On 17th September 2022 I ran my first Walking and Stitching Workshop as part of Wandle Fortnight. I took participants for a gentle stroll along the Wandle Trail from Hackbridge Community Gardens to Honeywood Museum, with four half-hour stops along the way to try out some experimental embroidery to capture the beauty and character of the river. Embroidery is often seen as a precise and time-consuming art form, and I longed to combine my love of embroidery with my love of the outdoors. I tried out a series of alfresco embroidery “sketches”; the equivalent of a short pose in a life drawing class, using basic stitches and fabric scraps. I advertised the workshop for anyone who knew vaguely how to thread a needle, because this workshop wasn’t going to be about perfect stitching, it was going to be about capturing an impression, a moment in time in a constantly changing landscape.
The structure of the Stitching the Wandle workshop consisted of four prompts, one for each of the locations we’d stop at for 30 minutes to create an embroidered “sketch”. I shared all four prompts at the start of the workshop, giving everyone the opportunity to work on four separate sketches, to keep adding to the same one, or to use any of the elements they felt particularly drawn to.
The first prompt was the river itself - the quality of the water, the flow, reflections, different perspectives of river dwellers, the river bed, the geology that has created a chalk stream in South London. In the calm surroundings of the Hackbridge Community Garden, it’s easy to tune out the traffic and tune in to the presence of the river. How do you convey the flow of a clear chalk stream through fabric and stitch? What techniques do you use when you only have thirty minutes? So close to the source, the Wandle is beautifully clear, shallow, the stony river bed visible but distorted by the current, the reflections on the surface.
My second prompt for a 30 minute “sketch” on the Stitching the Wandle walk was the natural environment, and I think the corner of Wilderness Island provided the perfect location. The overhanging willow trees, the banks of rushes and irises, the far bank with its thick overgrown vegetation. We passed a dead tree covered in bracket fungus, so there was a wealth of inspiration from an individual leaf to the mycelial network underpinning the whole ecosystem. Half an hour is far too short a time to carefully stitch such a lush landscape, so I used scraps of fabric to suggest the thick vegetation.
I also managed to snap a photo during my workshop of all the participants engrossed in their stitching. It was a joy to have such a lovely group of people testing out my new workshop idea, and I’m so glad everyone enjoyed it!
The third prompt on my “Stitching the Wandle” walk was the path - the act of walking, your relationship to the path, the path’s surface, proximity to the river, elevation. My walks along the Wandle Trail are usually very intentional - I rarely wear headphones, and if I’m travelling somewhere I factor in extra time so I can enjoy my surroundings on the way without feeling rushed. So this piece looks the most like a sampler as I considered the act of walking, placing one foot in front of the other, and the textures of the path I was walking on. The smoothness of manmade tarmac, the crunch of gravel, the way mud pulls at each footstep and holds on to an impression of you. The Wandle Trail isn’t always my most direct route to a nearby destination, but it’s always the most enjoyable, so I’m happy to take those meanders, spend that extra fifteen minutes.
The fourth prompt for my “Stitching the Wandle” workshop was the built landscape - the buildings that surround the river, materials and structure, manmade green landscapes, the tensions or cohesion between the build environment and the river. Near one of the sources of the Wandle in Carshalton, the built landscape has celebrated the river as a feature. Carshalton Ponds force traffic along narrow roads, past historic buildings. Grove Park is neatly landscaped around the Wandle, newer housing estates have been built with room for a cycle track and a footpath beside the river. The river is contained and managed by this landscape, but it’s also very visible. As the area between Carshalton and Hackbridge has been steadily built up over the last hundred years, the river has been a key feature of the area - it hasn’t been forced underground like other London rivers (or even other downstream sections of the Wandle). I attempted to capture this idea of suburban sprawl with the river at its heart in my embroidered sketch.
With spring on its way, and the promise of longer, warmer days, I’m looking forward to running more Stitching the Wandle workshops this year! Keep an eye on my Instagram for updates.
