Network members

The Stitching Together network aims to bring together people who commission, facilitate and take part in participatory textile making activities: researchers, professional textile practitioners, project commissioners and enthusiast textile maker groups.

Network members connect at online and in-person events; through an email discussion list, hosted by Jiscmail; and via the website – members are invited to write guest blog posts and case studies to share their experiences.

To join the network and showcase your work on this page, email a short statement (maximum 100 words) introducing the use of participatory textile making activities (i.e. making textiles with others) in your research and/or practice, along with one image (to be cropped square) and any relevant links to further information, to stitchingtogether@aub.ac.uk. 

NETWORK MEMBERS

Christine Andrä and Berit Bliesemann de Guevara // As researchers in the Department of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, we use participatory textile making in a research project that explores the changing subjectivities of former FARC combatants in Colombia. Together with colleagues from Universidad de Antioquia, we run embroidery workshops in which former combatants and other members of society stitch pages of textile books. Collective crafting helps people to speak about their experiences of violence, and the resulting textiles form a traveling exhibition which counters the unidimensional narratives about former FARC fighters prevalent in Colombian discourse. // More information: stitchedvoices.wordpress.com

Jemma Bagley // I am a visual artist and arts in health practitioner, manager and curator based in Loughborough in the East Midlands. I am a Loughborough textiles design BA Hons graduate, I specialised in printed textile design. I often include stitched elements in my mixed media visual artwork. I have written about my personal connection to textiles. I specialise in working on creative projects with adults with mental ill health. I am currently working freelance after 14 years at Charnwood Arts. I am a trustee of The Wellbeing Cafe Project charity and a director of The Emporium, which is the fundraising shop for the charity. We support adults with mental ill health in Leicestershire. We have a project called Up-stitch which is dedicated to the up-cycling of domestic textiles. I am also deputy chair of ArtSpace Loughborough a contemporary visual art group in Loughborough. // More information: Instagram / find The Wellbeing Cafe Project and Up-stitch on Facebook

Ingrid Bale // I am an educator, sewist and textile artist, teaching a variety of (mainly women’s) community groups. I am interested in narrative and storytelling, particularly personal histories/stories. My MA considered how sewing can create change – both personally and community-wide. I have participated in events promoting the employability of sewing and tackling issues such as period poverty worldwide. These helped raise awareness in the media and the UK Government is now taking this on board. I will be working with women migrants/refugees in Italy, using sewing/stitching, to create dialogue and helping to visualise their futures.

Katy Beinart // I am an interdisciplinary artist working in a range of media, often using social practice or participation in the projects I do. Textile making has always been an element of my practice, but in 2016 I embarked on a participatory textile project with an interfaith group of women in Ealing, West London as part of an AHRC funded project Making Suburban Faith. Through the project we talked about faith and making, life histories and migrations, home and belonging, while producing individual and group embroidery pieces. The pieces were exhibited at UCL, St Thomas’s Church Ealing, Phoenix Art Space and Gunnersbury Museum and became a book. // More information: Making Suburban Faith / katybeinart.co.uk

Charlotte Bilby // I am a PhD researcher at Northumbria University and an amateur textile and multi-media maker. A number of years ago I went to a talk about the social and political impacts of quilting, wondered whether and how textile making was happening in the criminal justice system and if it could be incorporated into my criminological research. I have researched and seen the impact of enrichment and participatory textile activities on criminalised people’s self-management, identity and offending behaviour. My current work takes this further and explores the wider role of textiles in women’s life stories through the prison gates.

Patricia Brien // I am a PhD researcher at Bath Spa University in Environmental Humanities and working in the fields of textiles cultures and curating. My project is based upon an historic textile from Stroud, UK and its human and nonhuman networks across time and place. The research is based around eco-feminist and new materialist epistemologies. Recent case studies that I have initiated and curated include community engagement textiles projects through established ‘wilding’ projects and eco circling groups (Red Thread Project), facilitating the ‘Wednesday Textile Muse’ evenings at Atelier, a community textiles centre, and incorporating my stitch practice as part of the Incendiary protest art exhibition which I initiated and curated. // More information: liminessence.co.uk

Sarah Brown // I am a visual artist and social researcher, currently undertaking transdisciplinary doctoral research with craftswomen in the Anosy region of southeast Madagascar. The research investigates women’s experiences of negotiating the shift from traditional reed weaving to hand embroidery. This shift is a result of a collaborative livelihoods intervention to reduce dependence on declining natural resources. I use apprenticeship as well as social weaving and embroidery to facilitate discussion about the ways women are navigating social, cultural, economic and creative aspects of this transition. My creative practice currently explores the interactions of these crafts within the research methodology. // More information: sarahbrown.info

 Adele Buffa // In my practice as an Eco-Social designer, I use experiential stitching workshops to trigger discussions and concrete shared action around the topic of waste. With the heterogeneous workshop’s audience in terms of both age and skills, I aim to broaden the target of sewing activities beyond the niche of amateurs by creating social inclusion and intergenerational exchange. In such a way, the ecological and social impacts go hand in hand with a mutual benefit. I am currently involved in the project @blauerschnipsel with the graphic designer Rocco Modugno and the architect and photographer Andrea Righetto.

Stephanie Bunn // Stephanie is an anthropologist at the University of St Andrews. She conducts anthropological research into 2- and 3-D textiles in Central Asia and Scotland. She curated the first ever British Museum exhibition of Central Asian nomadic textiles and currently directs Woven Communities, an AHRC-funded project inspiring learning, memories and recovery through the embedded knowledge and skill in Scottish vernacular basketry. Stephanie does practical basketry work and other constructed textiles with students, other basket-makers, the general public, schoolchildren and scholars to highlight the importance of learning hand-skills such as basket-work for human cognition, design- and engineering-thinking, well-being and development. And also because she likes it. // More information: wovencommunities.org / Nomadic Felts (author)/ Anthropology and Beauty (editor)

Laura Burrill // VeiledVoices2020 // At heart I am a communicator, fascinated in the ways women communicate through clothes, textiles and language. As a Master’s Student at the University of Derby I am researching the historical use of embroidery as voice and protest and exploring whether the craft can be used today to empower and create change. Veiled Voices 2020 is a collaborative embroidery project, which invites women across the UK to come together and explore perceptions of Hijab wearing in Britain, with the aim of creating understanding and friendship. Contributions are collected at workshops, via a ‘Remote Stitching Collective’ and the project blog. // More information: veiledvoices2020.wordpress.com

Lucy Burscough // I am an artist and arts for health practitioner, currently delivering ‘Dab Hands’, an ACE funded project exploring our relationships with our hands, honed dexterity and identity. 250 participants have created individual embroideries of one of 125 anatomical drawings of hand surgeon, Donald Sammut. The embroideries will become the ‘skin’ of a sculpture of a hand at work and celebrate the skills and dexterity developed when one spends time doing sewn craft activities and how they are reflected, both in movement and skill acquisition, in surgical practice. Delivered under lockdown, participants are medical students/practitioners, neurodiverse young people and students attending a PRU, together with home embroiderers. // More information: lucysart.co.uk/stitches / Twitter / Instagram

 Jen Cable // I am a narrative artist who uses knit/stitch to examine the world around me and express my joy and frustration with 21st century reality.  I have been running the Knitted Lives project since October 2020 which explores the joy, solace and frustrations of knitting as told to me by everyday people.  The project has both a digital form on Instagram, and an ever increasing blog of knitted life stories as well as a physical form of pop-up events, gallery of knitting and performances from Knitted Jen.  Find out more about Jen and her textile practice.

