seam collective x The Loom Shed; a collaboration for #SeptTextileLove 2023

Come and join seam collective and The Loom Shed for a collaboration of informal making and conversation during #SeptTextileLove! Each week in September, The Loom Shed will host an hour’s online session via Zoom with a few seam artists. We’ll be making together as we talk about the previous week’s #SeptTextileLove prompts, seam’s A Visible THREAD exhibition and our shared love of textiles. Bring your stitching, knitting, weaving, crochet or whatever you’re working on at the moment… and join the conversation. 

The sessions will be FREE but places are limited, so sign up via The Loom Shed website today.  

Here at seam collective we’re always keen to find new ways to make connections with other textile lovers, so we were absolutely delighted when Liz and Louise from The Loom Shed suggested a seam collective x The Loom Shed collaboration online to coincide with #SeptTextileLove 2023. 

If you don’t know about The Loom Shed, have a look at their website and their Instagram @the_loom_shed. It’s a vibrant hub for all things to do with textiles, run by Louise Cottey and Liz Croft, physically located in Cullompton, Devon, in the UK. 

Liz and Louise describe it as ‘a place where you can learn and enjoy a variety of different textile crafts, knitting, crochet, felting, dyeing, stitching, spinning, weaving and anything else you can do with fibre.’ They run an extensive and varied timetable of workshops, talks and seminars with textile artists and designers. And, after adapting during covid, many of these opportunities are now online, a brilliant silver lining and a much wider community of makers who inspire them everyday.

So, it’s very exciting that Liz and Louise, with all their experience as makers, #SeptTextileLove participants and facilitators, will host these sessions. It’ll be an informal hour of making and conversation with two or three seam members, focusing on what’s been happening on Instagram for #SeptTextileLove during the previous week. We’ll also be able to tell you all about the next iteration of our Arts Council-funded touring exhibition, A Visible THREAD, which opens at Black Swan Arts in Frome on Saturday 16 September.  

So, what was the inspiration behind this collaboration? Liz says ‘Lou Baker’s phrase ‘a social knitwork’ really appealed to us. We regularly see the benefits of making in a social environment, the ability to talk whilst making, the support that can be offered, during challenging and celebratory times alike. We have both taken part in #SeptTextileLove over the years (admittedly we haven’t always finished – sorry gang!) but the ‘social knitwork’ pinged a lightbulb; let’s talk with the makers who dreamt up the best Instagram challenge there is. The idea behind seam collective x The Loom Shed is that you can bring something textiley to do (it doesn’t have to be knitting, we promise), and spend an hour online with the makers who inspire us each September to build community with other makers.’

The seam members taking part are Lou Baker, Oliver Bliss, Jane Colquhoun, Julie Heaton, Desiree Jeans, Helen MacRitchie, Joy Merron, Lydia Needle and Angie Parker. We’re offering sessions at different times of the day so that, hopefully, if you’re based in the southern hemisphere or in the US you might be able to join one of them. Helen, in fact, will be joining us from Sydney on Friday 22 September, which is very exciting!

It always very thrilling to hear from the growing #SeptTextileLove community of textile artists, designers and makers from around the world every day during September and to share so many fabulous images, inspiration and conversations via Instagram. Now, we’re delighted to continue the conversation and to add a different dimension to #SeptTextileLove… via Zoom. 

If you haven’t taken part in #SeptTextileLove yet, come and see what it’s all about this year. The daily prompts are revealed publicly on the seam blog and Instagram on 31 August, if you’d like to share your responses to them on Instagram. Please remember to use the specific hashtags #SeptTextileLove #SeptTextileLove23 and tag @seam_collective so we can see your posts. We look forward to seeing some of you for this experimental and exciting seam collective x The Loom Shed virtual collaboration. We can’t wait!

The dates for our conversations are: 

• Wednesday 6 September, 10-11am with Angie Parker & Julie Heaton

• Thursday 14 September, 7-8pm with Jane Colquhoun, Oliver Bliss & Angie Parker

• Friday 22 September, 10-11am with Lydia Needle, Helen MacRitchie & Desiree Jeans

• Saturday 30 September, 7-8pm with Lou Baker & Joy Merron

Sign up for the first session via The Loom Shed website today. Sign up to The Loom Shed newsletter by 6 September for priority access to the registration link for the conversations on 14 and 22 September, and we will share the link for the final session on @seam_collective and @the_loom_shed on Instagram. We hope to see you there!

Lou Baker