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The Red Dress

Quickthorn is excited to support Kirstie Macleod in creating a legacy for her project The Red Dress. This project offers a platform for people, mostly women, who are vulnerable and live in poverty to share their stories through embroidery. The completed Red Dress traveled for 14.5 years and was embroidered by 367 women/girls, 7 men/boys, and 2 non-binary artists from 51 countries. All 141 commissioned artisans were paid for their work and received annual donations from exhibition fees and merchandise profit. Additional small embroideries were added by participants and audiences at various events.

Stitch as a dialogue


Initially The Red Dress project sought to generate a dialogue of identity through embroidery, merging diverse cultures across borders. Over the years however, the dress has also become a platform for self-expression and an opportunity for voices to be amplified and heard.
The Red Dress aims to reach and connect with a wide-ranging audience, although it speaks particularly to women and values a process that can be seen as domestic labour or craft and which is often undervalued. The dress has made a positive impact on the lives of many (both its embroiderers and audiences) and has the potential to change the lives of women for many years to come.

How you can help

In order to make The Red Dress books a reality we need your help. There are so many people involved and they all want a copy of the book. We are also commissioning contributions from around the world and creating a collector’s hardback edition and other goodies.

If you feel able to preorder a book and even go beyond, follow the link behind the button below. The crowdfunder starts on 18 October 2024.

Support us here

Why is The Red Dress important?
• Empowers and amplifies women’s voices
• Accesses diverse communities
• Vehicle for connection with individuals around the globe
• Promotes cross-cultural collaboration
• A community (global and local) artwork
• Emblem of unity and equality, without borders and boundaries
• Uplifts people and brings hope, joy and purpose

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Darned brooches

Since Hikaru’s Instagram live event I’ve been trying to make my own macaron brooch inspired by the ones in her latest book, Beyond Darning: Creative mending techniques. There are several kinds of project in the book, from patches and soft brooches, and then these round ones, named after those lovely French macarons. Hikaru uses ‘moulds’ and unable to get hold of any I’ve used jam jar lids, which seems to work out okay. Though not nearly as lovely as the examples in the book, I’m rather pleased with my attempt, though the best thing was spending the time making, thinking about all those small decisions, that helps you forget anything else that’s on your mind.
I used an old swatch that I had knitted in linen, and attached it to a square of fabric. Once I had darned it with a square darn, some reverse parrallel honeycomb stitch and French knots, I stretched it over a jar lid with some woollen stuffing. The back will be a circle of card wrapped with some extra linen fabric to be sewn on the back. I haven’t quite got around to this bit yet ☺️

We have a workshop coming up where we’ll be making patches and brooches inspired by the book and teaching the basic darning techniques. The workshop will be on Friday 8 Nov at Trinity Rooms, Stroud. There are a few tickets left. There’s a talk in the evening also part of Stroud Book Festival, with Kate Fletcher and Lynn Setterington talking about their work and their new books.

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It’s official, craft is good for you

New research by Dr Helen Keyes of Anglia Ruskin University this week shows the benefits of making for your health (Frontiers of Health Journal ). Of course the rest of us have known this for some time, but it’s great that the rest of the professionals are catching up. This may mean an increase in social proscribing, where craft and creativity in crochet classes and the like, are given the due they deserve, instead of the pejorative sneer that often accompanies their mention.

If you would like to read more about the benefits of making, do get your copy of Intelligent Hands. Co-written with the writer Charlotte Abrahams and yours truly, it covers all the bases about why making is good, not just for us, but for children too.

https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2024/08/16/arts-and-crafts-improves-mental-health-frontiers-public-health

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Beyond Darning

This Friday, 2 August, we’ll be at Loop in Islington’s Camden Passage, London, at 6.30pm to chat with the author, Hikaru Noguchi, about her fascinating darning journey on a rare trip to the UK and one of the few opportunities to see her in Europe.

As I write this, there are still a few tickets left. It will be a perfect occasion to meet fellow darning enthusiasts, exchange ideas, and gain new inspirations for your own projects.

Then, I’m taking a break, so any orders made from today, 1 August, will be posted on 13 August when I’ll be back 😎 Katy

Hikaru Noguchi at Loop – Meet + Greet
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Reviews for Rags

Rag Manifesto offers an introduction and a call to arms for rethinking the way we view and use textiles, particularly textile waste. ​It encourages us to see rag as a precious material with meaning and potential, rather than as waste. The manifesto promotes the idea of transforming and repurposing textiles, and highlights the importance of creativity, community, and sustainability in this process. Now we’ve had some early reviews for Rags.

Thanks to Crafts Magazine, Alice Ellerby at Juno Magazine and Sarah French from Cumbria Life. Rachael grew up in Cumbria and the landscape shaped her early years until she left to go to art college in London. Much Ado about Books in Afriston put it in their newsletter. ‘Earnest? Maybe, but also fun, funny and charming’.   Read more

 “I want to instigate a change in the way we see our wasted textile landscape.”

