T hink embroidery, think Battenberg; that’s how I’ve always seen it. The very concept of “embroidery” evokes an image of a cross-stitching old biddy with a weakness for sponge cake. It’s an outdated pastime that was shelved when we discovered rock’n’roll. So it came as a surprise to receive a letter from the Embroiderers Guild, which is celebrating its centenary this year and claims to be the biggest craft group in Britain.

The guild was set up by 16 graduates of the now defunct Royal School of Art Needlework who, according to its current director, Michael Spender, “felt there was no opportunity to make innovative work. It has been about pushing boundaries right from the beginning.”

Pushing boundaries. Right. So we’re not talking Home Sweet Home here? “We’re always battling against these preconceptions,” says Spender. “Since the 1920s it has been used increasingly as an art form, exhibited in gallery surroundings. Artists such as Tracey Emin and Michael Raedeker use it routinely in their work. We do promote it as a leisure activity but also very strongly as a professional practice.”

To highlight this, the guild is about to launch the centenary edition of its biennial touring exhibition Art of the Stitch. And none of it is sampler stuff. From Sarah Fordham’s Sieve-boob, a sieve embroidered with pink and brown wool to look like a lone, framed breast hanging disconcertingly on a wall, to Mark Beecroft’s Everydayness is Difference in Repetition, a digital image of interlocking or “stitched” chairs, each work is notable for defying all preconceptions of embroidery. However, it isn’t just that a craft that was once the preserve

of young young ladies has been hijacked as cool by the fine art world. Everyone, it seems, is doing it.

Claire Coles is a young textile designer whose beautiful wall-hangings, made from painstakingly sourced vintage wallpaper and stitched with freehand “drawings” of female figures, flowers and birds, have featured in Vogue and Elle Decoration. “I use embroidery in a sketchy way,” she says. “It’s like drawing with the thread; it gives the work energy.”

Though Michael Angove saw embroidery used to spectacular effect by designers such as Antonio Maras of Kenzo while working in the fashion industry in Italy, he embraced embroidery only when he returned to the UK in 2003 and started to explore the world of “couture interiors”. A smartly dressed man with a large tattoo just visible under his collar Angove’s work seems to be almost an extension of himself. Fine tablecloths in unexpected colours are stitched with what appears to be traditional lady-in-crinoline designs. A closer look at the heavy glass beading, however, reveals spiky, threatening plants with bright green, venomous-looking tips.

Sarah Wilson, a senior textile design lecturer at Central St Martins College of Art and Design in London, says it is inevitable that embroidery will grow in popularity. “Designers are under pressure to be innovative — consumers want luxury at a fraction of the price.”

Many of her students are experimenting with embroidery to add interest to flat prints, moving the craft forwards. Technological innovations such as laser cutting have brought the pastime smoothly into the 21st century. So very cool. I finally forgot about Battenberg.

Art of the Stitch is at the Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (www.embroiderersguild.com) on Sun, then on tour