{"id":8719,"date":"2016-10-22T06:47:27","date_gmt":"2016-10-21T19:47:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/?p=8719"},"modified":"2017-10-24T16:45:48","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T05:45:48","slug":"a-visit-to-vaupel-and-heilenbeck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/vettycreations.com.au\/white-threads\/2016\/10\/22\/a-visit-to-vaupel-and-heilenbeck\/","title":{"rendered":"A visit to Vaupel and Heilenbeck"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today, as I am heading off on my research trip, we have a guest post by Lilian Kok from Holland. Lilian will be sharing with us about her embroidery group’s trip to Vaupel and Heilenbeck. Vetty Creations stock linen banding<\/a> from Vaupel and Heilenbeck, and I have recently ordered more, including some that I haven’t stocked before. Hopefully they’ll arrive to coincide with my return. I’ll let you know when they go up on the website.<\/p>\n

Let’s hear from Lilian:<\/p>\n

\"Rolls

Rolls and rolls of linen banding<\/p><\/div>\n

“Out of a desire to meet other women with my passion for needlework, plus the wish to preserve the skills involved in needlework, I started a little local group eight years ago. It is called Handwerkcaf\u00e9 Waddinxveen Caf\u00e9 (pub) because you only attend if you feel like it, and can miss meetings if you have no time or inclination. <\/p>\n

We meet weekly in a school, and we only have to pay for coffee and tea. This is ideal to keep things simple. In the meantime, we have grown from an initial 6 to 10 attendants average, to 18 to 22. From purely local to serving a wider region around Waddinxveen, a community of around 30000 inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Every woman simply brings her current project, and we have fun chatting and get lots of inspiration from one another. Sometimes, we arrange to do a workshop. Here too, we like to keep things simple and costs down, to avoid thresholds due to lack of income. The camaraderie among the needleworkers is delightful and by sharing unwanted needlework materials in the caf\u00e9, we even manage to raise a little money for our local food bank.<\/p>\n

We have a (Dutch language) blog<\/a> and a group on Facebook<\/a>. <\/p>\n

This week, we went abroad to visit the weaving mills of Vaupel and Heilenbeck in Germany. Many of our group are currently focusing on needlepoint embroidery done on the linen banding produced by Vaupel and Heilenbeck. Located in Wuppertal, it is a good 2.5 hours drive from us. This is a small family business that has \u2018rescued\u2019 weaving looms that are 100+ years old, producing fine linen banding in numerous colours, widths and even thread counts. The most common thread count being 11 threads per centimetre, but they also weave 12 threads and 14 threads\/cm.<\/p>\n

Need I say that we enjoyed the cordial reception we received at Vaupel and Heilenbeck? We were greeted at the door by the owner and his wife, asking us if we cared for coffee and \u2018Kuchen\u2019 (cakes). The showrooms were so beautifully decorated with stitched items. The coffee room mainly in reds and green as the Christmas season is near. Other rooms had spring, summer and autumn decorations, we were all so inspired and enthusiastic.<\/p>\n

\"Weaving

Weaving loom<\/p><\/div>\n

We were taken to the weaving mill, and could view the process of weaving up close. The space between the various looms is hardly wide enough to get in between them. One loom can produce 5 or more bands simultaneously. The machine (loom) is set up with lengthwise threads; warp, and width threads; weft.
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