“A big, beautiful garden of embroidery” is slowly emerging in the fortnightly Stitch Bloom sessions, coordinated by contemporary fibre artist Fleur Woods and librarian Kim Lawrence at the Motueka District Library-Te Noninga Kumu.
Last week’s session was a little quieter, as happens in school holidays. Fleur says there are usually about 10 people working on the project, with people coming and going as the weeks pass. They sit in a small circle around the blanket, their hands reaching together and holding the fabric lightly as they each work on a pocket of the collective artwork.
The project is a slow-and-steady one, which began in a different form back in 2018 as a “chain letter of fabric”, which was sent from person to person to add a little bit of their own detailing. It was going beautifully until the project was lost in the post, never to be seen again, and it took Fleur a while to regroup and make a new plan.
The clarity came during lockdown, when she realised that although people couldn’t come together to do their crafts, they were still doing them simultaneously.
Through her extensive Instagram reach, where she has about 35,000 followers on her page fleurwoodsart, she put the call out for people to stitch individual blooms to send to her, which could then be used in a collaborative piece of work. A fabric bouquet bloomed in her Upper Moutere letterbox as many dozens of handcrafted flowers arrived from around the country and the world.
“Obviously it’s quite niche, because we all love thread and flowers.”
These flowers are now affixed to a blanket, and the current Motueka Stitch Bloom sessions involve filling the gaps and covering the edges. It will take many months to complete the project, and the goal is “to have a finished artwork created by many hands that is hopefully a beautiful eclectic garden.”
She has partnered with the United Nations Women’s Council of Aotearoa, and she hopes that the project is completed in time for next year’s International Women’s Day in March.
The artwork might be sold as a fundraiser for the organisation, and Fleur is pondering creating a calendar and cards that showcase the work and raise further funds.
“The idea is that as women, we can support each other, and there’s a collective sense of goodness and wellbeing that can come.”