Camden Community Makers // I (Jessica Jacobs) am a geographer based at Queen Mary University of London. Together with felting artists Andrea Morreau and Emily O’Mara we are developing the use of felting as a form of countermapping. We have found that our mapping in felt workshops are a fun and colourful way to bring people together to tell stories and people of all ages and skills are able to represent things of great significance to them in felt. We are currently working on community-led housing projects in London and community engagement in an archaeological site in Jordan. // More information: camdencommunitymakers.org

Viveca Cameron // I, with other makers, run CraftA a non-profit, running textile arts project for well-being. I am a felter and textile art and sculpture practitioner. I also run visual messaging projects in education and health. I created and Chair the South East London Wool and Textile Festival in Greenwich. We work with older adults with particular focus on minoritised communities and areas on the poverty matrix. I am active in the campaign for equitable funding for community culture and BAME. I am currently part of a research project on EDI and culture. I also run textile art workshops in my residential studio.

Siún Carden // I am a Research Fellow in the University of the Highlands and Islands’ Centre for Rural Creativity, based in Shetland. My background is in anthropology and my research interests include ‘skill’ in knitting at all points on the amateur/professional and hand/machine spectrums, especially in places associated with a particular design repertoire. Participating in knitting groups has been a vital part of my work on the changing ways in which Shetland hand knitting is valued. I lead a module on ‘Communities of Practice’ within the UHI MA in Art and Social Practice. // More information: skill-knit-manufacture.co.uk

Flavia Carraro// Flavia is an anthropologist, associated researcher at the Centre Norbert Elias CNRS-EHESS and at ArScAn CNRS. Her research work lies in cultural technology, linguistic anthropology, STS and anthropology of knowledge, and the principal objects of her investigation are writing and weaving in an ethnographic, comparative and interdisciplinary perspective. She is especially interested in the relation between material culture and symbolic forms as it can be explored through intellectual and material practice of signs and threads, from ancient to modern time, and through an apprenticeship method. She conducts her fieldwork research in scientific, technical and artisan communities in Europe and US and she weaves with experts (archaeologists, historians, designers and textile engineers), artisans, artists and amateurs in associations, schools and workshops, mainly in France and in Italy. 

Anita Chamberlain // I am a Visual Artist and Educator. At present I live in Norway. Within my own art practice, I work with a range of resources from ink, pastels and collage such as sewing materials and needle and thread. I frequently visit the fjord, forest or local area to take inspiration for my artwork. I am returning to the UK soon and have set up a face book site ‘Craftivism in Lancaster’. My aim is to set up a community space where people can create and chat whilst also getting involved in sewing, knitting and visual arts.

Fiona Clark // I am Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at Queen’s University Belfast. I have been using textiles, in the form of ‘arpilleras’, as a means of creative pedagogy for several years. In my classes, textiles become a space for ‘place-based’ learning. Through a process of participatory textile making, the students interpret key elements and personal responses to Latin American ecological fiction and create their own story narratives engaging with both text and textile tradition as a form of environmental conscience raising.

Naomi Clarke // I am a PhD candidate at the University of Bristol. My research topic seeks to explore the stories of women engaging in a digital-led sewalong, their experiences, their motivations, the meanings they ascribe both to the sewalong and to sewing more generally, and the role of social media in relation to these factors. I’ll use sewing as both data and as methods in my participatory research. Group quilt (in progress): each hexagon flower has been embroidered with a word by a woman taking part in the sewalong (on Instagram as the #fussycuttingsewalong ) for what the sewalong means to them. // More information: naomialice.co.uk / Instagram / Twitter

Common Threads Project // Common Threads Project is a New York based nonprofit serving women and girls who have survived war, sexual violence, and displacement. In close collaboration with local partners, we have developed programs in Ecuador, Nepal, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Bosnia. Our approach is rooted in neuroscientific and socio-cultural understandings of trauma, and revives the ancient practice in which women come together to sew their stories onto cloth, to disclose the unspeakable atrocities they have experienced, and to support one another. Common Threads Project integrates this tradition with best practices from trauma-informed therapy, somatic therapy, and psycho-education. We train clinicians who facilitate the circles, and adapt and implement the programs. The women’s sewing circle provides mutual support and safety, and enables the multi-dimensional integrative work of trauma recovery. // More information: commonthreadsproject.org

Jane Cook // Stitch to Enrich (S2E) is a therapeutic stitch group based in Hatfield Peverel, Essex, which hopes to offer the local community a means of belonging and engaging with each other, addressing issues of wellbeing and loneliness.  Loosely based on Stitch Meditation or mindfulness, we meet to stitch purely for the process, rather than the product.  We meet in a local pub and have managed four fortnightly meetings so far.  I have recently been asked to create a group in a local town.  We hope it will be somewhere to share the joy of stitching as we chat, relax and find friendships. // For further information contact: stitch2enrich@gmail.com

Sally Cooke // I am a maker, designer and doctoral researcher at Nottingham Trent University. My research focuses on the home construction of clothing in the contemporary context of sustainable fashion. Looking specifically at sewn clothing, my interest is in how people learn basic functional sewing skills, the resources that help them do so and whether/how this impacts on their relationship with clothes more broadly. As part of this research I will be working with people new to sewing to understand their experience of learning and explore alternative ways to support, explicate and disseminate such practice. // More information: Twitter

Margarita Cuéllar-Barona // Knitter, maker, mother, writer, feminist and educator. I am an assistant professor and Head of the Art and Humanities Department at Universidad Icesi in Cali, Colombia. I am also the editor-in-chief of papel de colgadura, an index free magazine I cocreated in 2009. I lead the Seminar on Feminist Pedagogy and the Seminario Textil – El Costurero. I am interested in the relation between textiles, needlework, pedagogy and memory. I focus on participatory art-based methods and collaborative textile-making where making is explored as a form of documenting. // More information: icesi.edu.co/elcosturero and margaritacuellarbarona.com

Clare Danek // I am a doctoral researcher undertaking an autoethnographic investigation into how people learn amateur craft skills alongside others in open access community making spaces, and alone at home; as part of this, I am creating a daily pictorial ‘stitch journal’ as a way of reflecting on PhD life. Whilst the stitched aspect of this research is not currently collaborative in its creation, entries are shared daily, and the conversations that it has inspired with other researchers, makers, and those new to sewing, suggest that there is extensive scope for it to develop in this direction in future. // More information: claredanek.me/stitch-journal/

Kimberley Davies and Jane Bunting // We work in the field of palaeoecology meaning ‘old ecology’. We also both share a keen interest in knitting and as a result, we are currently developing a ‘palaeoblanket’ project. The idea stemmed from our re-imagining lost landscapes and trying to understand local people’s sense of place using creative methods that aren’t commonly associated with our scientific discipline. We are developing knitted blanket square patterns, each with a different palaeoecological motif and some explanatory text. The idea is to use these as outreach tools to facilitate communication with groups, increase knowledge of past environments and initiate dialogue between different sectors of local communities.

