Rebel Women of Sunderland



This is class 😎

The illustrator Kathryn is brilliant, got a Sunderland print from her website last year. (as a gift which I then kept!)

Love this too, great to see local artists representing us so well.
 
Amy Emms MBE, quilt maker. No one pays making quilts much attention because it's perceived as something women do, therefore domestic and unimportant, even though many miners did it, and County Durham excelled at it. Anyhoooooooooo Amy was one of its greatest ever proponents, achieving masterpiece quality eg with her daughter's entirely hand made, hand quilted wedding dress which is in Sunderland Museum.

My Great Nana (excellent seamstress) knew about her and took me to see the wedding dress when I was a girl.

Her Dad died down the pit when she was a girl and there was no welfare state then to look after her Mam and her sisters. They had a relative with a haberdashery shop and could get sewing supplies at cost price. They made all sorts of clothing and housewares, did alterations, knitted hats, socks, etc., crocheted mats and fancy tablecloths and all so on that were sold for profit. They would buy rags such as mens shirts where the collars and cuffs were worn. The good fabric from the body could be used to make cotton underwear, the scraps were mixed with other scraps and worked into a proggy mat and the buttons were kept for putting on newly made items. Loved hearing her tales about her younger years and I like to think I got my work ethic from her.
 
The illustrator Kathryn is brilliant, got a Sunderland print from her website last year. (as a gift which I then kept!)

Love this too, great to see local artists representing us so well.
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The Rebel Women of Sunderland selected are:

  • Dr Marion Philips, first female MP in Sunderland
  • Margaret Dryburgh, teacher and missionary
  • Ida and Lousie Cook, activists who smuggled Jews out of Nazi Germany
  • Elizabeth Donnison, founder of the Donnison School
  • Hope Winch, first head of the University’s pharmacy department
  • Kenickie (Lauren Laverne, Marie Nixon and Emma Jackson), one of the most famous female-led bands to come from Sunderland
  • Steph Houghton and Jill Scott, England footballers
  • Abbie Robinson, Team GB paraclimber
  • Kate Adie, journalist and broadcaster
  • Emeli Sande, musician and University of Sunderland Chancellor
 
My Great Nana (excellent seamstress) knew about her and took me to see the wedding dress when I was a girl.

Her Dad died down the pit when she was a girl and there was no welfare state then to look after her Mam and her sisters. They had a relative with a haberdashery shop and could get sewing supplies at cost price. They made all sorts of clothing and housewares, did alterations, knitted hats, socks, etc., crocheted mats and fancy tablecloths and all so on that were sold for profit. They would buy rags such as mens shirts where the collars and cuffs were worn. The good fabric from the body could be used to make cotton underwear, the scraps were mixed with other scraps and worked into a proggy mat and the buttons were kept for putting on newly made items. Loved hearing her tales about her younger years and I like to think I got my work ethic from her.
So often people in the County Durham coalfields - men as well as women - took to making quilts because pitwork wasn't available due to death or injury 😞

This is the only picture of the wedding dress I can find, and it really doesn't do it justice, because when you see it close up, it's as magnificent as anything from a top couture house. The meticulous handstitching of the pattern, mathematically exact. And the fit of it - perfection. It must have taken her hours and hours.

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