We will be creating a landscape based on your memories of a favourite place on piece of West African Strip cloth, using a variety of white/ cream fabrics for raw edge applique and adding the colour and details of the landscape with hand embroidery stitches. We’ll first sketch out a rough plan of the landscape, using a variety of marks to add colour/ texture to the landscape, and then translate this into stitch.

Stitch a hand embroidered sampler on West African Strip Cloth to preserve and display your treasured mementoes or to record a special event, and celebrate the memory of a special person or memory. The perfect way to use all those treasured items you have collected to create an heirloom of your own. We will use fragments of vintage fabrics, silks, ribbons, pieces of lace and hand embroidery including pulled work. We will discuss ways of displaying your sampler.

 An opportunity to make a series of hand stitched fabric books using unique African fabrics. Using fragments of Indigo & Kola nut dyed fabrics to create mini collages on each page before binding them into a little book with a Bark Cloth cover. The book will be entirely hand stitched and you will work with textile collage techniques, then add decorative hand embroidery to each page. Other books than can be made during the day include a Scroll, a Japanese bound book or a concertina book which can be viewed page by page or pulled out and seen as one long narrative. You will work onto the base of a single length of strip cloth, creating a textile collage, enhanced with hand embroidery.

Pin Stuck Pincushions are pincushions where pin heads are used to create imagery or sayings to mark a special event, such as a marriage, birth of a child, or a birthday and have been made since the seventeenth century. Pins today seem an insignificant item, but from medieval times until the industrial revolution, they were highly prized because of the craftsmanship involved in their manufacture. The industrial revolution made them affordable for everyone. During Victorian times soldiers and sailors recuperating from their injuries were encouraged to take up various crafts, to aid their recovery. Pincushions were one of these crafts and the shape developed into hearts or stars, which were then sent to their sweethearts / wives. All soldiers and sailors carried a basic sewing kit so they could repair their uniforms, so they were used to working with fabric. Patchwork quilts were sometimes made from uniforms and these patterns often appear on the pincushions. Women also continued to make them to mark special occasions. Kits of Sweetheart Pincushions were made available during Victorian times which standardised the shape, but designs continued to be varied. Fabrics used include scraps of uniforms, military ribbons, silk ribbons, cigarette silks, scraps of velvet and other luxurious fabrics, photographs, commemorative ribbons, cigarette cards etc., and the hearts were finished with braids (some with pompoms) around the edges. Beads and sequins were used to decorate the hearts, creating images or sayings. These military pincushions continued to be made during the First World War but fell out of favour during the Second World War. These pincushions continue to be made today to celebrate special events such as weddings, births, anniversaries birthdays etc. They make wonderful Ring Pillows.