A few weeks ago I did my first ‘in person’ event in what felt like forever. It was great to be able to see people face to face, have a chat and enjoy those nice little moments that happen when people come together and which are much harder to achieve on a screen. That said, there are lots of positives we can take from our online experiences over the past eighteen months. I feel very strongly that although in many ways it’s been a terrible time there have also been some wonderful things that have come out of our experiences and we now have an opportunity to recognise this, make some positive changes and not just go back to the way we were before.
One of the things that many of us have found particularly difficult to deal with is the constant uncertainty and so over the past year and a half those things that have stayed constant have been especially important. For myself and I think for some of my participants too the Tullie Textiles group that I run for Tullie House Museum and Art Gallery has been one of these constants, albeit in a changed format!
Tullie Textiles is a monthly group, meeting on the second Sunday of every month for a couple of hours. Each month I demonstrate a different textile technique and everyone has a chance to have a go. We also have an object of the month, selected from the museums archives, which is always fascinating. There’s also a lot of chatting and it’s a really friendly, welcoming group who are supportive of each other and always keen to give things a go.
Since April last year I’ve been running the group online and whilst there have been some challenges (living in a small village my internet connection isn’t what you’d call super reliable) it’s allowed the group to keep going and provided us with a little oasis of creativity and community. This year we decided to do a big project and so each month we’ve been making the techniques we’ve trialled that session into a patch and at the end of the year we’ll sew our patches together and we’ll each have a beautiful, hand crafted reminder of the year. We’re over half way through now and have some fantastic pieces to add into our patchwork. Tullie Textiles has been a little beacon of normality and hope for me and each month I look forward to seeing everyone’s faces pop up on my zoom screen and hearing all about what they’ve been up to.
For the foreseeable future Tullie Textiles will be staying online, there’s all sorts of practical reasons for this and whilst it’s great to meet face to face meeting online allows us to reach a wider audience, face fewer cancellations and clashes and in the winter less weather based disruption! What we will also be offering is an in person session every few months at the museum where we’ll get to see a particularly special object, enjoy a talk or something else along those lines.
We’ve built a lovely community both in real life and online; I’m delighted that as of August we’re going to be able to expand that community as I’ll be running two Tullie Textiles sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. The first morning session will be Sunday 8th August at 10.30 and will be a Facebook Live session where I’ll be talking about the group, what we do and what we’re planning to do. If you fancy tuning in you can find the event here: https://fb.me/e/4vpEI9Qz9
The afternoon session will be on zoom as normal and going forward both sessions will take place on zoom. I’m so pleased that Tullie House want the group to expand and I’m excited to see what happens next. If you fancy getting involved then come and join the Facebook Live session on 8th August or drop me a line: helenwalsh@delicatestitches.co.uk
Until next time, happy creating!
Helen
