Find your personal sense of color confidence while learning to apply color to embroidery art as would a painter using pigments and a palette. Learn the vocabulary of color theory through exercises and embroidery hoop experiments that explore hue, value, tone, and color relationships. Extract palettes from found images and translate them into stitched creations. Open to all levels of embroidery experience.

Offered through the Smithsonian Associates Studio Arts Program.

Register here.

Three Sessions, Thursdays, ​April 4-18, 2024, ​12:00 p.m. ​to 2:00 p.m. ET

As we transition to a greener future, one thing is clear: Fast fashion is a thing of the past. Find out how to make your clothes last longer by using a host of sustainable fiber practices. Learn to do beautiful, visible mending using patches, embroidery, and darning. Get an introduction to basic alterations for resizing clothing, transforming T-shirts, and recycling fabric scraps for accessories. Learn about the history of sustainable fiber practices from different cultures, such as Japanese sashiko, and the clever ways stitchers coped with textile shortages during World War II. Students are challenged to consider their shopping habits, the impact they have on the planet—and why we consumers need to become more conscientious citizens.

These practices are one part of a new lifestyle that embraces a regenerative economy. Consider taking this class as a step in the right direction for our world and future generations.

Offered through the Smithsonian Associates Studio Arts Program. Sign up for this class here.

2 sessions from Saturday, October 14, 2023 to Saturday, October 21, 2023 from 1:30-3:30pm

In this class, students will learn about the history of redwork quilts and how this type of embroidery can be used to make beautiful, delicate botanical illustrations. Redwork is a type of stitching, primarily in red but also often in blue and black, that rose in popularity in the late 1800s. Patterns were published by magazines and could be purchased for a penny, so they were called “penny squares.” Themes varied, but some of the most beautiful redwork depicts nature-related themes, making it a perfect medium for stitching your favorite ecological imagery. In this class, students will research native plants in their area and create designs based on four of those plants. We will then learn to transfer those images onto fabric, prepare our hoops, and start stitching. We will learn the basic redwork stitches - backstitch, running stitch, stem stitch, and french knots and tips on how to best deploy them for varying line quality. Finally, students will learn how to stitch together a basic small quilt using their embroideries. A great class for nature-lovers, gardeners, and anyone who is new to embroidery! 

Sign up through the Smithsonian Associates Program here.

Thursdays, June 1-15, 2023, 10:00am -12:00pm

From an intimately colorful scrap quilt to the massive AIDS quilt, artists and everyday people have used the memory quilt as a means of both preserving life’s precious memories for future generations and dealing with grief/hardship in the present, as well as engaging difficult issues at the community and global level.

Work with fiber artists Lauren Kingsland and Heather Kerley to create a memory block of your own while learning techniques such as hand piecing, machine and hand appliqué, managing repurposed fabrics, and adding freestyle embroidery, text, and other mixed media and digital elements and creating text using needle and thread.

Each week a brief story of the history of quilts of remembrance across different times, cultures and peoples will provide background and context. We may look at an individual creation or at full-blown exhibits such as the long running, biennial showcase Sacred Threads. We’ll look at quilts created to commemorate people, communities, events and causes. We will explore the questions - What is memory and what do you want to memorialize?

Register here through the Smithsonian Associates Program.

Wednesday, April 26, 2022 - 1:00 p.m. to Wednesday, June 14, 2023 - 3:00 p.m. ET

Learn to let go and embrace an intuitive, free-flowing approach to embroidery much like expressive abstract painting. In this four week class, we will learn to apply the principles of abstract art to embroidery with an emphasis on form, color, line, texture, pattern, composition and process. We will use different stitches to create different marks, textures, and movement in the work. We will also explore a variety of materials including different found fabrics, beads, floss, and yarn. Take an entire project from beginning to end and learn how to finish the embroidery either in the hoop or stretched over a canvas for easy display. Some experience with embroidery or with abstract art making is strongly suggested.

Offered through the Smithsonian Associates Studio Arts Program. Sign up for the newsletter to be alerted when this class is on sale!

Thursday, October 27, 2022 - 10:30 a.m. to Thursday, November, 17 2022 - 12:00 p.m. ET

Learn to embrace and celebrate the unpredictability, versatility, and beauty of watercolor. Class discussions cover supplies; color theory, palettes and pigment control; and various exercises and experiments to achieve different effects. The use of other media such as water-based pencil and pastels is also addressed.

Scraps saved in class from failed experiments form the basis of a mixed-media collage created during the final class. Beginning students are encouraged to focus more on the creative process—and less on results.

Previous watercolor experience is welcome but not required.

Wednesday, August 24, 2022 - 10:30 a.m.to Wednesday, September 14, 2022 - 12:00 p.m. ET