Stitched Together: How to Start an Embroidery Circle
How’s that New Year’s resolution going? Did you want to start a new hobby? Or make more time to see your friends? (**Raises hand**) Why not combine both by making an embroidery circle?
Embroidery circles are a great New Year’s resolution hack: whether your resolution is to be more sustainable, to shop less, to be more active in the community, or to advance your career, embroidery circles offer a way to build strong social networks and be creative at the same time.
While embroidery circles can become a get-together with friends to chat and relax, the circle members don’t even have to be people you know. Ask your favorite café or library if you can host a regular group meeting and post flyers with the event details. Or you can organize a circle with your co-workers and ask them to invite friends within the company. Suddenly that conference room that hosts your least favorite weekly meeting becomes the setting for creativity and fun.
Get yourself a squad that’s excited to embroider with you.
Alternatively, you could join an existing embroidery circle in your neighborhood. If you’re in the United States, the Embroiderer’s Guild of America (link opens in new window) is a national organization offering virtual and in-person classes in all sorts of techniques. Members can meet with their local chapter to work on a class project together. Both of my chapters (the Manhattan chapter and Cyberstitchers, EGA’s online chapter) are full of experienced stitchers who can offer advice and encouragement for just about any project.
In order to maintain focus, your circle should organize around a common goal. Some groups work on projects that serve their community: some EGA chapters make samplers for Habitat for Humanity clients to put up in their new homes. Other chapters create cheerful, customized artwork for people in hospice. Volunteers at Philadelphia’s Broad Street Ministry run a mending and repair shop for unhoused people (link opens in new window). Perhaps you could organize your group around a similar community-based project.
You could also organize around a more personal goal: accountability. Groups like Reclypt (link opens in new window) host Mending Accountability Clubs. These events specifically motivate members to bring their languishing mending projects (how many holey sweaters do I have in a bag in my closet?) and get inspired by other members to actually finish.
Finish your embroidery projects with friends.
I myself really love being a part of EGA. Since many of the members are older than I am, I can learn about so many different walks of life and experiences. At the Boston seminar in the summer of 2023, I met a woman who spent most of her life in Alaska as a police officer and is now retired in Texas. Another person I became friendly with turned out to be the head of marketing for the whole organization and encouraged me to follow my dream of designing and selling basic Japanese embroidery kits. (Coming soon, guyyyyssss, can’t wait to show you!)
I also hosted a semi-regular embroidery circle in Harlem in 2021. Life got in the way, but I am still determined to continue a circle, either virtual or in-person, that meets consistently. Historically, embroidery circles have been a way for women to build community, network, and create new projects together. Now we can create embroidery circles with a more 21st century twist: circles that encourage us to network with colleagues, circles that encourage us to serve our community, and circles that encourage us to expand our skills and reduce fast fashion waste.
What about you, would you want to join an embroidery circle?