Emma Hollingsworth

I organized and hosted a series of five workshops from November 2019 through March 2020, all in the living room of my home in the Austin neighborhood of Hyde Park. Many attendants lived in the area, but brought friends and colleagues from all over. Each workshop was free to attend, and was comprised of 100% up-cycled or donated materials. Skill levels amongst the attendants ranged from beginner to experienced. The emotional fervor at each workshop impressed me each time, and the growing sense of creative engagement and communication between the attendees was palpable. I plan on hosting more workshops when social distancing rules will allow, and am currently working through how a socially distant workshop might work.

November 9th, 2019, 5 - 7pm, materials donated by Fonda Black and Shelley Caskey.

I wanted to begin by teaching knitting because that was the first technique I learned and wanted to mimic my fiber arts educational experience. Seven people attended, and over the course of the evening we learned how to tie a slip knot, how to cast on, how to knit, and how to cast off. I projected videos of myself doing each step, giving the option to follow along visually as well as audibly. As time passed, the attendees began to get the hang of everything and talked amongst themselves while their hands did the work. They shared stories about other things they had made, and what they wanted to make next. The experienced knitters helped each other master more complicated stitches, and I floated around the room, jumping in when a stitch was dropped or a step was forgotten. I let the attendees take their projects home with them to finish when they could. Below are included what the attendees made at the workshop, and what they went on to make afterwards.

November 16th, 2019, 5 - 7pm, materials donated by Fonda Black and Shelley Caskey and sourced via thrift stores. 

Secondly, I taught crochet. Fourteen people attended, and we learned the anatomy of a crochet hook, how to chain stitch, how to single crochet, and about the architecture of a granny square. Interestingly, there seemed to be less collective knowledge of crochet than there was of knitting. The more experienced crocheters jumped into action as my sudo-teaching assistants and helped me give everyone the direction they needed. Below are included photos of the event, the granny squares that were completed, and a progress picture of a sweater an attendee went on to make after the workshop. 

November 23rd, 2019, 5 - 7pm, materials donated by Shelley Caskey and sourced via thrift stores.

For the third workshop, I wanted to showcase a less technical process that gave the students more of an opportunity to focus on composition - a flower, landscape, face, etc. Wet felting was a great option for this because you can essentially treat the base layer of wool as a canvas to be painted on with colored wool. Wet felting is defined as the process of turning fluffy, pillows of wool roving into the dense, flat, thick fabric called felt. This is done with the increasing addition of warm water, soap and gentle agitation. As the water soap and agitation to the fluffy wool fibers increases, the more the fibers latch on to one another and begin to compress down into a single flat piece of fabric. Sixteen people attended (the most out of any workshop), and everyone created their own small textile composition with a design of their choice. There was definitely a different atmosphere to this workshop in that there were less technical questions being asked and more creative liberties taken. Below are included images of workshop process and output. 

January 15th, 2020, 8 - 10pm, materials donated by Shelley Caskey and The Juniper Tree.

Where wet-felting is the compressing of fluffy wool roving into flat pieces of felt with the addition of water and agitation, needle felting is the compressing of wool roving into more dimensional shapes via a needle felting needle. There were seven people in attendance, and each began by shaping their roving into the desired shape and poking it repeatedly with the felting needle. The more pokes, the denser and more compact the wool will become. This was even less technical than the wet-felting workshops, and I believe this extended creative freedom is reflected in the playfulness of the work made.

March 10th, 2020, 7 - 9pm, materials donated by Audrey Loomis, Ida Kamali, Onome Amudo and from upcycled clothing.

We began the embroidery workshop by first learning and practicing three basic embroidery stitches: running stitch, chain stitch and satin stitch. Once there was a level of familiarity with the stitches, I asked the eleven attendees to choose a pre-cut piece of denim made from recycled jeans, and then decide on a design to embroider. Once the design was decided upon, they determined which stitches would work best for their composition. Quickly the room was full of concentration with everyone executing their designs. Below are the finished patches (and up-cycled clothing) made at the workshop.