The Stitchbook Collective HANDBOOK

The Stitchbook Collective offers you a thread … just to hold, if that’s all you need, but it is a thread with the potential to connect us to ourselves and then to weave our thread with that of others.

If you do decide to take hold of the thread, take it just for yourself.

It comes with huge benefits and limitless possibilities: it’s up to you where you take it ...

… if it ties you down, you can snap it, or loosen it if it’s too tight. You can let go completely or leave an anchor stitch, pick it up again, or just walk alongside it from a distance for a while.

You may find that you just make frustrating knots. Those knots have a purpose too; they can be unpicked with care, or left as a mark or a scar of experience, and allow you to move on.

Once you have taken comfortable ownership of the thread, you might try to weave it with others. If together we can make fabric, we will celebrate our connection...together.

Taking hold of the thread will give you time. Time without pressure or competition:

Time to sit Time to think Time to be yourself.

© Helen Birmingham

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I started my Stitchbook way back at the very beginning ... I’m still stitching it now, 3 years on. I realized that there is no ‘being behind’ or ‘catching up’. It’s not a race. than that. I love the moments I get to stitch for myself, whether it be minutes or hours. Thank you Helen.’

Dawn Woollons

Stitchbooks are about SELF EXPRESSION.

I hope that you will use your Stitchbook to explore your own voice...

It doesn’t have to be a dramatic statement; it doesn’t even have to be for public consumption; use your Stitchbook to say something about yourself, to yourself and/or for yourself. What you then decide to do with it is up to you!

Once you have accepted this concept, you will realise that there is no RIGHT or WRONG way of going about it. It’s up to you. You aren't being marked. It isn’t a competition or a race. Your work doesn’t have to be for sharing with anyone else. Just ENJOY the PROCESS of making and stitching.

Each month I will offer a direction, a theme or an idea for you to explore. Remember, a good teacher will show you where to look, but not what to see. Any techniques which I cover in these workshops will either be available to you in the VIDEO ARCHIVE, or they will be discussed in some length in the workshop itself.

What do you mean, you haven’t got anything to say?’

"I designed the original stitchbook to give me a place to keep all the little bits of hand-sewn 'stitch meditations' which I do, virtually on a daily basis, but which have no 'end result in mind' at the time. I was particularly pleased with the method of binding which I devised, and the fact that the design allows you to stitch samples into the book WITHOUT affecting the work on the previous page. So the HMB Stitchbook was born." The HMB Stitchbook pages are produced ethically in Pondicherry, India under the

HMB Stitchbooks

• The pages are designed as small bags or pockets with tabs, so that:

• a barrier can be placed into the pocket whilst attaching samples, so you aren't stitching through to the other side

• the thickness of any samples can easily be accommodated by using appropriately sized spacer beads

• pages can be added easily

• the A5 size is perfect for daily slow stitch meditation samples

• the book is easily portable (cloth bags and travel tins are available).

It is up to you how you use your Stitchbook

My initial advice is: ‘DON’T PANIC or feel stressed! Just get started and see where it takes you!

The group is here to support and encourage everyone. We have different members with enormously varying levels of expertise … Remember to share knowledge and ideas generously, and BE KIND.

The archive of 12 techniques is permanently available to you whenever you want to try something new, and the monthly workshops and the magazines are there as inspiration and encouragement.

ARCHIVE of TECHNIQUES

You might decide to:

• Use ONE stitchbook which you work on for the whole year, so that it becomes like a diary or record of the year.

• Use ONE stitchbook for each project/idea/ workshop, so that you might end up with a collection of smaller stitchbooks.

• Have SEVERAL stitchbooks on the go at once.

• Just work on loose pages until you are ready to bind them. (or not)

• Use PRE-MADE stitchbook pages or make your own.

The next part of this handbook includes STEP by STEP instructions for making and binding your own Stitchbook pagesPLEASE DON’T BE PUT OFF! I know that it looks complicated at first. The video in the workshop archive is well worth watching …

AND REMEMBER:

If you are a beginner, there is absolutely no shame in buying readymade pages from Untangled Threads’ online shop. www.untangledthreads.co.uk

Don’t forget to use your DISCOUNT CODE 12345 for 10% members discount.

Please feel free to send ARTICLES for the magazine

Exhibition reviews, comments, opinions, obsessions etc will all be considered for publishing.

The Stitchbook Magazine has a section called MEMBERS’ PAGES. This is the place where articles (with images) written and submitted by our members will be published. I know that it sounds very grand .. really I just want to know what you are up to and what you are thinking about!

I hope that this will broaden our horizons into looking at some of the associated art/textile activities which our members undertake in addition to the Stitchbook workshops. I also hope that it will give us a place to express ourselves and to offer feedback and discussion about the work of others in the collective. Between us, we have a huge pool of knowledge, information and opinion. Let’s share it!

You don’t need to be asked ….. please email articles (approx. 400-500 words) for consideration to : thestitchbook@aol.com

Q&A

This is the best way to learn! If you are wondering about something, you can be sure that someone else is too! If you have any questions which you think might be of interest to other members, please send them by email to: thestitchbook@aol.com and I’ll do my best to answer.

Please note that any questions about subscriptions or administration should still be sent to untangledthreads@aol.com

Textiles have a direct connection to my understanding of what it is to be human: a form of identification, of belonging, of history …’

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Stitching enables me to find, and listen to, my own authentic voice.’

Helen Birmingham Mixed Media Artist