, having just had the annual Darnhill Carnival there was much talk of fundraising and stalls. Amazingly when I began to talk about Please sign here, Barbara told me they had started a signature cloth back in the 1980’s as a fundraiser for the local church. Edna then arrived with the cloth.

Some in the group chose to just embroiderer their first names, so long as we have all the information on the cards, everyone will be acknowledged. A brief discussion on what name we would chose for ourselves commenced, I would go for something more interesting. The issue came up the other week when a woman on tv said she would not let her child play with someone called Chardonny, don’t judge a book by its cover I say.

Some of the group had been into Bury to Lee Rigby’s funeral procession and commented on seeing the PM and Boris Johnson. Overall I left with a great sense of pride and working together from the session, there were some long term friendships (I would guess) within the team.

One hundred not out

We have now collected over one hundred signatures. Today I have been transcribing some of those from the staff at Touchstones, looking at the range can I tell the gender of these individuals by the style of written signature? I will have to check this with Alison Slater and her thoughts on the 1890’s quilt, likewise what is the most common surname? Looking at the whole range of signatures collected for the contemporary quilt, I am surprised we have only one Smith, however five Begum’s make’s that the most common name.

Reading Philip Hensher’s “The Missing Ink” earlier this year all about handwriting I discovered it had been used to evaluate applicants for job’s; a feature on the news on Radio 4 recently stated this method was still used in France.

Heywood

This week saw me in Heywood, somewhere I have never been before, I spotted this lovely floral display outside the church – reminds me it is well dressing season in Derbyshire. My first session was in the library, yet again seeing how these spaces are used by local people makes me appreciate their worth.

I was joined my a few people, Mai stayed the whole session and we chatted about her background and family. Been born in Malaysia her signature is the first in the project made up of Chinese characters.

I also spoke to a group of young adults with learning disabilities and their carers who were sitting outside and acquired a few more signatures. Kielly, a student was doing some work on the computer and also joined us to sew, as did several library staff. Between sessions I wandered down the high street in search of more pillowcases. None to be found, but it is fascinating exploring new places and recording visual information.

The other session was a little bizarre, I went to the Phoenix Centre, a council run provision. It was fairly quiet but a town planning meeting was on a spoke to a few councillors and amazingly found there is a tablecloth in Rochdale signed by each mayor. I will find out more. There was also a sexual health clinic so felt  a little uncomfortable about approaching people. I only realised the next day I had gone to the wrong venue, I was meant to be at the Sports Village and the Phoenix was later in July. Oh well, an interesting experience. Whilst I was there Alison Slater texted with more details on the historic autograph quilt, so we agreed to meet up to discuss her findings.