Handwork - Herbal Self Care Bag
In the class you will learn basic embroidery stitches and how to translate a drawing of a herb into an embroidery, some basic sewing on the machine all the while talking about how to better look after ourselves and each other.
Teacher: Elizabeth Barnett
Workshop Duration: Full Day
Description: The Herbal Self Care bag is a gift to yourself and your health. Using Elizabeth’s herb garden cuttings we will make white on black embroideries of herbs that are used in kitchen garden medicine - Chamomile for calm, Mint for digestion or Motherwort for menstrual periods. We will sew up these bags on sewing machines and talk about what nurturing things we could fill them with, be it your knitting project, beauty products, book of poetry or your whatever your joy may be.
Materials to bring: There will be a materials fee of $22 which includes everything you need to complete your bag:
1 x Black 100% linen (30cm x 135cm),
1 x Boston Fall linen for channel strips (15 x 40cm approx)
1 x Indigo dyed organic cotton for the lining (30cm x 70cm)
1 x skein 100% cotton Japanese sashiko thread,
1m x linen ribbon,
1 x embroidery needle.
A 20cm bamboo hoop can be added on for $6.
Takeaway: Students will begin a beautiful embroidered bag that they can take home and fill with projects, treasures or gift to a loved one. I want this class to be slow and nurturing, not only in the making of the bag but in the consideration of self care and kitchen gardens.
Level: Beginner - Intermediate
Prerequisites: This class is for anyone and everyone with an interest in learning embroidery, chatting about gardens and herbs and a love of making.
Homework: If people are bringing their own fabric I would suggest to precut the fabric to size if possible. See dimensions above.
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.