Andreia de Almeida // I am a cancer researcher, with an interest in crafting, dressmaking and sustainability. I started the Science Stitches project as a way to raise awareness for cancer prevention and screening in deprived communities. The goal was to engage pupils in creating sustainable garments based on cancer research projects, generating discussions with the wider community. Due to the pandemic, the project had to be restructured. We have redesigned it to include a research project, investigating how embroidery affects the mental health of medical undergraduate students. // More information: craftyscientist.co.uk/science-stitches

Alicia Decker // I am a Textile Designer, Fiber Artist, Educator, and Ph.D. student. My work implements the power of textiles to explore hidden and personal narratives to either be decoded or therapeutically “released”. I enjoy engaging with the public to create narratives through pattern, color, and fiber about events currently shaping our world. I’ve taught workshops at national and international conferences and enjoy building community around the tactile and ubiquitous use of embroidery and quilting. My 2020 project “What Does It Mean To Be American?” initiates conversation around this complicated question through the stitched word. // More information: Instagram / aliludesign.com / fembroidery.com

Sarah Desmarais // Alongside my practice as a textile designer maker, I have facilitated textile making workshops in a variety of educational, community and mental health settings. In partnership with Arts for Health Cornwall I carried out AHRC-funded doctoral research (2012 – 2015) into the relationship between crafts creativity and mental health. As a researcher I’m particularly interested in fine-grained, observational, ethnographic ways of gathering data, and how these allow consideration of unexamined affective, interactional and material dimensions of such activities. I’m also interested in the role of making in design pedagogy. I currently supervise doctoral research at the RCA into textile making in health settings. // More information: sarahdesmarais.com / academia.edu / thesis / Instagram

Julie Devon // Since 2017, I have been a Freelance Creative Practitioner and Tutor. Previous, community-based work, inspired by my MA Design studies, looked at the interaction between individuals, their textile work and the growth of their creative confidence and personal voice during this creative process. Most recently delivering Creative Writing sessions online, via Teams, with Teesside University, as a current PhD candidate, to University staff and students. I would like my work going forward, personal and research based, to look further into these interactions, to nourish personal growth in others and, as an act of self-care, with myself. // More information: Instagram / Twitter / Facebook

Paul V. Dudman // Archivist, University of East London. My work at UEL focuses on the archive of the Refugee Council Archive and related migration collections. I am currently researching the role of textiles in the Chilean context with an interest in Arpilleras and the interplay of narratives between textiles and written texts.

 

Becky Earley // I am a printed textile designer who specialises in heat transfer techniques for polyester. I founded my London-based B.Earley studio in 1994, and started running sustainable textiles printing workshops internationally soon after. I began working with recycled shirts in 1999 and this work still continues today; using them as a vehicle to explore the circular economy for textiles and new materials, social models, mindsets and behaviours. I use design thinking approaches to facilitate workshops, creating original tools, worksheets and resources for diverse audiences; from designers and makers to material scientists in European research consortiums, industry professional and users/consumers. // More information: B.Earley / Top 100 Shirt Project / Textile Toolbox

Jules Findley // My doctoral research involved embodied materiality examining issues around complicated grief through a tactile exploration of the material of handmade paper, and the craft of making to produce fibre-based outcomes and installations. I have made participatory stitch, using close readings on psychological theory of attachment and detachment with a group of bereaved mothers who have been and are still undergoing trauma, enduring a living loss, examining maternal grief through stitch, making and repetition. My methodologies use auto ethnographic, making paper, new and reused through play and experimentation within the domestic as an environment; the studio resides in the domestic environment, wider contexts of grief are conceptually formed. Installations as a result of stitch and paper aim to ask questions in a public setting, and raise awareness of issues in gathering further research. // More information: julesfindley.com

Tal Fitzpatrick // is an Israeli born Australian artist, craftivist and researcher based on the unceded lands of the Kombumerri families of the Yugambeh language region. She holds a PhD in Visual Art from the Victorian College of the Arts (2018) and a Bachelor of Arts with First Class Honours from Griffith University (2010). Tal is best known for her work in the field of craftivism and, along with collaborators such as Kate Just and Stephanie Dunlap, she has led several global craftivism projects that tackle significant social, political and environmental issues including the @Covid19quilt (2020), the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Quilt Project (2016-2018) and the PM Please Quilt Project (2017). // More information: https://talfitzpatrick.com / Instagram

Fleece to Fashion: Economies and Cultures of Knitting in Scotland (Lynn Abrams, Sally Tuckett, Marina Moskowitz, Roslyn Chapman, Lin Gardner at University of Glasgow) // Our project is investigating the place of knitted textiles in the Scottish economy and culture. Our research focuses on three themes – creativity, sustainability, authenticity. We are indebted to the knitting community for knowledge and expertise and have engaged that community in crowd-sourced research (on knitted lace patterns) and activities (knitting the Commonwealth flags for the Glasgow Games). We are currently investigating knitwear production ‘in the round’ in communities from Shetland to the Borders. // More information: Fleece to Fashion website 

Daniel Fountain // I am an artist, lecturer and researcher currently undertaking a PhD at Loughborough University as part of a CDT in Feminism, Sexual Politics and Visual Culture. My practice-led research project seeks to further establish a relationship between fibre craft practices and queer identity. My interest in participatory stitching extends from a recent project entitled Re-Imagining Citizenship for which I encouraged participants to stitch their feelings relating to citizenship onto waste materials. The subsequent publication featuring this provocation was exhibited at the Palazzo Mara during the 2019 Venice Biennale. // More information: danielfountain.com

Tina Francis // Craft builds community and so using my needle and skill sharing is important to me. In my latest project (funded by heritage lottery) I stitched with over 500 people introducing many to stitch for the first time or rekindling a love of stitch. Bee Yourself connected many communities across Birmingham as each person stitched a Bee to be included in the final piece which was made up of 902 separate works. I use stitch as a listening tool working with bereavement groups, concentrating on your hands means no eye contact which in turn makes it easier to talk. Working with so many people enables me to watch the process and I am currently working on a stitch product with the help of Steamhouse in Birmingham.

Lisa Raye Garlock // As an Assistant Professor in the Art Therapy Program at the George Washington University in Washington, DC, my main interests include women’s issues, textiles in art therapy, and cultural awareness. I created the Storycloth Database (storyclothdatabase.org), and am also on the faculty of the Common Threads Project, training facilitators working with survivors of sexual violence. I teach a Narrative Textile class and include textiles in Studio & Technique, and facilitate art therapy-focused textile workshops. I also host a monthly sewing circle and try to do some stitching every day. My current projects relate to racial justice and COVID19.

