Description

This is a recording of a live online event held on Wednesday 24 January 2024.

This talk is FREE to view, but purchasing a zero-cost ‘ticket’ is still required. To view, please add this talk to your ‘basket’ and check out  to ‘purchase’ – you will NOT be charged. Please note that you must be registered and ‘signed in‘ on this site in order to purchase and view.

Want to learn more about the RSN Stitch Bank and how it can help you?

RSN Stitch Bank, originally launched in September 2021, now features 400 stitches – with more being added regularly – and has been used by researchers, curators, historians, teachers and students all around the world.

During this round table discussion, RSN Chief Executive, Dr Susan Kay-Williams, welcomes a panel of experts and users of RSN Stitch Bank who refer to it to inform their work.  You will have the chance to pose questions to the panel and to learn how this wonderful free resource will contribute to your own world of stitch.

Important information – Watching the Talk

In order to watch this Talk, first please ‘add to basket’ then go to the checkout and pay for your purchase. Once you have purchased this Talk on Demand you can immediately watch it by either returning to this page, or to our main Talks on Demand page, where you will now see a ‘Watch Now‘ button for the Talk. Please note that you will need to be signed in to the site using the account used to purchase the Talk in order to see the button. You will not be emailed a separate link to watch. You can watch as many times as you wish until the close date. Thank you.

For details on other RSN Talks on Demand, please visit our Talks on Demand page. 

MEET THE PANEL

Dr Isabella Rosner – RSN Curator

Dr Isabella Rosner is RSN Curator and Research Associate at Witney Antiques. At both institutions she researches and cares for nearly 500 years of needlework. She recently received her PhD from King’s College London, where she studied Quaker women’s needlework, waxwork, and shellwork in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London and Philadelphia. Isabella is a 2023 BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Isabella’s work broadly focuses on historical embroidery stitched between 1500 and 1900, with European and American schoolgirl samplers and early modern women’s needlework in Britain her areas of focus. She is especially interested in what can be learnt from extant stitched objects and how that information fills in gaps left by the historical record. Isabella also hosts the successful ‘Sew What?’ podcast about historic needlework and those often anonymous girls and women who stitched it.

Katrine Gudmundsson – Curator and Project Manager at The National Museum of Denmark

Katrine works as a curator and project manager at The National Museum of Denmark, and volunteers as a board member and current chairman of the textile community Dansk Tekstillaug (Danish Textile Guilt).

In 2011, Katrine did a student internship at the RSN working on the RSN Collection. Whilst there, she started the Certificate course and since then has been travelling back and forth between Denmark and Hampton Court Palace while continuing with the Diploma course. During Covid, Katrine continued from home with online tuition to finish the Fine Whitework module.

Ellen Askay James – Collections & House Officer at The National Trust

Ellen Askay James is a museum professional with a history of bespoke textile print and production for fashion, film and textile industry clients such as Google, Royal Kensington Palace & Disney.

Ellen is currently the Collections & House Officer at The National Trust property Scotney Castle in Kent, where she cares for a huge and diverse textile & costume collection entwined with a Victorian mansion and 14th century moated castle.

Karen Pau – Assistant Curriculum Manager, Section Leader Art & Design/Senior Advanced Practitioner at New College Swindon

Karen has been teaching Textiles & Fashion at New College for 30+ years, running a large textiles department within the Creative Industries Faculty. She is also Assistant Curriculum Manager for Art & Design, Photography and Performance.  There are four dedicated textiles staff, three are ex students.  We specialise in surface decoration, weaving, print, embroidery and constructed textiles.

Karen is also programme lead for A-level Textiles & Fashion, HND Textiles and also teaches on our BTEC Level 3 Extended Diploma in Creative Practice: Textiles for Fashion, Interiors & Costume.

Amy Stone – Exhibitions & Access Coordinator at Eton College Collections

Amy is currently Exhibitions and Access Coordinator at Eton College Collections and also provides freelance support for museums across the South East. Her focus is on improving access to and engagement with heritage through exhibitions, public programming, formal learning sessions, community collaboration and other discreet projects.

In recent years, Amy has explored the role textiles can play in her work. This includes developing her own embroidery practice based on historic textiles, creating tactile textile resources, producing a ‘Textiles Tales’ trail and investigating the stories told by the construction, repair and evidence of use in domestic garments.

Helen McCook – RSN Tutor & Professional Embroiderer

Helen teaches at the RSN on both the Day Classes and Certificate & Diploma in Technical Hand Embroidery in the UK and the US and is the Tutor for the successful RSN Online Course to Blackwork. She is also the author of the RSN Essential Stitch Guide to Goldwork.

Helen was appointed as the first Artist in Residence for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery’s educative initiative and works as an associate lecturer at Scottish National Portrait Gallery/Scottish National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery (London) and Holyrood Palace.

After completing a BA (Hons) Degree and the RSN Apprenticeship, Helen worked in a range of high profile roles in the textiles industry, working for both auction houses and ateliers. She has extensive experience in theatre and film costume, and pieces of her work can be found in private collections and galleries worldwide, including in the British Royal Collection. Her work has been featured in publications such as: Embroidery, Selvedge, Vogue and Vanity Fair.

In 2011, Helen was part of the RSN Embroidery Studio team which created the embellishment for the shoes, veil and wedding dress for HRH Princess of Wales, and in 2023, she worked on a number of items for the Coronation of Their Majesties King Charles III and Queen Camilla, including The Queen’s Robe of Estate, the Anointing Screen, Chairs of State and the Stole Royal.