Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild - Members

If you do not want your SCA name and/or group to be listed here,
please contact the guild head

New members of the Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild - January:

~ added 26.01.2012: ~
65) Cathryn of Chester (Middle Kingdom)
(relationship to Drachenwald accepted)

- Guild Member-List -

additional information:
Guild Head: Lady Racaire
Aarnimetsä - region guild head: Fru Ida Juhanantytär
Central - region guild head: Lady Racaire
Insulae Draconis - region guild head: Lady Jahanarabanu Vivana
Nordmark - region guild head: fru Renika Rikardsdottir
South - region guild head: - (Lady Racaire)

Yis Racaire
Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild Head

Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild - Newsletter January & February 2012

Dear honourable Lords and Ladies,
dear gentle members of the "Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild" and "-eMail Group"!

I wish you a great 2012 and hope everyone of you had a great New Year's Eve.

The year 2012 already starts with a very interesting information - the guild welcomes a new local guild head in Aarnimetsä.
First I want to thank Lady Fiora for her great work as the former guild head of Aarnimetsä - Fiora, thank you very much for your great work over so many years - you inspired so many people! :)
...and it is a great honor for me to be the one who may introduce Fru Ida Juhanantytär as the new local guild head of Aarnimetsä to you and I am also happy to forward the following text from Fru Juhanantytär to you:

________________ ~*~ ________________

Dear people in Drachenwald,

My name is Fru Ida Juhanantytär.

And I got a really good post as the new head of the Aarnimetsä’s embroidery guild.

Right after those words I have to start thanking and praising my predecessor, Donna Fiora, who has done big work by sitting us all in the same circle, and helped sharing our secrets among each other. And she somehow got us all to confess that there are no secrets in embroidery, there’s just passion and learning.

I can’t say if it was her who first showed her unfinished work saying “this is what I been doing lately”, but definitely, without that circle of skirts, her small jug of good wine and that relaxed cackle of female voices talking about their needles, spins and  ideas. I would never have shown my own works to anybody, or had time to learn my own favourite stitches. Donna Fiora has inspired and encouraged me, and humbly saying right after these words “no, I didn’t do that much.” 

We have lot of skilful embroiders in Aarnimetsä, and I think our guilds purpose is to gather all of us into the same place. Our guild is the meeting point, showroom, study and gossip house for our own passion: stitches, yarns, needles and hundreds of different ways to create something unique from textiles.

I hope that we keep on meeting in cantons and events, showing our best and worst and keep gathering new and old embroiders together.

So, who am I?

I started my embroiding by using thick wool-yarn on fleece, it was something on a hood, it’s still unfinished and my big sister has it somewhere just to scare me some day.  That’s how I started at my SCA-lifestyle somewhere circa 1998.

Nowadays I prefer linen or smooth wool as a textile, and my favourite yarns are cottons, I have just started to use woollen yarns. (maybe one day I will try my luck with silk, but it’s far in the future.)

My frame is always round, wooden, light one, and last time I counted I had it in five different sizes.  I always lose my scissors during big works, and I keep on looking for that perfect needle.

My favourite stitches are nowadays split-stitch or change-stitch, but I also like satin-, and padded-stitch. I am a bit dyslexic and it seems that it really matters over counted-techniques, like blackwork. I work more by  free hand or try to learn styles like they used in Opus Anglicanum.

I’m also the seneschal of Miehonlinna, canton in the South-East Finland. I was founding Miehonlinna in circa 2000. We are active but small group, very lovely people.

In mundane I work half-time as a potter, and full day as cleaner lady at hospital.

I read books a lot. I watch detective-DVDs while doing my textile crafts.

I live in South-West Finland, even I’m originally from the eastern side of the country.

If I don’t get my daily amount of black tea I get cranky, and my motto is to always have a good picnic, nevertheless what else the day would bring to me. And I love baking.

Best regards

Fru Ida Juhanantytär

________________ ~*~ ________________

And now to the Guild Project 2011 - "We have Dragons":
Fru Juhanantytär posted some pictures of the great patches which already arrived - they are sooooo lovely - please check out: http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/2012/01/we-have-dragons-challenge-we-surely.html
...and don't miss Renikas lovely dragon: http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/2012/01/we-have-dragons-challenge.html
There are still some patches on its way and I can't wait to see more pictures - of more patches and also of the progress concerning the assembling of the wallhanging. :)

...and finally some Guild business:

Guild Membership Roll:
We still have 64 members.
( http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/search/label/Guild%20Member-List )

