Inspirations Issue 115

IT’S ONLY NATURAL Browsing through this issue of Inspirations, with its pages full of beautiful flowers, plus a stunning blue wren and a cheeky red fox, it would seem that most embroiderers favour natural subject matter over almost any other. Flowers would certainly win the prize as the most common theme for stitching, represented realistically as if freshly picked, stylised into geometric or repeating patterns, or drawn from a vivid imagination as beautifully whimsical designs, full of colour and fabulous details. It seems that there is an endless range of flower forms that exist in nature, offering us limitless inspiration for stitching floral designs, plus we have such a wide variety of options when deciding how to stitch them. This diversity of available techniques is one of the things that makes embroidery…

CLAIRE WELLESLEY-SMITH is an artist, writer, and researcher based in Bradford, UK. She is the author of Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art (2015), and Resilient Stitch: Wellbeing and Connection in Textile Art (2021). An antique textile dealer friend once gave Claire an old quilt to repair. She unpicked it layer by layer, revealing seventeen different layers made up of scraps of old clothes, blanket remnants, and other pieces of cloth. Dissecting it was almost like textile archaeology. Each piece telling a story and revealing the history of both the fabric and the maker. In many ways, this quilt is an analogy of Claire’s work and that of her community projects. Each endeavour revealing another layer of history and society. Claire grew up in Northern England in West Yorkshire, spending most of…

SUPPORTED WITH FUNDING FROM BRADFORD METROPOLITAN DISTRICT COUNCIL, THIS TEXTILE PROJECT BROUGHT TOGETHER TWENTY-SEVEN PARTICIPANTS CONTRIBUTING TO A QUILT EXPLORING THEIR LIVED EXPERIENCE OF THE COVID CRISIS. The project included virtual workshops where the participants discussed their experiences and the well-being benefits that a collective textile project offers in a time of difficulty. The sessions offered practical textile ideas and an opportunity for conversations with others about personal experiences and strategies during times of isolation. As the project progressed strong themes emerged. For example, everyone was having very different experiences of the crisis even though they were all within the same geographical area. Another recurring theme was around the tactility of textiles and the feeling that something was missing when the opportunity to handle, closely inspect and share each other’s work around…

RESILIENCE refers to a person’s capacity to recover quickly from difficulties – flexibility and strength. It also refers to materials’ (fabric, in this case) ability to yield to pressure and then spring back into shape – elasticity and pliability. This book is a continuation of the concepts Claire explored in her first book Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art (Batsford, 2015). The book offers ideas and strategies for considering the materials and processes that might make resilient textiles – piecing and patching, making and unmaking, mending, tying and binding, revisiting old work, and growing colour. Claire looks at textiles and stitching in the context of community, history, and the environment, and she explores how the concept of resilience as it applies to these themes are interpreted through fabric and thread. “The processes…

The isolation and remoteness that separate the people from proper services and employment opportunities are also what creates their sense of community, their mutual support, their sense of compassion and understanding. Their Ubuntu. These are the people of Mogalakwena. Named after the local river, meaning ‘fierce crocodile’, the Mogalakwena Craft Art Development Foundation (MCADF) was founded by Dr Elbe Coetsee in 1994. With a background in social entrepreneurship and a natural affinity for the tactile qualities of the handmade, she saw the dire need for employment and empowerment in the community bordering her family’s cattle farm. Today, the Mogalakwena Craft Village is the MCADF’s hub from where artisans create their embroidery, weaving, pottery, and beadwork. But MCADF is so much more. It supports and assists in the restoration, development, and promotion of traditional…

“I believe every person has a story to tell, whether you write your story, or sing, or dance, or stitch it with needle and thread. The process provides the vehicle. In many circumstances, stitching and embroidering is the only way to express yourself, especially if you don’t have access to literacy, paper and pencil, a computer, or a camera. Creativity gives people a voice to express emotions and inner feelings, to channel energy that will allow them to work through difficult circumstances. Embroidery is a language that gives women a voice and recognition. It uplifts the spirit, brings joy, generates income, provides a sense of achievement, empowers, and creates a spirit of cooperation. All values that the world desperately needs.” When Elbe and her husband bought a farm on the Mogalakwena river…