Contemporary Embroidery

Curious about embroidery and unsure where to begin? Join Jean and up to six others for an intimate, hands-on class that both teaches the basics and invites you to add your own signature style to a stuffed, wool felt bird.

What Will You Learn?

• A variety of basic stitches that are the foundation of a wide range of decorative embroidery styles
• How to improvise and combine these stitches to lend your own style and personality to the bird
• An approach for developing a color palette for your project
• Simple and fast method for transferring a pattern to wool felt and preparing pieces for embroidery
• How to work embroidery stitches freehand,or with sketched guidelines
• Techniques for assembling and stuffing the bird

What You Take Home

• A beautifully handmade, wool felt, embroidered bird (picture is an actual sample, made by Jean)
• Your own set of English embroidery needles
• A set of handy clips that aid in the assembly of your bird
• A boost of confidence to use this improvisational approach on your future projects

What To Bring

We'll create a kit for you that will magically appear at your seat on class day. The only things you'll need to bring along are:

• A pair of small, sharp scissors for cutting the felt
• Pencil or fine-tip felt pen for sketching guidelines
• Your curiosity, questions and maybe a good story to share

Open to all levels, beginners or experienced. Recommended for Folkies ages 10 and up, (children with adults, please). Have younger children you want to bring? Kindly email us before registering to talk possibilities and make arrangements.

Head Folkie for the Day

Jean Morrison Phillips has been embroidering since elementary school and honestly can’t remember when she first learned the craft. Surrounded in her life by makers with curious minds and many creative pursuits, Jean thanks her mom in particular for both inspiring an interest in fiber arts and in teaching her how to get started, how to teach herself, and how to solve creative problems.

When asked what she loves about embroidery, she told us "I love the way the materials feel in my hands, the way the process of stitching quiets my mind, and watching the design emerge in ways I can’t predict at the beginning." A reflective, insightful person, Jean notes that embroidery can teach us much about ourselves as well. Thankfully, in this class (and in life, perhaps) "your stitching doesn’t have to be perfect to be just right."

When not teaching for us, Jean spends her days juggling work as a process analysis and application design consultant, a mother to a toddler, a wife, and her work as a photographer.