Southdowns Creative Stitchers: 50 Years of Stitch

Southdowns Creative Stitchers are bringing an exhibition to Colonnade House on Tuesday 17 November, marking 50 years of stitch. It opens at 10am, and the room will be filled with the group's members' work, with a crazy quilt as the centrepiece. That quilt was a group project inspired by a Victorian Jubilee quilt on display at Worthing Museum, so there's a direct line from a museum piece to something they've made together.

To understand the scale of it, you have to know who they are. They started in September 1976 as the Worthing Branch of the Embroiderer's Guild, then known as the Worthing Tuesday Embroiderers Guild. They ran as part of the Guild for decades before becoming an independent stitch group in 2021. They describe themselves as holding fast to their traditional embroidery roots while exploring new ideas, techniques and materials, and that's exactly what you'll see on the walls: the classic craft they started with, alongside the newer directions they've taken.

They've always worked as a group, and much of their best stuff has been for the community. Their long-running workshop group produced The Worthing Embroidery, a huge wall hanging commissioned for Worthing Hospital as part of an 'Art in Hospitals' project, which stitched together the town's landscapes, sea, beach, flora, fauna and landmark buildings. Since then, they've kept that community thread going, from a town-wide embroidery now at Worthing Museum to heart cushions for the Worthing Hospital Breast Clinic. This exhibition is a chance to see the individual work that sits behind those larger projects.

It all comes together at Colonnade House, 47 Warwick Street, BN11 3DH, in Worthing, opening at 10am on Tuesday 17 November.