Needlework Development Scheme
Needlework Development Scheme (NDS) was a collaborative program between industry and art education, that was to encourage and initiate a new standard for British embroidery design, through the creation of a loan collections of foreign and British embroidery, that could be used by training colleges, women’s institutes, and schools.
Started in 1934, the program was originally setup in Scotland by the four Scottish art schools, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow under the name Needlework Development in Scotland Scheme. The project was a collaborative initiated between industry and art education, that was to encourage British embroidery design. The project was sponsored anonymously by thread producers J & P Coats.[1] By 1945 the scheme had amassed over 900 embroideries but the outbreak of the Second World War saw the project disbanded. The Scheme was restated after the war, in 1944, and extended throughout the 1950s to include schools in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The program ended in 1961 and the collection was given to various museums and authorities, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.[2]