Guild Blog - Dragon's Embroidery Workshop:
If you would like to join the Workshop, just write me an eMail! ( http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com )
...related blogs:
- Insulae Draconis Fibre Arts Interest Group ( http://idfibreinterestgroup.blogspot.com/ )
- Aarnimetsä Embroidery Basket ( http://kirjontakori.blogspot.com/ )

Guild Fanpage at facebook:
Our guild fanpage at facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/guild.head.Racaire ) has 223 fans! (last newsletter - 209 fans) :)

I can't repeat it often enough - every project can be an inspiration - therefore please don't hesitate to use the fanpage or the blog and to post your embroidery projects or links to your projects there if you like :)

...and if you think you have a great project which you would like to share, please don't hesitate to contact me :)

Guild Projects / Challenges:
- The 1st Guild Project 2010 - "Coat of Arms Wallhanging for Drachenwald"
http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/search/label/Coat%20of%20Arms%20Wallhanging%20for%20Drachenwald
- The 2nd Guild Project 2011 - "We have Dragons"
http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/search/label/Guild%20Project%202

Misc. Projects / Challenges:
- A&S 50 Challenge ( http://dragonsembroiderers.blogspot.com/2008/03/50-challenge.html )
- A&S 50 Challenge Drachenwald Blog ( http://drachenwald-as50.blogspot.com/ )

Yours in Service
Racaire
Dragon's Needle Embroidery Guild Head

We have dragons - the challenge

So how is the challenge going? Here's my (Renikas) contribution, finished just now and I aim to ship it this weekend.

This is the dragons den, filled with jewels and precious things. Embroidery in red and golden silk on dark blue wool. I have stitched some small pieces of red cloth on the dragons head, knee and elbow in order to create more of a 3D-effect and then covered it with silk in split-stitch. The jewels are glass beads and then I outlined some artefacts with gold thread.

We Have Dragons-challenge.. we surely have dragons (picture-rally)

My lords and ladies. Greetings from Aarnimetsä!
I must show you pictures of all these wonderful patches which have arrived for the guilds next wallhanging, The "We have dragons"-wallhanging... and we surely do have lot of dragons!

I'm posting these photos as a new local guild elder of Aarnimetsä region, And it's great to step into such a lovely pair of guild elder slippers from my predecessor, Donna Fiora, who has made a great job by inspiring all these skillful hands of Aarnimetsä to work with these patches.
Here are no less than 14 wonderlfull patches, all made in Aarnimetsa!


First we have three patches made by Maria Tavintytär, she has told that she became inspired by leftover fabric at Donna Fioras Wool-embroidering 101-meeting, during last spring. You can read her own stories about these jolly dragons here (it's only in finnish)
Her first dragon is calling "long live the king and queen of Drachenwald" over the mountain top.


Maria Taavistytär's second dragon, called by her as The Brother-in-law, for the first dragon.

Maria Taavintytär's thrid dragon, red backgroud has been inlaid into the blue one by stiching.
It's dedicated to Aarnimetsä.
And she has also made this brave knight, who is fighting under a dragon pennant!
***
Next patch is beatiful work by Beata. I simply love the colours of this work.
***
Next four Dragons were suprise to me, if you may.
These are made by my skillfull big sister, Fru Kattarina Juhanantytär, who is a great seamstress.
Now I found out that she is an good at embroidery too! She started embroidering in one night after ten- or fifteen-year pause. And these are what she made..

First after the long pause, she said it took few tries, but still.

The second and the third dragons.

The fourth one is my special favorite from her series.. and she's making even more patches! (she said there's no need to stop the wagons now after the slow start.)

***
And even more lovely works from Aarnimetsä. "the one who saves, has it."
I must introduce you Lady Gytha Bielke, the senescall of the Canton of Unikankare.
She tells me these tiny dragons were meant for another project, but she felt inspired by dragons and decided to use her works as a center for bigger patches.

Her first pink dragon is surrounded by dogs.

Second one didn't have any better luck with deer.
This dragon is under a lion.. poor thing!
But, never mess with dragons! Here's one burning down a building!

And here are a whole buch of dragons are frying up a sailing boat and her crew in the blazing winds of horror.
Aren't these patches most clever way to tell stories about dragons?
****
I wish I could tell you even more about these lovely patches. If any one of these lovely embroiders would like to tell us more about her work, please send me a note!

Last but not least, Fru Kattarina Juhanantytär has promised to sew together the wallhanging. So please, to send in your own work for the wallhanging, please contact me for the address.


In your service. Fru Ida Juhanantytär, Miehonlinna canton. Aarnimetsä