Emilie Giles // I am a researcher, artist and educator, currently studying for a Ph.D. at The Open University. My work explores how e-textiles (electronic textiles) can be used to make tactile interactive art pieces by blind and visually impaired people, as well as how they can be used to enhance creative experiences by exploiting their touch-based properties. The research has focused on creative choices which participants make, what personal associations are made with different fabrics and what approach can be taken to make e-textiles more accessible and inclusive. My work is largely participatory, not only through the research I’m conducting but also through my personal arts practice. // More information: emiliegiles.co.uk

Sarah Green // I am a doctoral researcher with a background in Fine Art. My PhD examines the therapeutic use of textile craft processes for vulnerable men’s wellbeing. As part of this research I established and ran ManCraft, a long-term community-based textile craft group for vulnerable men, based at Charnwood Arts (CA). I have collaborated with CA on several projects, most recently on Re-Making Histories, a collective project which explored ways of enhancing the learner experience in HE through socially engaged practice. Currently I am Research Associate for CA’s latest arts in health project MakeSpace Step Up, designed to support participants with their artistic and creative progression through developing transferable skills, supporting individual wellbeing and challenging mental health stigma through bringing participant-artists work into the public domain. // More information: supercrochetgirl.wordpress.com

Karen Grøn // Director at Trapholt Museum of Modern Art, Craft and Design, Denmark. Trapholt has a long tradition of large-scale participatory crafted art projects. During the first lockdown March-June 2020 1000 participants from all of Denmark crocheted the installation LIGHTHOPE, streaming the hanging during the lock down and ready for the audience when Trapholt reopened. Trapholt runs since January 2021 the lockdown project ”Among the Trees” commenting on the climate crisis. 1000 participants are quilting leaves for an artificial wood. Both projects run with lively Facebook communities and virtual events. My research includes new materialism & phenomenology; museums and relevance; new publics. // More information: trapholt.dk / TINGSTED film / Grænseløse Sting film

Louise Haywood // Louise Haywood is an academic working on the culture of medieval Iberian, a quiltmaker and aspiring textile artist and a founding member of the Tactics and Praxis group at the University of Cambridge. T&P fosters creative approaches to academic work, offering space for creativity, play, slowness and pleasure, and brings together those engaged in or developing creative practice and/or practice-led research to build solidarity. We’ve seen an increase in community-based and hands-on workshops recently. My practice (and separately research) explore the relationships between identity and place. More information: tacticsandpraxis.org / Tactics & Praxis manifesto

Lucie Hernandez // I am a PhD researcher at Falmouth University exploring the combination of textiles with electronics, conductive materials and technological behaviours using craft techniques. Recently I have been working on a project called Touchcraft that uses co-creation and participatory approaches to engage different audiences and contribute social cohesion and wellbeing. I facilitated creative workshops with local groups to embellish textiles with audio clips, memories and stories, supporting participants to enhance their stitched objects with soft circuits and electronic components. Direct involvement in creative activities gives people a platform to personalise the objects they develop, building in their voice and providing a sense of purpose and motivation. // More information: touchcraft.org.uk

Katie Hill // I am a social design practitioner and researcher – I design tools to engage people in social and environmental change. I am also a lifelong textile maker and use participatory making as part of my social design practice. I lecture in design, human geography and social innovation, and have an artists studio in York. I’m a para-academic, working fixed term and zero hour contracts at universities since 2004, alongside self-employment and working in the third sector – a patchwork career! I facilitated making activities at the first Stitching Together network event as part of the S4S Designing a Sensibility for Sustainable Clothing project.

Catherine Howard // I am a PhD student at the University of Huddersfield studying participatory textile work with teenagers and its effect on mental health. I have undertaken several small scale projects including ‘Mending the tears’ at the NEC (pictured). I enjoy people adding to work or even enabling them to take something away – my latest work, ‘Behind closed doors’ is a celebration of the Coventry silk industry and goes on display at the Herbert Art Gallery in Coventry on the 15th February 2020. Visitors will be encouraged to take elements home with them until the work is no more.

Faith Kane // My interest in participatory stitching comes out of a desire to more fully explore the broad and varied potential of textile practice, including participatory textile making, to contribute to addressing a range of contemporary societal challenges. In addition, I have observed a growing interest from within the student body in developing practices that move towards community engagement. As such I am keen to keep developing my research and teaching in a manner that engages with the opportunities that this space presents. Particularly in connection to areas such as: collaboration and transdisciplinary working; co-creation; open-design; social design; and practices of use and care as they relate to textiles.

Angela Kilford // Te Whanau A Kai, Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu // I am an artist and designer with a background in textiles and work also within the College of Creative Arts, Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand. My inspiration comes from Māori concepts and knowledge. My most recent works have explored the whakapapa of local ecology and the lesser known connections between living and non-living entities. These ideas are examined and expressed through walking, performance, collaborative making, large scale public installations and writing. // More information: angelakilford.com 

Iryna Kucher // I am an Eco-Social designer and PhD candidate at Design School Kolding. My research focuses on the study of mending practices as a personal response to the overwhelming problems of consumption and waste. It analyses the meaning of mending practices and understanding of their aesthetic codes in Western and Eastern societies and explores mending as private and collective practices. By adopting a design anthropological approach, it attempts to bridge the participants’ knowledge from different social settings to allow articulation of imaginaries across places, to open possibilities for shared worlding through co-exploration and participation, and to envision the future and scalability of these practices.

Hannah Lamb // I am a textile artist, textiles lecturer, researcher and writer, based near Bradford West Yorkshire. My art practice focusses on personal responses to place through cloth, stitch and print. The historical legacy of cloth production in my local area has influenced several projects involving participatory practice as a means of relating textile to place. Most notably Lasting Impressions with Claire Wellesley-Smith involved participants in creating an archive of clothing and fibre through making in the fabulous spinning room at Salts Mill. I am also interested in the use of textile archives in practice based creative research. // More information: hannahlamb.co.uk / Lasting Impressions

Marion Lean // I am a Scottish runner, researcher and facilitator based in London. Data representation and engagement in the ‘post-post-digital’ age calls for nuanced direction blurring digital, physical and experiential elements to engage society numbed by an overload of information, exhausted by the relentless seduction of the digital. Evocative approaches for impact and action are required to engage deeper dimensions of the human condition. Materiality can be explored as a toolbox for generating felt data experiences. Navigating the boundaries between digital and material realms to explore data experience has been the theme of my PhD in Design Research at the Royal College of Art. Designers and public engage in textile led approaches to explore the affective and sensory experience of data. // More information: marionlean.co.uk / Twitter

Lauren Leone // Lauren Leone is a fiber artist, board-certified art therapist, and licensed mental health counselor working with art therapy participants in clinical and community-based settings in Somerville and Boston, MA, USA. She is an Assistant Professor of Art Therapy in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Lesley University and the editor of Craft in Art Therapy: Diverse Approaches to the Transformative Power of Craft Materials and Methods. Lauren’s research interests include the unique therapeutic benefits of craft materials and methods for art therapy practice, socially engaged craft practices, and how craft activism can support art therapy practitioners and participants in being change agents. // More information: laurenleone.com / Instagram

Carole Loeffler // I create works using vintage linens and clothes and offer prompts for viewers to respond to. One recent example: I asked viewers to complete the sentence “I am stronger than…” and included each response on a handwritten tag on the finished work. I also conduct workshops and classes for school-age children and university students where I teach them how to embroider and sew. We often discuss politics, hopes, and dreams and how these can inspire their work. // More information: caroleloeffler.com / Instagram / Facebook

Rebecca-Eli Long // I am a PhD student at Purdue University developing knitting as an ethnographic method for disability anthropology. My research explores how knitting relates to concepts used in the autistic self-advocacy movement, such as “stimming” and “special interests.” As an autistic anthropologist, my work is inspired by the challenges of representing autistic experiences, including self-representation, and I turn to my practice of knitting to advance narratives of autistic joy over the lifecourse. Through using a range of participatory crafting methods, I hope to foreground disabled creativity and refute pathological models of autism. // More information: rebecca-eli.com

