Makers & Menders
From a place of connectedness
Where do textile art and community meet?
There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonhard Cohen
In the TEXTILE WORKSHOP Re-Fashion, you can repair and personalize your favourite pieces, get ideas and experience with textile together with others.
Repairing and personalizing garments can take many forms, from straightforward darning - visible mending, embroidery, patchwork and smocking, and combinations. The process is slow and more fun in the community. It allows us to pause and slow down. We learn through experience, and with it, we can do more elaborate textile projects in the future that are sustainable.
In the ongoing workshop, we repair and personalize our garments.
We talk about the creative possibilities, utility, decoration and 'making mistakes' as an opportunity and the everyday sustainable and socially responsible use of textiles in the context of Fashion, Fashion Revolution, Slow Stitching.
Working with cherished textiles and fabrics, we create new things with already existing textile materials for a sustainable and solidarity-based future.
As long as there is clothing, there is also mended and re-used fabric(darning, patching, patchwork, rag rugs, etc.).
When we wear our clothes, they become naturally imbued with the stories of our lives. Memories become part of the experience with our garments. This is what distinguishes already used fabric from impersonal new mass-produced yardage.
Since fabric has been cheaply produced in unimaginably large quantities, we have lost sight of mending and re-using. But with growing awareness of the enormous negative impact on the environment and the often deplorable working conditions in textile mills, re-using is experiencing a modern renaissance.
We ask ourselves what we already have, what we want to share with others, and what we can do with it. In QUILTING BEE and RE-FASHION/VISIBLE MENDING, we create with fabric, needle and thread as an occasion to get to know each other, to develop trust in one's own abilities and in each other, and for active participation in caring for a sustainable, solidarity-based future.
Basic features of the workshops:
We bring our cherished garments, or those we haven't worn in a long time and somehow still find okay. We can swap them and make them available for others. Also, anything with holes and we don't particularly like, but that has a fun pattern, exciting colour, is handmade or has good fabric quality is welcome.
We will be inspired by Japanese Boro and Sashiko, South American Tenango embroidery, European Berlin wool embroidery, Kantha from India. We learn embroidery stitches like the backstitch, chain stitch, buttonhole stitch and satin stitch. We design our motifs, experience texture and colour combinations. We can discuss the meditative aspect of slow stitching and sustainable ideas of re-fashion as we watch our hand stitching, slowly creating the patterns and textures. We will also learn from each other, for example, from participants who are well versed in the embroidery traditions of their home country.
We learn more about patchwork and mending and can try out appliqué for design.
We can also repair 'narratively'. In 'Narrative Mending', we add a little 'story' to the garments as we repair the broken fabric, for example by adding figurative image elements through embroidery. Over time, the story of our garment becomes more layered. Our garment becomes a visual diary.
So, in addition to craft options, we discuss how to add design or figurative elements when we mend. We take a playful and personal approach to the holes and frays, seeing them not simply as things to be fixed, but as opportunities to creatively bring personal history to life.
Along the way, we will learn essential aspects of textile design, mindfulness and sustainable use of materials, stitch by stitch and with minimal cost.
Please bring:
Materials, tools and yarns:
Textiles: cherished garments and fabrics;
Scissors: a small pair of thread scissors, fabric scissors;
Needles: that we can work well with, such as darning and embroidery needles, sewing and quilting needles;
Sewing ring or thimble if needed;
Threads: these can be embroidery, darning and sewing threads, but also coarser yarns, and what is already available at home. You can always find good deals on Ebay Kleinanzeigen;
Embroidery hoops are useful, fabric pens for marking out, paper and pen for pattern drafting.
Available:
Cutting pad, templates for patchwork;
Books on the subject;
A PFAFF Quilt Ambition, which makes sewing easy for beginners, and old PFAFFs are available if you want to cut something short.
Ironing board and iron;
Cookies, tea, coffee and water.
Kunstkurse in Frankfurt, Malerei, Acrylmalereikurse, Ölmalereiunterricht, Malen lernen im Atelier, Ölmalerei, Quilltkurse, Freies Quillten, Textilkunst lernen, Textilgestaltung, Textile Surface Design Kurse und Workshops im Künstleratelier Frankfurt, Studio Space Lange Strasse 31, Patchworken , Malen auf Stoff, Drucken auf Stoff, Monotypie im Atelier, Lange Strasse 31. Für Anfänger und Fortgeschrittene.