Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

In February, I had the immense pleasure of being part of the Hampshire Libraries Green and Thrifty Fortnight as a touring Fabric Repair Café. This was an exciting challenge, as although I have been repairing mine and other people's clothes for years (with varying results), in this case anyone and anything could have turned up! The idea was that I was to teach the people who came along how to mend the items themselves with drop in sessions and specific workshops; patching, darning and adjusting children's clothes. Many of the attendees already had some ideas about what they wanted to do so we workshopped those and I taught a few stitches, tips and tricks. I visited Basingstoke, Andover, Waterlooville, Bridgemary and Eastleigh libraries and we had some fantastic results at each one. Here are just a few of my favourite outcomes: And of course I spent some of my down time wisely, by darning one of my own socks: With 45 minutes for each workshop, it was more like speed repairing, bu...

It's been a couple of years since I have run any children's craft activities but last Friday I was given the opportunity to lead a simple sewing workshop at Corfe Mullen Library. Using a kit available from Baker Ross, the children made some really cute 3D felt woodland animal decorations for their bedrooms! This was a fun tie-in with the Summer Reading Challenge theme for 2021 - 'Wild World Heroes'. Although the children who attended had varying experience with sewing, most of them just managed to get on with the kit with minimal help from me, so I was really impressed with their skills. I suppose that's the beauty of a kit that includes everything you need and is all set up and ready to go!  What is also interesting is that even though each child was given the set kit to work from, their finished decorations all came out looking beautifully unique and individual, with their own distinct characters. ROLL CALL! Lily the Fox and I Don't Know the Badger Poppy the O...