Workshop: Intuitive Embroidery with Justine Aldersey

Crouch End Picturehouse, 165 Tottenham Ln, London N8 9BY

This is a two-part immersion into regenerative textile practice in collaboration with the Northern England Fibreshed and Picturehouse cinemas.

Regeneration is in danger of becoming a theoretical buzzword, often bandied about in the simulated world of online PR branding, yet it relies upon people developing reverence for ecosystems and practical skills with local materials. Regional Fibreshed founder, Justine Aldersey-Williams, knows all about rolling her sleeves up to do it herself. She recently made fashion history by producing the U.K.’s first pair of homegrown jeans from seed to seam – a feat that involved her growing flax and indigo, breaking, scutching, hackling, extracting and dyeing, then hand spinning every day for a year. Now a film has been made about her pioneering work, which is inspiring audiences worldwide, but at this London premiere, she’ll also be helping viewers ground that inspiration in physical action. In a world of imported, synthetic textiles, Justine is offering an intuitive embroidery workshop using threads dyed with the plants grown during the film. Everyone takes away a little history stitched into their clothing.

PART ONE: Woman Grows Jeans, Screening & Q&A, 3.30 – 5pm

Purchase tickets through Picturehouse.

Schedule:

3:30pm - 3:35pm: Introduction by Catherine West MP

3:35pm - 4:25pm: Women Grows Jeans Screening

4:25pm - 5pm: Q&A/Panel Discussion with Tamara Cincik of Fashion Roundtable and panel TBC

PART TWO: Guided Meditation & Intuitive Embroidery, 5.30– 6.30pm

Following the London premiere of the Woman Grows Jeans film, join director and regional Fibreshed founder, Justine Aldersey-Williams for a holistic immersion into intuitive embroidery using threads dyed with the indigo plants grown during the film.

Honouring the indigenous roots of regenerative practice, this relaxing guided meditation and intuitive embroidery experience, invites participants to create not just for pleasure or entertainment, but also in service to the earth. Holding the flax and woad seeds that clothed our ancestors for thousands of years, inspiration will be sought from these heritage textile plants in the imaginal realm. Thoughts, feelings, messages and affirmations will then be stitched intuitively on to fabric patches or old garments in need of embellishment or mending. Having seen exactly where the U.K.’s only ‘British Indigo from Organic Woad’ thread was grown during the Woman Grows Jeans film, participants will leave with some of this history stitched into their clothing as a talisman of the beautiful future we can grow together.

Materials provided: Indigo linen embroidery thread.

Materials to bring: A garment or patch of cloth to embellish with this historic

thread, an embroidery needle and scissors.

Justine Aldersey-Williams is a regenerative clothing activist, botanical textile dyer, and founder of the Northern England Fibreshed. For over a decade she has taught natural fabric dyeing to thousands of students worldwide, sharing skills that reconnect people to the land through plant-based colour. She recently made fashion history by producing the U.K.’s first pair of homegrown jeans. A film about her pioneering work, on both the original ‘Homegrown Homespun’ collaboration with celebrity clothier, Patrick Grant and the subsequent ‘Woman Grows Jeans’ project, has been selected to be screened across the U.K. Green Film Network of independent cinemas.

Visit Woman Grows Jeans

Follow Justine Aldersey-Williams