inspired by the Quaker Tapestry

I have spent the day helping to re-mount one of the 77 embroidered panels that celebrate Quaker experiences and insights. Conservation methods have advanced since they were originally mounted in the eighties and the new frames will ensure their preservation into the foreseeable future and also make them easier and safer to transport to various exhibition centres.

I am familiar with the panels as they are displayed at the exhibition in Kendal Meeting House, but to have the opportunity to examine the minutest detail at close range has been fascinating. My blip shows an extract from the panel on conscientious objection. Quakers, and many other men and women who refused to do military service, had to face a tribunal composed of local tradesmen, dignitaries and military representatives. Some were ordered to work in forestry, landwork or the Friends Ambulance Unit while others, who refused the option of military service, were sent to prison. They were often despised by fellow citizens, illustrated here by the women waving white feathers, a symbol of cowardice.

The blip can't really do justice to the fragile texture of the white feathers or the plumpness of the young girl's plaits.