Marsha MacDowell // I am a folklorist/art historian based at Michigan State University where I am engaged in many community-engaged research projects, including the Quilt Index, a digital repository of photos, stories, and descriptive data on quilts and quilt artists. In 2018 former medical doctor Larry Nassar, once employed at Michigan State University, was found guilty of sexually violating over 500 young female athletes. As a means of providing a vehicle for individuals to offer comfort to those Sister Survivors, I and my two co-authors for Quilts and Health (Indiana University Press, 2017) launched The Teal Quilt Project with the goal of making one quilt – a physical hug – for each of the Survivors. I am now documenting why and how individuals are engaged in this community-participatory artmaking activity, challenges unique to this project, and how the recipients respond to this action. // More information: Quilt Index / The Teal Quilt Project

Angela Maddock // I am interested in the application of stitch as reflective practice in the clinical training of health care professionals and as a method of ‘sideways talking’. Currently Maker in Residence with the faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care at King’s College, London. My work includes the Being Intimate Quilt, which is made of the deconstructed and pieced together underwear of midwifery students and staff. I work with medical students of Clinical Humanities using similar methodology. I was the Crafts Council selected maker for Processions 2018, stitching a collaborative banner with women staff of Guy’s and St Thomas’s NHS Trust.

Hinda Mandell // Hinda is associate professor in the School of Communication at RIT in New York, and is editor of Crafting Dissent: Handicraft as Protest from the American Revolution to the Pussyhats (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019); co-curator and co-editor of Crafting Democracy: Fiber Arts and Activism (RIT Press, 2019). Her current work examines how a social reformist group of white, upper-middle-class women in New York mobilized to sell handcraft for the abolitionist cause prior to, and during, the American Civil War. They were known as the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Sewing Society. // More information: Instagram

Vanessa Marr // Artist/maker, practice-based researcher and Senior Lecturer at the University of Brighton. I’m particularly interested in the role of stitch to entice narratives and connect women, which I explore primarily through embroidery and creative writing. My ongoing collaborative arts project ‘Women & Domesticity – What’s your Perspective?’ references traditional ‘women’s work’ and invites people to embroider their own experiences onto a duster, which I share through community arts workshops and exhibitions, and academic publications. I’m also currently studying a PhD exploring alternative practices of autoethnography through phenomenological engagement with a dusting cloth through stitch. I never stop learning, making and writing. // More information: Duster project blog / Instagram: @vanemarr @domesticdusters / research profile

Rachael Matthews // Here is a dancefloor promoting ‘knitting as a fashionable subculture’ in 2000. I curated big and small events, to teach knitting, and grab press headlines about knitting’s resurgence. This led me to open a yarn shop and exhibition space, Prick Your finger, which held regular classes and hosted a wide range of socially engaged textile projects. After 8 years, I closed the shop and wrote ‘The Mindfulness in Knitting’, for Leaping Hare Press. I am now writing ‘The Mindlessness in Knitting’… I teach textiles at Central St Martins, am a regular visiting artist with the adults with learning difficulties group at East London Textile Arts, and am a founder member of the Art Worker’s Guild Outreach Committee.

Alison Mayne // I am a researcher working in handcraft, wellbeing and social media. My PhD explored how making in knit and crochet alone but shared to closed community groups on Facebook could have an impact on perceptions of wellbeing. Whilst participants didn’t stitch together physically, they engaged with their own and others’ making in a digital space – offering advice, support, friendship and a space to celebrate and recognise their skill. Future work expands some of these ideas in investigating the affective significance of Scottish yarn for amateur makers and handcrafting with those recently diagnosed with early-onset dementias. // More information: knitrospective.com

Emma McGinn // I am a London-based textiles practitioner and lecturer currently undertaking a practice based design PhD at Lab4Living, Sheffield Hallam University. My current research, Wandering Threads, explores orientation thorough craft-based textiles practice. One of my aims is to document the evolving role of the textile designer and how textiles practice-research has potential to enrich people’s lives. In my current project I work with participants who are living with dementia; engaging with textiles practice as a potential language through which to explore orientation and agency. I co-run a post-graduate participatory stitch based discussion group called Memory Threads. // More information: emmamcginn.com / Memory Threads Group / Instagram

Alice McGovern // I am a criminologist from Sydney, Australia, who practices embroidery, cross stitch, and felt applique as a hobby. About a decade ago I came across the practice of guerrilla knitting, which has led me to bring my craft interests into my criminological research. Having written a book on yarn bombing, craftivism and criminology, I am now expanding my research to look at the intersections between craft, crime, and criminal justice more broadly. As part of this I am exploring how to bring socially engaged craft methods into my research and personal crafting practice. // More information: Craftivism and Yarn Bombing: A Criminological Exploration (book) / Instagram / Twitter

Jo McIntosh // The St Ives in Stitches project came about when I saw a similar project at a textile show. In September 2017 I held a meeting and explained my idea, which was to create a textile banner showing all the buildings along the Wharf Road and round the harbour. All materials were provided and we held monthly sessions in the Salvation Army Hall for people to collect materials, show completed pieces and, more importantly, to meet up with others. This is particularly important for those on their own and those recently moved to the area and struggling to make friends. In September 2018 the project was completed and consisted of two 25-foot banners which were displayed during the St Ives September Festival. The group are now working on a banner showing another part of St Ives which, hopefully, will be displayed later this year. // More information: St Ives in Stitches (Facebook) / video of first project (Facebook) / knitweave.co.uk

Angharad McLaren // As a craft-based textile designer and researcher, my practice explores sustainability, clothing longevity, mending, and health/wellbeing. Often taking a collaborative approach, I aim to share the positive power of making, using technology, craft, humour and sport as participatory tools to engage audiences. In recent years, I’ve explored interconnectivity, pattern, and ecology with fine artist Geoff Diego Litherland; held mending workshops/public engagement events for Zero Waste Scotland/WRAP; hosted a Weavathon for the Commonwealth Games cultural programme; and explored local industrial, political, and built heritage in projects such as Yarn Bomb Bute and Weave Parkhead! // More information: angharadmclaren.co.uk/

Shirley McLauchlan // I am a designer/lecturer. My design philosophy is focused on how to practice sustainable design. I create modern day family heirlooms. I love to hand stitch and share my love of craft and pattern. I explore co creation involving the client throughout the design process. I was involved with the ZWS Love your clothes campaign running mending workshops engaging the public in the art of personalised mending. I love to mend and make patterns. I was one of the selected designers involved with Re-Mantle and Make exploring excess materials and sharing hand skills. In 2019 I am sharing my documentary at https://www.fashionrevolution.org/scotland/ promoting good textile practice at the V&A Dundee. // More information: shirleymclauchlan.co.uk 

Amy Meissner // I am an artist in Anchorage, Alaska, USA, and an MA candidate in Critical Craft Theory at Warren Wilson College (North Carolina). My personal practice with craft- and textile-based processes utilizes abandoned handwork and vintage textiles to consider the literal, emotional, and physical labor of women. My social practice includes working with various communities in Alaska and the Lower 48 states on embroidery and mending techniques to engage memory, foster Repair Culture, and generate greater perception of value for handwork skills. Current research interests include how textile craft practices and processes engage and intersect with motherhood, feminism, mourning, remediation, the environment, and community. // More information: amymeissner.com / Instagram

