A VERY UNUSUAL HOLIDAY VISIT

Sue Tyldesley has sent me this article on her holiday to visit her daughter in Africa – an amazing experience by the sound of it.

Swazi Secrets

Whilst browsing through ’Contact’ magazine , I noticed the Embroiderers’ Guild trip to Swaziland and South Africa.-just where I was heading this summer to visit my daughter.

I mentioned it to her and it turned out that the group the EG were to visit was one her friend has been helping to support! They would be delighted to have a visitor , so with my husband and brother in tow , we arranged to visit.

The group was set up by Kathy who found herself living in Swaziland and liked embroidery. She’s tried to combine pictures of traditional Swazi life with traditional embroidery stitches to create pieces which can be made up into bags, cushions , glasses cases etc. Her office is above ‘Swazi Secrets ‘ another small business which makes soap and beauty products from the nut of the local Maruba tree. We had a trip round that too , having a go at pressing nuts !

Kathy took us out to meet some of the ladies who do the sewing (EG Swazi style !) See below. This took place in a local community room and the children came too -not always assisting the process! Each person involved has to buy a piece of fabric with a picture traced on and some threads (cost about 40p) and then goes away to embroider. When the work is complete they bring it back to the meeting , Kathy checks it and makes a note of it as the ladies get paid when the piece is sold ( each piece is sold with a label on with the name of the embroiderer who did it). It’s been hard work for Kathy teaching the stitches , but the women do some lovely work . It is to a very high standard and the business had been doing well. The recession has hit there like everywhere else though and they’ve a lot of stock at present . They’ve grown to the stage where they employ staff to manage /help with finances and Kathy was feeling a bit anxious.

If you would like to see their work try www.litsemba.org I’ll bring a bag along to the October meeting for you to see.

Thank you Sue - how wonderful it must have been to see the project ‘in action’ – do contact us if you were one of the EG members on the trip.