Stories of India through fabric and stitch is a workshop plus+plus! Join us to pore over a variety of beautiful Indian traditional fabrics and then, inspired by them, try some stitching of your own. The workshop will be led by Sally-Ann Arts. We will be joined by Joanna Motion who has donated a collection of Indian fabric to the gallery,
So we will spend the first part of the afternoon studying the fabrics and hearing stories about the lands they are from and how Joanna’s family collected them. Then, Sally-Ann will talk us through different options for the stitching. Alternatively you could design your own fabric to work on later.
Be inspired and try your skills
This event is part of our occasional series exploring different aspects of sewing and environment, together with our community. Usually we have held drop-in and practical sewing, stitching, mending, remaking workshops. These take place round our kitchen table at GroundWork and are very informal and enjoyable. This is a special half-day workshop where we can really immerse ourselves in the experience and learn some new skills.
Stories of India in fabric
Joanna Motion has brought us a collection of historic hand-loom fabrics – silks and cottons – characteristic from many regions in India. In glorious colours the fabrics also often involve intricate stitching as well as block printed patterns. Joanna will talk to us about her family’s involvement in India, where she was born and where she and her mother Zoe collected these many beautiful fabrics. We will be able to handle them and explore their different designs and patterns.
Joanna says:
“India is my birthplace – as it was for my mother and grandmother. The colours and textures of Indian fabrics were a rich part of family life then and ever since. I grew up in a society where textiles were often offered as gifts – a sari, a stole, a dress length – and where the dressing up box for children’s play was full of old dance costumes and outgrown evening wear. Marvellous stuff!
England is where I came to school when I was eight. My working life, which has taken me all over the world, has centred around advocacy for universities and cultural organisations. In the early eighties I looked after communications for the University of East Anglia. Since 2011 I have been a consultant with More Partnership, the international fundraising consultancy, working with clients ranging from Glyndebourne Opera to the London School of Economics.
Happy to be back in Norfolk, I now live in Reepham in a house full of colour and pattern.”
Book tickets for the Stories of India in Fabric and stitch workshop Sunday 6 September
Afternoon look, stitch skill-share and design, workshop
2-5 (refreshments provided)
Follow this link to Book here through Eventbrite
Individual ticket: £15
Double ticket offer – 2 places for £20
All materials provided for a stitching project . Or, if you prefer, you are welcome to bring your own favourite projects, threads, cloth and tools to work on.
These workshops at GroundWork Gallery are connected to an ongoing series of longer and more detailed monthly Slow Stitch workshops at Studio Baum.
Stitch and sew with Sally-Ann Arts
Sally-Ann has a lifetime of sewing experience and trained in textile arts at Norwich University of the Arts and Trinity St David’s . Workshops with Sally-Ann are all about being both creative and resourceful, sharing simple skills so that we can be both more economical and more environmental. But it is also a question of bringing and sharing your own experience and skill so that we can all enjoy learning new things together.
Stitch and sew to make the home brighter
Sewing and stitching together is such a calming and sociable activity- as we all know from historic traditions like quilting bees, which have helped to form so many local stitching communities
As well as our own sense of well-being, we can also improve our home environments cheaply and effectively with cloth. Sewing need not require any expensive equipment and can make use of the most basic skills. But also, basic skills can produce wonderful results and can – importantly – be a very simple and effective way were can help the environment.
Sewing at GroundWork
We have a love of sewing, stitching and mending at GroundWork. Director, Veronica Sekules was brought up to sew, taught by her mother. Her sister too, Kate Sekules, has taken it even further and has become an international mending celebrity. Author of Mend, published by Penguin Books in the US, Kate ran some of GroundWork’s first creative mending workshops. It started very much as a family thing, but now we are keen to expand, to involve our wider circle of friends and associates.
