Roobedo Guest workshop at the ‘Essence of the Dragonfly’ Weekend
With Covid over the last 2 years, pretty much all of my workshops stopped. Finally I am planning a few Roobedo days (dates to follow) but delighted that I have been asked by a friend, Jennie, to run a mini workshop as part of a weekend retreat full of yoga, meditation, breath work, crystals, astrology. . . and sewing with me!
Dates: 3 x nights (2 days) 22th April 5pm – 24th April 6pm 2022 (you can also do 1 day, I think)
Venue: In a yurt near Pitlochry at Dunfallandy House – PH16 5NA, Scotland, UK
Dinner, bed and breakfast and a series of 8 workshops with a group of amazing people!
See here to book >>
Here’s what I plan to do – it’s actually been a really lovely exercise to plan something that lasts around an hour, that uses scraps and no electricity – all on the floor, on a mat!
It’s just what I needed to lift me into the world of planning and running workshops again.
So, from my scraps of organic cotton, hessian and leather, guests will hand stitch a bookmark, exploring the relaxing, meditative and useful sashiko stitch used in Japanese boro.
Roobedo will guide in selection of fabrics and thread and how to form basic straight and running stitch. There will be the opportunity to finish off with a leather stamped motto and hand crank sewing machine – courtesy of another friend, who will let me borrow one. Thank you Susan!
Boro & sashiko are a combination of traditional Japanese styles of patchworking. Boro refers to different pieces of textile that have been stitched or re-woven together to create new items of clothing. The term comes from the Japanese word “boroboro”, meaning something tattered or ripped. Boro originated in rural Japan around 1850 and lies somewhere between fashion and art.
It is thought our eyes like to go back and forth across stitches or a page of text in a way that stimulates REM eye movement and in turn physically helps us relax. The sashiko stitch is a simple running stitch which can create striking results in mending through repetition, line, contrast and the beauty of the stitchwork. The repetition and simplicity of form helps our eyes and mind relax.
So, I’m hoping that as we stitch, we will talk about our clothes and discuss how sashiko can be used in a decorative way to mend them and patch them is a way to love them and buy less by making them last. Mending is a way of repairing clothes that have holes, stains, or other signs of wear to make them more useful and beautiful. It’s about using what you have, embracing imperfections, fixing what’s broken, and rejecting the idea that newer is better.
Hopefully after this session guests will take away an appreciation of fabric and craftmanship in the clothes they wear as well as feeling relaxed with a sense of satisfaction in the product they have made. And it may encourage more mend and repair of clothes, and making more things from scraps we all have in the home.
Recommended books to use such bookmark in:-
Loved Clothes Last, Orsola de Castro, Penguin books 2021
Mending Matters, Katrina Rodabaugh, Abrams 2018
Clothing Poverty, Andrew Brooks, Zed Books 2015
Over-Dressed, Elizabeth Cline, Penguin books 2013
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