*SPECIAL GUEST ADDED*
We have a little treat to add to this one week retreat to make it even more special - Eleanor Langton from Art of Rest will be joining us as a special guest to do some mindful drawing and short yoga exercises throughout the week. The idea is to to loosen you up, and make your week with us as relaxing and rejuvenating as possible. In addition to this she will offer the chance to do a restorative yoga class on one of the evenings at no additonal cost.
All Yoga is optional but highly recommended!
What will you learn?
Join textile artist and instructor Lora Avedian in South West France for a week of playful experimentation with textiles and hand embroidery, learning how to draw botanical motives with stitch.
On this exploratory week-long course, you will begin by creating experimental hand embroidery samples with the aim of developing nature-inspired hand embroidery techniques to make a textile artwork or embellish a pre-made item of our own (such as a cushion cover or clothing). To start the week there will be simple mindful drawing exercises with Eleanor (see above) and Lora will guide you in how to best translate your drawings into stitch.
Looking at a variety of classic hand embroidery and embellishment techniques, you will learn how to play with scale and materials to create different qualities of line, 3D relief and texture. You will learn how to combine this with three dimensional fabric flowers using Lora’s fabric pleater. This will be an intensive and experimental week where you can learn Lora’s trade tips and tricks to create an original and dynamic mixed-media textile design of your own.
This will be an opportunity for anyone who wants to push their hand embroidery skills in different directions, and explore what can be done with this very traditional craft. It will be a playful week where you can develop ideas, go away with samples to reference for future projects and a finished piece of work.
This week is suitable for all skill levels, the course is designed to be flexible to enable participants to go in the direction they please with what they have learnt. Lora will provide embroidery patterns to work from if you are not keen on drawing your own, but please note we will spend half a day drawing. This is a hand embroidery workshop, there will not be any machine embroidery taught.
In addition to this the classes will be broken up with short yoga stretches led by Eleanor (see above) at convenient times of each day, and an optional (but highly recommended) restorative yoga class will be lead one evening at no additional cost.
You can read more about the beautiful space we will be working in on the Clos Mirabel website where you must book accomodation to complete your booking along side tickets for the workshop, see below for more details.