Slow-Stitching Workshop

Artisan Stitch is running a slow-stitching workshop on Sunday 6 December, from 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm, with doors open at 12:25 pm. It's held at their studio in St Margaret's House, 151 London Road, EH7 6AE. The session is billed as a relaxed, mindful escape for adults, aimed at beginners and eco-conscious crafters, and centres on upcycling fabric scraps with simple hand stitches. No previous sewing skills are required, and the project is child-friendly, though the afternoon is intended as a respite for grown-ups.

Artisan Stitch was founded in 2015 to provide sewing tuition and creative textiles art workshops for adults and children. It started in the coastal village of Cockenzie, East Lothian, and now works from St Margaret's House here in Edinburgh. The studio is run by Jen Skedd, a degree-trained textile designer and lifelong sewist who earned an HND in Stitched Textiles and Fashion from Edinburgh College and a Textile Design BA (Hons) at Heriot-Watt University in Galashiels, the former Scottish College of Textiles. In her final year she sold knitwear designs to the Italian fashion label Valentino, and she exhibits widely with the Embroiderers Guild and Group Twelve Textile Artists.

The workshop itself is a slow-stitching session, which means working by hand at a steady, mindful pace rather than rushing through a project. The focus is on upcycling fabric scraps, so it's as much about using what you've already got as it is about the stitching. Because it's aimed at beginners, you don't need to have picked up a needle before to join in. The project is child-friendly, but the afternoon is pitched as a bit of a grown-up's retreat, a few hours of quiet making to step away from the December rush. It runs from 12:30 pm to 4:30 pm on Sunday 6 December, and costs £60.