I had read an article in Victoria magazine years ago about the Royal School of Needlework. The author had taken an intro to emroidery class at the school and raved about the location and the experience. Since reading that article I added a trip to the Royal School of Needlework (RSN) to my idea of the perfect trip to England. Once we moved to Spain I started checking the schedule of classes at the RSN and finally the stars aligned and I enrolled for a one day, introduction to embroidery class that I could take during our trip to London. It. Was. Awesome!!!
The Royal School of Needlework has it's offices in Hampton Court Palace. The palace is about a 30 minute train ride from London.
It was the most important palace in England during the Tudor age and Hampton Court Palace was extensively renovated by the King Henry VIII during his reign.
The RSN classrooms are behind a velvet rope, off the tour that is open to the public. You head up a spiral, stone staircase into what may have once been the bed chambers of an earl or duke or lady of Henry VIII's court (or maybe the servants quarters - still it was cool!) The view from the RSN classroom is the yew trees and fountains of the Hampton Court gardens:
The class consisted of about 20 ladies - all from England although a few had traveled several hours to get to the class. We ranged in experience from complete beginners to people like myself who had been embroidering for years but wanted to learn new techniques or just how to do things "correctly." I'm afraid that while I had every intention of snapping away and photographing the entire embroidery class, 1) I got a little shy once I realized I was the only real tourist in the group and 2) things moved pretty fast. To get through the dozen or so embroidery styles the teacher planned to demonstrate there wasn't much time left over for photos or idle chit chat. The whole experience though, was great! The instructor was wonderful and I really learned a lot. For one thing I learned to knot my thread at the front of my work, place a couple of backstitches and then snip the knot later to secure my thread. Totally new to me! There were also techniques like goldwork and couching that I had never done before and stitches like the fishbone stitch that I don't use very often. All in all - AWESOME!!
While I didn't take photos during the class I did have the hubby snap a couple photos of my sampler from the class so you could get an idea of what we worked on. I bought the embroidery frame we used in the class as I found it really easy to use - you just sit on part of it and the frame is nicely held in front of you. The sampler was designed by the teacher of our class that day to incorporate as many embroidery methods as possible:
I'll post the finished sampler when I'm all done and it's framed! There was a lunch break of about an hour, which didn't leave a lot of time to tour the castle but I did snap some photos of the interior courtyard before heading to the Palace tea room for a bowl of the most awesome leek soup I've ever eaten:
The rest of the day was equally fast paced and fun. I had a great time at the RSN and would recommend their classes to everyone no matter how new they are to embroidery or how experienced. The school itself is steeped in so much history and the location is beautiful. I have plans to head back for another class as soon as I can - in the mean time I'm putting all the skills I learned to good use!
