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Embroidery - From The Natural World
Come and spend a day with Melissa Wastney of Tiny Happy, gathering, sketching and stitching. This class an adventure in free-form stitching and has been one of our most popular - sells out every year!
Teacher: Melissa Wastney
Workshop Length: Full Day
Description: This is a full day workshop in which we'll explore simple embroidery and the way we can use it to express natural forms.
From Melissa - "While this class is great for both beginners and more experienced stitchers, it does require and encourage some degree of adventurous and artistic self-expression. At least, as adventurous as it gets with a needle and thread ;) I’ll be on hand to teach the basic stitches and techniques if required, but will also help you find your own free-form style. I’ve had a lot of teaching experience and truly love seeing my students express their artistic ideas with needle and thread.
We’ll start the day with a selection of botanical and embroidery inspiration to inspire us. We'll learn and practice some simple stitches. Then we'll go outside to collect pleasing natural objects for our own inspiration. Upon returning to our hoops, we'll spend some time sketching the pieces before making our own piece of textile art."
Materials: Medium-weight linen of any colour (you might like to bring a selection of colours/types - 1/4 metre of each piece will be plenty.)Embroidery threads in your favourite colours (six-strand floss is easiest to use for beginners). Sewing needle. Embroidery hoop- medium sized. Thread scissors. Sketchbook, pencil, eraser.
Takeaway: The finished embroidery could be framed at a later date, or incorporated into a future project such as a quilt or bag.
Level: This class would be great for beginner stitchers as well as experienced ones. Melissa is an experienced free-form embroidery teacher and loves seeing students express their artistic ideas with needle and thread.
So I wrote last week a post asking “Is my making fast fashion?”. And then I did a video on Instagram discussing similar topics in a slightly different way. And as always, you lovely humans have helped me clarify some of my thinking with your thoughtful, clever commentary.
And while I think there is so much more to discuss, here are four key possibly-more-meta ideas that have come up for me out of those conversations.
In using the quote last week that suggested that there was no single answer, and suggesting that this was freeing, I really did mean that we should sit in the grey. Not that the lack of “an” answer to this question should mean we get to ignore the question but rather that the lack of “an” answer means that we need to keep asking bigger more beautiful questions. And keep asking them.
Is my making fast fashion?
Am I living my values or merely thinking them?
And how can I make those two things a little more aligned in this moment?
These are my big beautiful questions.
Yours might be different.
And importantly this leads to point 2.