Fun workshop for all!

Please join us for the final Fall 2024 installation of Bertha’s Harris Fall Workshops, “Stitches To Hold the World Together.”

In the workshop series, we have been focusing on understanding the ways in which women’s traditions of stitching have helped them to “hold their worlds together” in the face of displacement, poverty, enslavement, war, isolation, and other challenges. We celebrate the resiliency of women’s stitching traditions as we learn about them and get to make them ourselves.

In our earlier workshops in Fall 2024, we have made traditional French Biscornu pincushions and 19th-century “Friendship Stars,” and created Japanese boro-style mending and Kantha stitching from India.

In our final workshop, we are focusing on Palestinian Tatreez stitching, an art form that has survived displacement and disruptions to connect people with their identity and original communities. In the workshop, we will watch a short film, “The Embroiderers,” commissioned in 2016 by the Palestinian Museum for the exhibition, At the Seams. We will view the film together, but it can also be streamed via https://youtu.be/cJiyApe9tqw?si=iLRILKFmNDgA0PZa.

Tatreez patterns represent specific communities and identities, and are often used to decorate tunics and dresses. The forms are stitched on a gridded foundation fabric that is much like the “Aida” fabric used in modern cross-stitching. We will learn to stitch the motifs to make samples that may be used as bookmarks or attached to clothing as decoration. These traditions have made it possible for Palestinian women from all over to maintain a visible connection to their own communities and homes.

This is an easy project for every level of stitcher, including beginners. All are welcome to come and learn together in community.

The workshop starts at noon and the formal learning part is completed by 12:45 — after that is just hanging out and stitching together.  Come for a little or all.

Supplies provided.  Coffee, tea, and snacks, and good company.  All are welcome — students, staff, and faculty! Underwritten by funds from the late Jean Roland, long a supporter of the Bertha Harris Women’s Center.

Wednesday, December 4, 2024, Noon – 2 (or later) in 2N106.

SPRING 2025:

The Bertha Harris Women’s Center will be continuing with our stitching series in the Spring. In the “Stitches to Hold the World Together,” we will be learning to make POCKETS!! for women’s clothing that often lack them. Pockets make it possible to carry your possessions in a way that is often safer on the street, and keeps your hands free to interact with your world. We will discuss the ongoing political advocacy for women’s pockets, a movement that stretches back centuries and continues today. More workshops will be announced in the Spring.

In place of the sustainable mending drop-in workshops, we will be holding drop-in “Slow Stitch for Sanity” hours. Come and do some therapeutic slow stitching and thread doodling to help soothe your jangled nerves.

As always, all are welcome and supplies are provided.

By: Bertha Harris Women’s Center