Winnipeg Embroiderers' Guild Tartan

In the summer of 2011, I was reading a newsletter from one of the other guilds in which they said that they had designed their own tartan and I thought this was a great idea. I thought that WEG should have their own in honour of our 40th anniversary in 2013, and we could make some samples to put in pins or use as bookmarks, name tags, etc. to either sell or give at Seminar 2013 as a souvenir of the hosting guild.

I came up with the colours for the following reasons: pink and antique white for our guild colours, navy blue for the blue in the EAC logo (because the Winnipeg guild was the progenitor of the national association) and also for the many rivers and lakes in our province, and yellow for the prairie wheat and sunshine.

I emailed Gillian Miller, newsletter editor at the time, to describe this idea and she went off to Michael’s with her trusty coupon to get some wools in those colours, and emailed me back a picture of them and suggested that we get together to do some sample weavings on plastic canvas to see if we could come up with a pleasing arrangement of those colours. So, we did get together and tried a few samples.

Because this is rather a long process, Gillian contacted a weaver through Manitoba Weavers and Fibre Artists who had a computer program that will give about a dozen different configurations of the colours that are inputted.

At the August Executive Meeting, we viewed all the samples and voted for the one that we liked best and this design, #6, got the most votes. A committee was struck consisting of Nicole Collette, Gillian Miller, Sharon Etsell, Isla Marsh, and Betty Arbuthnot.

Betty Arbuthnot did a sample bookmark so that we could see it “live”. Gillian Miller then wove a beautiful sash that measures 80" long by 12" wide.  This sash is worn by the President or another member of WEG to mark special occasions.  Betty also designed two different name tags for WEG members using the tartan, one specifically commemorating WEG and EAC's 40th anniversary, and a second with the dates left blank for more general use.

As of January 10, 2013, the tartan has been registered with the Scottish Register of Tartans in Scotland.

Gillian and I took some weaving classes and wove a sample of the tartan colours in cotton threads. This sample is being forwarded to the Scottish Register of Tartans for them to have on file.
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Here is our page on the Scottish Register of Tartans: