Discover more about the RSN and find out why we’ve been the international centre of excellence for the Art of Hand Embroidery for more than 150 years. We’ll also introduce you to key guest speakers in our engaging live talks.
Easily accessed via Zoom, all of our talks are embellished by captivating images and are followed by live Q&A sessions.
| Please read the important information at the end of this page before booking a Talk. Thank you. |
Exploring 17th Century objects as Makers and Researchers
RSN Curator Dr Isabella Rosner and RSN Studio embroiderer Marg Dier, Wednesday 12 March 2025. 7pm UK
The seventeenth century was a golden age in the history of English embroidery, a period when girls at school, women in the home, and professional embroiderers in workshops were using lustrous silk and metal threads, seed pearls, coral, and beads to adorn everything from samplers to mirror frames.
In this talk, RSN Curator Isabella Rosner and RSN Studio embroiderer, Tutor, and Fellow Marg Dier focus on seventeenth-century English items in the RSN Collection, discussing how they would approach each object as a researcher, a stitcher and conservator. The pair will be in conversation, discussing a stumpwork casket panel, a glittering floral composition, and a variety of other early modern objects.
May Morris, Arts & Crafts Designer-maker
Needlework Historian, Dr Lynn Hulse, Wednesday 26 March. 7pm UK
(Please note that this talk will not be available to view on demand)
A pioneer of the Arts and Crafts movement, May Morris (1862-1938) was a leading exponent of decorative needlework or ‘art embroidery’, the champions of which sought to overturn the Victorian obsession with Berlin work, a form of shading in cross or tent stitch that lacked manual dexterity and aesthetic subtlety, and elevate needlework from a domestic craft to a serious art form.
Join Dr Lynn Hulse as she explores Morris’s significant contribution to the development of decorative needlework for the domestic interior in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Morris’s output is testament to her creative skills both as a designer and maker. Invention, she argued lay not only in technical stitch but in the selection and arrangement of colours, the choice of suitable materials and above all, good design based on an appreciation of the intellectual quality of medieval ornament. Together, these four elements ensured that a piece of embroidery ‘shall not be meaningless,’ wrote Morris, ‘but rather a thing of use and individual interest.’
Lynn is a Fellow of both the Society of Antiquaries of London and the Royal Historical Society, and a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Broderers. She is also co-founder of Ornamental Embroidery, which specialises in the teaching and designing of historic needlework.
Important Booking Information
Please note that these Talks are live online events and are not available to watch immediately afterwards. If you cannot watch the live event — or if you want to watch again in the future — we usually re-release popular talks at a later date On Demand. Please note that there is a separate fee for Talks on Demand.
Bookings for live RSN Online Talks close at 3pm on the day of the event and are NON-REFUNDABLE. After booking, you will receive your unique Zoom invite by email 24-48 hours before each event (3 hours if booked on the day). The invite should arrive ‘from’ [email protected] – we strongly recommend that you add this address to your ‘Safe Senders’ list to ensure safe receipt.
If you do not receive your invite by the above deadline please first check your ‘junk/spam’ mail folder to ensure it hasn’t been routed there by mistake. If you still do not have the invite, please email [email protected] no later than one hour before the event is due to start. Please include your order reference number.
Each place booking and subsequent Zoom link is unique to ONE customer and ONE device only. If you wish to book multiple places on behalf of additional attendees please provide the name AND email address of any additional attendees in the ‘Additional information’ section of your order at checkout.
All RSN Live Online Talks are scheduled and advertised in UK local time (GMT or BST depending on the time of year). If you are outside of the UK please check your local time, particularly if your location changes to/from Daylight Savings Time on a different schedule to the UK during March/April or October/November. To check and convert times please visit TimeAndDate.com.
All RSN webinars include live Closed Captioning (subtitles). These can be disabled if not required.
If you require additional assistance, please refer to our FAQ page. Thank you.
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