Rachael Matthews
Cumbria_LifeDownload

Read more about Rag Manifesto

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We’ve been shortlisted

Intelligent Hands: Why making is a skill for life has been shortlisted for an award for indie publishers by Book Brunch. The announcement will be at the London Book Fair on 12 March and I’ve already booked my train ticket. It’s a long shot or course, but it’s great to be recognised 😊

Meanwhile, Intelligent Hands will be available in the USA from IPG books from 27 February, that’s tomorrow!

We’ve had some great endorsement’s for Rag Manifesto already, this from Kate Fletcher, author of the Craft of Use.
‘This special book deals with the urgent need to find ways of relating with textiles that, instead of contributing to social injustice and environmental degradation, actively contribute to the world. Stories change the future. The stories in this book are already changing things. They are about caring and repairing our places and communities with imagination, action and each other.’ Professor Kate Fletcher, Royal Danish Academy.

The artwork on the front cover is Shoulder Boulder, by Rachael Matthews, woven almost entirely from waste created in the making of socks at a friendly sock factory, Socko.

Rag Manifesto is Published on 1 March, preorder yours now.


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Events coming up

It’s always good to have something to look forward to and there are lots of lovely events happening this spring connected with Intelligent Hands: Why making is a skill for life.

Authors Charlotte Abrahams and Katy Bevan will be talking with Daniel Carpenter of Heritage Crafts at the Dartington Trust Bookshop in Totnes on 8 February

As part of Stroud Film Festival we are talking about Intelligent Hands and showing a number of short films related to craft and making with Paul Harper. Monday, March 4, 2024, 7:30 – 9.30 PM at Victoria Works Studio, London Road Chalford, Stroud GL6 8HN  (map)

We will be at the Craft Festival in Cheltenham on 8 March giving a talk about the book. It’s really worth a trip to see all the great makers and a chance to talk to them directly about their work.

On 7 May we’re both excited to be at the Court Barn museum as part of the Chipping Campden Literature festival along with lots of great writers.

Meet Make & Mend

The next darning session with Katy and Kat in Stroud will be Monday 5 Feb, 7–9pm, so come and join us for sustainable sewing and chat at the Stroud Trinity Rooms, opposite the Hospital on Field Road. We’ll be in the smaller room around the back.



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Happy 2024

Here at Quickthorn we have some great stuff planned for you for 2024.
Our next new book will be Rag Manifesto by artist, rag collector, brother of @artworkersguild and rag-rugger extraordinaire, Rachael Matthews. Rag Manifesto: Making, folklore and community looks at the how, why and wherefore of rag rugs and the people who have made them in the past and those making a stir by recycling fabrics create things now.
👉 We used to think of rags as a rare and valuable asset, handmade clothes and treasured fabrics. Now they are spilling out of our wardrobes and discarded with abandon. You can take a stand against waste and save your rags.

We also have a lovely feature in Resurgence Magazine about Intelligent Hands: Why making is a skill for life. There are more exciting things to come this year, so stay tuned.

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Book reviews make a difference

So often I read a book because it has been recommended to me by a friend. Occasionally, a book review is so good that I buy the book. If you love a book, do gift it or tell a friend. If you are able to write reviews online or share them on social media, that will help lots of people to choose what’s right for them. It also helps small independent publishers like Quickthorn.

Here’s a few that we’ve had recently for Intelligent Hands: Why making is a skill for life. This book really seems to have hit a nerve, with creatives and teachers particularly and is flying off the shelves. We’ve been reviewed in Juno, Embroidery and Quercus magazines, with articles pending in Resurgence and Cotswold Life.

My favourite review has been on the Art Educator’s blog on the National Society for Education in Art and Design (NSEAD) website. Lesley Butterworth, former General Secretary of NSEAD writes:
“This beautifully illustrated and thoughtfully researched book will be of interest and help not only to NSEAD members employed in formal education, but to people working in museums, galleries, and the healthcare sector.
To be clear, Intelligent Hands is not a book that offers practical ideas to teach various craft forms. More importantly, this book clearly explains why these skills are important to many people at different stages of their lives. To be clearer still, this is one of the best texts advocating for the value of craft and making skills that I have read.”

How good is that? You can buy our books on Bookshop.org , convenient, quick and not Amazon 😉

87_Books_for_AdultsDownload
Embroidery Magazine Nov/Dec 2023

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Reading around craft

Did you know that you can buy our books on Bookshop.org, a marvellous innovation over the last couple of years, that is an effective alternative to buying on the more familiar online routes (you know who I mean).

After the marathon of writing and editing Intelligent Hands, I’ve created a reading list of books on Bookshop.org that are mentioned in the book. That way, if you’re interested you can find the books and benefit local independent bookshops at the same time. If you click on the links below you’ll see how it works.