Brenda Miller // I am studying for a doctorate at the University of Wolverhampton. My research is investigating what value might moving image bring to making as a research practice to enable an enhanced understanding of the affect on textile processes, production, knowledge and skills. Central to the research is the intimacy of exchange that occurs between people in a variety of art making situations by exploring the historical representation of women’s art through textiles, its links to craft and domesticity and its relationship to current practice. I collaborate with professional and amateur women in order to create documentary style film pieces. // More information: Axisweb profile

Nikkita Morgan // I am an Irish textile artist based in Edinburgh. I predominately use needlework to capture intricate stories: emblematically unravelling and re-working aspects of socio-political, cultural, and environmental issues. Alongside my practice, I have devised and delivered embroidery-based workshops and projects within a range of educational and community settings, both nationally and internationally. The main inspiration behind my artist-led workshops, is to share and teach others how to explore and interpret personal and collective memories and experiences through embroidery. This is a key factor within my participatory practice, as I can observe the participants in using these newly learnt skills in designing and stitching their own narratives inspired by lived experiences. // More information: https://nikkitamorgan.com / Instagram

Maggie Muth, founder of stitchHIVE // stitchHIVE is an itinerant stitching space for all. We are based out of Portland, Maine USA, and have also had stitchHIVES in cities across the globe. Using donated or op-shop stitching supplies of all kinds (embroidery, knitting/crochet, weaving, quilting, etc.), we set up in community spaces, both indoors and outdoors, and invite the public to stitch with us. Inspired by the Art Hives network out of Montreal, Canada, our events are free and open to anyone. // More information: Instagram

Sara Nevay // I am a doctoral researcher with a background in textile and service design, exploring electronics and textiles as catalysts for social connectedness. My work considers the social problem of loneliness and works with older people – who may be particularly vulnerable – to create e-textile objects and activities that prompt conversation, storytelling and social interaction. I am interested in how combining the physical and tactile qualities of the textile medium with other sensory experiences (such as light and sound) can help us connect with or extend our social worlds. I also collaborate with fellow doctoral researcher Lucy Robertson to explore e-textiles for wellbeing. // More information: Sara Nevay profile

The New Muse Workshops // We are textile artists/designers. We were originally designers working in the couture houses in Europe. We met whilst lecturing at a university, in the fashion and textile department. We provide creative and technical skills workshops live and online. Our projects are about combining the expressive and transformative qualities of textiles, fashion and art. We specialise in large collage installations. The New Muse programme is designed to empower people, open up communication chains, create platforms and combat isolation for people that really need to be seen and heard who are may be voiceless in their circumstances, whilst enjoying the relaxing and inspiring benefits of working with beautiful colours, fabrics and techniques to make great work. // More information: newmuseworkshops.co.uk

Susan Noble // I am a maker and educator. My research investigates various articulations of self-expression, particularly domestic craft, and have worked on collaborative projects to explore this. What I revere about domestic craft and the hand-made, is how it creates a tangible manifestation of an idea; a physical and useful object. I am also interested in how the employment of domestic crafts within academia and culture outside of their vernacular context, subjugates that craft within a visual hierarchy, redefined by the artist/designer, and the effect on the community within which the skills and traditions are held and practised. 

Jean Oberlander // I am a designer and writer investigating the use of narrative and storytelling in the (under)appreciation of knitted objects and garments. I research the spaces in between making and wearing within the context of the everyday to understand how knitting can act as a vehicle for memory through remembering and un-remembering, and collaborate through social media and blogs to gather stories of knitting in use, with future community workshops after finishing my MA intending to focus on this framework. More recently, I launched a textiles podcast, Soft Thoughts, with fellow designer Ruby Smith. // More information: oberjean.co.uk / softthoughts.co.uk

Marysol Ortega Pallanez // From Hermosillo, Mexico, I am a designer, educator, embroiderer, and currently a PhD researcher in the Transition Design program at Carnegie Mellon University. Based on the premise that the narratives about the world design our worlds, my research focuses on materializing personal everyday stories. Seemingly inconsequential at a personal level, these stories make visible connections with the collective and local ecosystems. Along with people from the Sonoran Desert in Mexico, I am delving into processes of crafting stories together (through embroidery and weaving) as practices for recognizing ourselves as part of local ecosystems, renegotiating and mending our relations with them. // More information: Profile

Kiren Passi // Fashion Designer and Lecturer, specialising in innovative material processes. CULTURE, COUTURE & COMMUNITY define my practice. CULTURE: At the Royal College of Art, I worked on a collaborative project with Nepalese embroiderers from the Santang region of the Himalayas. “New” Culture is the starting point for every collection. COUTURE (Haute): After training at Christian Dior, Paris, my practice has developed into designing bespoke and individually crafted collections. COMMUNITY: I lecture at UAL, and work on their Widening Participation Programme. As an Artist in Residence at Nottingham Contemporary I engaged families in an experimental Bauhaus design project, creating Fashion and Costume pieces. // More information: kirenpassi.com

#PopUpPatchChallenge // Dr Rebecca Collins, Helen Blank, Helen Berrie, and many others! // We are a collective of amateur makers and menders, united by our interest in facilitating everyday acts of repair to promote more sustainable textile consumption.  In 2018 we launched the #PopUpPatchChallenge across several campuses of the University of Chester.  We hold three-hour drop-in pop-ups where students and staff can bring garments needing small-scale TLC to return them to a wearable state.  Where feasible, we invite garment owners to repair the item themselves, with our guidance and using materials provided free of charge.  We’re now looking to take the #PopUpPatchChallenge off campus and into the city of Chester.

Mah Rana // I am a doctoral student at Birkbeck College, in the Department of Psychological Sciences. My current research is a phenomenological study investigating co-creativity within a context of dementia-care in order to elicit a deep understanding of meaning-making drawn by caregiver daughters from their lived experiences of ‘crafting together’. The research signals the value of co-creativity for wellbeing, and reflexive research practice. Drivers for the doctoral research are a co-authored book chapter Making and Material Affect: From Learning and Teaching to Sharing and Listening (Rana & Hackney, 2018) and the short film One Day When We Were Young (Rana, 2016). // More information: Instagram / Twitter 

Helen Rees Leahy // Professor Emerita, Museology, University of Manchester // Central to my textile practice is Saori, a type of freestyle hand weaving originating in Japan. The ‘Sa’ of Saori refers to the individual dignity of everything and ‘ori’ means weaving. The practice is inclusive, non-judgemental and explicitly social. Like many Saori weavers, I have a loom at home and also regularly weave in a studio alongside others, invariably chatting as we each work at our looms. Saori teacher, Mihoko Wakabyashi, describes this as ‘weaving friendships as we weave fabric’. The idea is not to strive for a concept of visual perfection, but to value self-expression as a means of personal and shared development. // More information: Instagram / saoriglobal.com

Catherine Reinhart // The Collective Mending Sessions // I am a fiber artist living and creating in Ames, IA, U.S.A. My practice centers around themes of redemption, connection, and care. The Collective Mending Sessions is a series of socially engaged workshops which cultivate care for cloth and community through the meditative practice of mending. During these sessions, I teach basic mending and handcraft skills while holding space for conversations about sustainability, care economies, and craft traditions. // “The project, in concept and execution, is a beautiful, multilayered metaphor for the work that needs to happen to mend the political, social, and economic divisions in our nation.” Sharon Stewart, Community Partner // More information: collectivemendingsessions.com / catherinereinhart.com

