Public Online Masterclass: Embroidery with Richard McVetis

Public Events

For this online masterclass Richard McVetis has drawn on his love of stitching, paying attention to time and labour. Participants will explore a combination of traditional hand embroidery techniques, how you do it and why you do it. We will explore the slowness and rhythms of hand stitching: the versatility and strengths of embroidery for drawing and mark-making, and the pleasure in having time to make. We will focus on the following stitches: running stitch; whipped and laced stitch; couching; and fly stitch.

What participants need to join in the workshop:

A piece of fabric to stitch on - wool, cotton or linen, nothing too tightly woven
Scissors
Sewing needles
A range of sewing threads (doesn’t need to be hand embroidery specific)
An embroidery hoop (if you don’t have a hoop, you can use a small wooden picture frame and pins instead. Take out the glass out of the wooden frame and pin the fabric to it's back)

Richard McVetis is a British artist, known for his meticulously embroidered drawings and sculptures. His artistic practice centres on his training as an embroiderer through the use of traditional hand stitch techniques and mark making. Using laboured and meticulously worked wools and multiples of embroidered dots and crosses, he explores the similarities between pen on paper and thread on fabric, employing a limited vocabulary of mark making and deliberately subdued colour to create a binary simplicity.

Pictures courtesy of Richard McVetis.