The Chairman opened the meeting by firstly welcoming everyone and giving news of the announcement of Pauline’s resignation as National Chairman.
The membership was shocked and upset to hear this, as we all know that Pauline has always been a great supporter of the Guild – nationally, regionally and at branch level, and it was agreed that we should send a letter to Pauline expressing our distress and wishing her well.
The annual reports, including finances, were given and it was noted that we had made an overall loss, which meant that we had to increase fees for the coming year.
All committee nominations were verified but it was noted that we still needed a volunteer to run the Library – if you are interested please contact Sue T. or Anne.
After the business meeting we had a talk from Christine Driver from Empress Mills on the history of this family business which had been started in1927 by her grandfather and is now run by Christine and her two sons.
It looked as though they had brought a full shop of ‘goodies’ for us to browse but before we were let loose Christine talked us through the development of the yarns they used to produce for the selvedge for cotton cloth – different colours for different manufacturers.
When most of the weaving industry shut down in the UK they turned to the top end of the market and the embroiderers, quilters etc. – yarns had to change to a finer sewing thread and a whole new industry of different weights and finishes of cotton, poly-cotton, polyester (made from recycled plastic bottles), rayon, silk and textured cottons was born.
Christine in passionate about her company and her threads and gave many of us much more understanding, whilst passing around samples of threads and fabrics, of what had to be done to create some of the fascinating items we take for granted these days. The company are based in Colne (not too far from us for a visit) but that day we only had to get up and open our purses!
I particularly liked the Kilo bundles of Egyptian cotton which includes offcuts of many sizes – wonderful for dyeing – you might have expected me to say that!!
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