Lindy Richardson // Programme director Textiles, University of Edinburgh // An all-round textiles enthusiast, my passions include: Outreach, community, equality, education in prison, collaboration, craft, embroidery, archives, conservation, hand stitching. Highlights: Processions, leading the Scottish march of 10,000 women in 2018, with our banner made by Scottish prisoners and our University community celebrating 100 years of women’s suffrage. Print and Politics, co-author with Dr Sara Worden, using traditional African commemorative cloths to inspire political engagement and social comment by Scottish students in printed fashion garments. Embroidered Stories, re-housing NDS archive. Currently working on Touching stitches: access to embroidery for the blind. // More information: Instagram / Twitter / Embroidered Stories

Emily Rickard // I am a PhD researcher at Nottingham Trent University. My research aims to exploit the tactility of knit as a material process and visual tool by exploring the importance creative, freeform knitting can hold on individual wellbeing. Through participatory workshops and case studies, I will be aiding individuals with generating a visual journey depicting their thoughts and feelings using the unique qualities of knit. This project aims to endow its participants with a creative lifeline through knit using the organic creative factors knit holds and through discovering the ability to embrace non-verbal communication. // More information: Twitter

Lucy Robertson // I am a doctoral researcher with a background in textile design, marketing, entrepreneurship and teaching, exploring sonic textiles and e-textiles for wellbeing. My PhD research explores e-textiles and sonic textiles for wellbeing focusing on how textiles, technology, design, and sound can come together to create sensory experiences for wellbeing through workshops and working with those living with dementia. I am currently working between the Outer Hebrides and East Lothian within their Dementia Friendly Communities. I also collaborate with fellow doctoral researcher, Sara Nevay to explore e-textiles for wellbeing through workshops in Scotland and beyond. // Photo by Margaret Joan MacIsaac, 2018 // More information: lucyrobertsondesigns.co.uk

Kirsty Ross // A microbiologist by training, I am now a public engagement professional working across three of Scotland’s universities (Strathclyde, St Andrews and Edinburgh). I frequently use craft and other forms of making as part of my public engagement practice, as it facilitates slow engagement and deep conversations with the audiences I work with. The most recent example is the Quilts 4 Cancer project. Chemists from across the UK provided images inspired by their research and we are inviting sewers to create quilts, which will then be donated to pancreatic cancer patients to keep them warm during chemotherapy treatment. // More information: Quilts 4 Cancer

Ania Sadkowska // Assistant Professor at Coventry University, UK. I am a maker, researcher and writer. The aim of my doctoral project, completed in 2016, was to investigate the possibility of adopting the lens of fashion and clothing in order to explore the older men’s experience of ageing. As a creative practitioner, I sought to explore the vantage point and the relationship between fashion and clothing, embodiment and the physical and social processes of growing older in relation to individuals’ experiences. Together with a group of researchers from Nottingham Trent University, I was involved in a co-creative research project titled Emotional Fit (2014-2017), which focused on developing a new fashion methodology with older women. // More information: profile page

Eliana Sánchez-Aldana // Designer, weaver, and feminist from Bogotá. I work as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Architecture and Design of the Universidad de Los Andes. I research-make textiles as particular ways of thinking. I focus on the exploration of textile performances as encounters of human and more-than-human subjects. Reunions in which is (un)made the common and who participates. In my projects I create spaces of collective creation and material discussion in which textile making is the protagonist. // More information: elianasanchezaldana.com

Pina Santoro // Pina Santoro founded ICAP (Italian Community Arts Peterborough) in 2014. She is an artist whose practice is mainly sculpture based, but still maintains her strong links with painting, print, textiles, sound, ceramics and socially engaged performance. Her research lies in Immigrant Folk Art and connections to home and belonging in Contemporary Art. Projects include researching traditional, cultural, ritualistic and religious objects made around the home and how this attaches to our identity and belonging. // More information: figtreeartstudio.com / Axisweb

Heather Schulte // I am an artist in Boulder, CO, USA, working mainly in textiles and textile-based techniques. My work explores how language and communication inform relationships, and how our relationships define language through how (and what) we communicate. My most recent project, Stitching the Situation, is a collaborative response to the COVID-19 pandemic data in the US. Utilizing cross stitch embroidery, documented coronavirus cases and deaths are stitched in blue and red thread, respectively, creating a communal archive and memorial with our hands even while physically separate. Through material embodiment, the work centers the human experience of abstract, politicized data. // More information: heatherdschulte.com

Lynn Setterington // I am a politically-driven artist and academic who devises and co-ordinates shared textile projects. Examining how stitch-based methods can offer a different lens with which to explore key concerns of our age – identity, belonging, community and place are central to my practice. Doctoral study utilised my long standing knowledge to uncover hidden values and tensions in stitched-based collaboration including the intertwining of the ethical and aesthetic and what E.P. Thompson refers to as a ‘history from below’. My work is held in many collections including the V&A, Whitworth Art Gallery, Crafts Council, Terrence Higgins Trust and Denver Museum of Art. // More information: lynnsetterington.co.uk

Sewing Cafe Lancaster // At Sewing Café Lancaster we promote well-being and advocate sustainability through skill-sharing across the community. We run various workshops, including natural dyeing; making bags from broken umbrellas, and mending cafes. Partnered by the charity Global Link, we host a sewing circle for refugees and asylum-seekers. Here we offer basic hand- and machine-sewing skills for beginners, and the wherewithal for those more accomplished to pursue their own textile projects. For occasions and festivals, we all work together to produce banners celebrating, for instance, Refugee Week, 100 Years of Women’s Votes, and the Lancaster Black History Group. // More information: sewingcafelancaster.com

Annie Shaw // Design Educator/Research Leader at Manchester School of Art // I have moved away from fashion recently, due to disillusionment with levels of needless consumption and associated meaningless reinvention. I continue to value and develop the craft of knitting. Since the completion of my PhD (2009) the notion of Seamlessness has been at the centre of what I do. Fascinated by the spaces we inhabit from garments>rooms>buildings>cities I work in collaboration with Architect Matt Ault and together as ‘The Knitterati’ we explore architectural responses in knitting, in terms of materiality, computation and scale – work that cannot not be realised without collective making.

Emma Shercliff // I am a maker, researcher and writer specialising in stitched textiles. I have been involved with community-based textile-making activities for over 20 years as a workshop leader and as enthusiastic participant. My doctoral research explored relationships between the rhythms and patterns of skilful hand-stitching processes and the crafting of mutuality and cooperation practised in collective making. More recently, I have also begun to use drawing as a way to think about the dynamics of collaborative making contexts. I have published and exhibited work in France and the UK, but also have works in homes, community centres and other people’s memories. // More information: Dr Emma Shercliff

Rose Sinclair // I am a lecturer, textile designer, researcher. My Doctoral research in the Dept of Design, Goldsmiths, University of London is practice led, and focuses on the crafting practices of black british women and those who arrived from the Caribbean in the 1950’s and 1960’s often referred to as ‘The Windrush Generation’. I ask questions of their crafting practices through the lens of textiles networks such as Dorcas Clubs and Dorcas Societies. I use traditional textiles skills alongside my own small bespoke portable looms combined with archival praxis. Through communal and participatory practices, I encourage sharing stories and the making of communal cloths, in museum spaces, community centres and pop-up shops. I use this work to question heritage, ways of knowing, value in craft and textiles. // More information: Rose Sinclair / Twitter

Kate Smith / Stitching my Science // My academic background is in folklore/cultural anthropology but I now focus on the environmental humanities, specifically flood resilience. I was awarded a small NERC grant in 2019 to pilot a project exploring whether participatory textile making was a good way to nurture conversations about climate change-related flood impacts. This led to two separate projects, one focussing on sea-level data visualisation using knitting, and one using numerical models of coastal erosion to visualise past and future coastal change scenarios in East Yorkshire. // More information: flood innovation.co.uk / University of Hull profile

Smith-Genever // Smith-Genever is the collaborative practice of visual artists Katie Smith and Kate Genever. We develop text based artworks which respond to experiences of working with marginalised communities. Work is often co-created and always process led. By recognising and promoting stitch as an act of creative meaning making and resistance, we use sewing as a non-threatening way to create safe spaces for people to explore the tricky stuff of life. Our approach allows a connection at deeply emotional level, which is mirrored in our artworks. It is our belief that stitch provides opportunities for personal growth and the building of resilience.

Rhian Solomon // I am an artist, researcher and design facilitator. I develop cloth based methods to open dialogues between communities of patients, designers and clinicians. Currently my PhD investigates the materiality of collaboration in co-design for health contexts. Here I’m exploring making as a language to enable women to share their experiences of illness and treatment for breast cancer. // More information: rhiansolomon.co.uk / ourownskin.co.uk / skinship.co.uk

Becky Stewart // I am a computer scientist and engineer by training, but have worked with textiles since I was little. I now use conductive textiles as a medium for constructing wearable computing systems. I also hold hands-on textile workshops as a means to teach electronics and computing concepts to those who may feel more comfortable with a needle than with code. As a Lecturer in the the Dyson School of Design Engineering in Imperial College London I supervise researchers who combine advanced computing techniques like machine learning with e-textile sensors. // More information: theleadingzero.com

Stitch-School // Stitch-School was founded in 2017 by Melanie Bowles and Aimee Betts whose aim is to provide professional and inspirational guidance to reconnect to the benefits of embroidery through embroidery kits, workshops and community events around the large communal needlework table called the Supper Cloth. The Supper Cloth provides an intergenerational and multicultural event for people to gather, stitching together to create large embroidered artworks to place back in the community. Supper Cloth residencies include The Barbican Center, London Craft week, Brixton Design Trail, Peckham Festival, Marie Curie hospice and Dulwich Pavilion. // More information: stitch-school.com 

Sally Stone / Hippystitch // Alongside my jewellery and textiles practice, I have designed, organised and delivered a series of themed outdoor community yarnstorms. Working with textile artist, Deborah New, we run workshops, provide online resources & inspiration so people can participate in a way that best suits them. The aims are to involve as many people as possible – individuals, craft/knitting groups, businesses, charities, the local authority; to promote the park where the work is displayed; to provide a showcase for the work; raise money for charity; have fun and delight people including those who come across these installations by chance. // More information: hippystitch.co.uk

Angelika Strohmayer // I am a lecturer in Design at Northumbria University and work on projects in collaboration with charities to explore how co-created textiles and technologies can be creatively integrated into their services to improve outcomes and promote social justice. I explore the potential of digitally augmenting collaborative sewing to co-create interactive textile artefacts. By placing importance on the process as well as the outcomes, I have learnt that these kinds of projects can support personal wellbeing while simultaneously raising awareness about specific issues. In 2017, I worked on ‘The Partnership Quilt’ and currently I am working on a collaborative embroidery project with a local charity. // More information: Twitter / Instagram

Karina Thompson // Digital stitch enthusiast, researcher and stroppy Art Quilter. I have a long history of participatory work in healthcare settings. This has ranged from co-creation with patients and staff using biomedical data to make public artworks to using textile processes to initiate discussion, build self-esteem or stimulate reminisence with mental health service users or people living with dementia. Currently facilitating a series of participatory e-textile making sessions to hand stitch electromyography sensors for low cost robotic prothesis in developing countries. The long-term plan is that these could then be produced by CICs in the communities where the limbs will be worn. // More information: karinathompson.co.uk

Sam Topley // I am a musician, maker and community artist from Leicester (UK). My practice explores sound, technology and textile crafts in participatory and collaborative settings, resulting in colourful, playful and interactive sound art work. My work stems from within a DIY culture of crafting, experimenting and creating with technology as a post-digital method of music making. Through handmade textile objects, my projects explore the joyful and social experience of music making, which is not reliant on the virtuosity or mastery traditionally associated with playing an instrument. Recent projects include knitted synthesisers, embroidered radios, sonic yarnbombs and noisy pompoms. I am a doctoral researcher at De Montfort University, co-supervised by Nottingham Trent University, funded by Midlands4Cities (AHRC). // More information: samantha-topley.co.uk / Twitter / Facebook / Instagram

Katherine Townsend // Associate Professor in Fashion and Textile Crafts, is a designer, maker, writer and curator. Katherine co-founded the fashion label Cocky’s Shed (1985-1992) which informed her PhD: Transforming Shape (2004), where she developed a simultaneous approach to the body, cloth and print. This holistic methodology has influenced a series of textiles/artworks integrating hand and advanced crafting methods. Her interest in ‘emotionally durable design’ was tested through Emotional Fit (2014-2017) a participatory project with older women from Nottingham involving the co-creation of flexible silhouettes based on cloth memory and body shape. Her current work includes social/innovation research with textile artisans in Guatemala. More information: Katherine Townsend

Amy Twigger Holroyd // I am a designer, maker, researcher and writer who has explored the emerging field of fashion and sustainability since 2004. My doctoral research, completed in 2013, investigated the lived experience of making clothes at home and the reworking of knitted garments, considering the contribution of these practices to a sustainable fashion system. A qualitative workshop methodology combined design-led research with participatory creative methods, involving a group of six amateur knitters. More recently, I organised a collaborative two-day smocking workshop to share and test strategies for revitalising culturally significant designs, products and practices. // More information: amytwiggerholroyd.com / reknitrevolution.org

Claire Wellesley-Smith // I am an artist, researcher and writer based in Bradford, experienced in creating collaborative and site-specific projects with communities. My specialism is in long-term socially-engaged textile projects that explore community development and issues around heritage, sustainability and wellbeing. I wrote about these themes in my book Slow Stitch: Mindful and Contemplative Textile Art (Batsford, 2015). My doctoral research project is with the Open University and investigates craft and heritage projects embedded in post-industrial textile communities in Northern England. My research methodology includes a stitch journal completed every day: a way of thinking through making. // More information: clairewellesleysmith.co.uk  

Elnaz Yazdani // I am an embroidery artist and educator based in Yorkshire. Dedicated to sharing embroidery skills with the community and promoting the importance of embroidery as an art form for the future and for wellbeing. My MA research is exploring how embroidery can connect communities after covid-19 isolation. My embroidery practice explores ways of rethinking embroidery and transforming traditional embroidery techniques through my choice of unusual materials. I believe these techniques have the potential to embellish, connect and transform both fabrics and individuals. Throughout the 2020 pandemic I was commended for the teaching excellence award in embroidery by the Embroiderers Guild. I deliver embroidery courses and workshops throughout local community groups, within primary, secondary and higher education. More information // elnazyazdani.com  /  Instagram