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Writer's pictureThreaded Together

Spring Sewing Squad: A Teaching Experience

I met Lindsey (Threaded Together’s Executive Director) at a time when I was really searching for ways to offer the essential experience of craft—learning the skills to meet your personal needs with your own hands while expressing yourself creatively—to more people.


My background includes teaching a lot of textile arts workshops for adults at fiber festivals and folk schools around the country.


Those can be really beautiful experiences when the class bonds together while making things with their hands. But they are usually limited to people with the leisure time and extra funds to travel to a workshop. I had this problem on my mind but wasn’t sure how to move forward with it on my own when I got involved at Threaded Together.

Working at a creative nonprofit with the ability to fund free programs has been such a blessing, and allowed me to be part of a team pulling together to make the world we imagine a reality.


With the sudden onset of the pandemic, our first community projects ended up going in a new direction—making thousands of masks and hospital gowns for our community and the surrounding reservations.


That was very rewarding and tiring, and a great experience for all of us in a lot of ways. As COVID supply chain issues started to ease and restrictions to relax, we have been able to start offering the free learning opportunities we were dreaming about last spring.


The first day that the youth from the Transition School with Coconino County Juvenile Court came to Threaded Together to learn sewing, I felt like I saw the beauty of our goals and dreams in real life for the very first time.


The students were so eager to learn new skills and excited about getting a chance to be creative. They were also so kind and willing to help each other with their projects.


I knew then that this kind of program is exactly what I need to be doing—opening doors to craft for everyone, especially those who don’t have access to many opportunities for creativity and self-determination. I’m so grateful and excited to help this organization grow and offer these programs to as many people as we can!


 


By: Tasha Miller Griffith


Tasha grew up in a family of makers and tinkerers. Deep down, she knows that making things by hand empowers people to live more joyfully and thoughtfully. She was showing up to paint walls and talk about ideas for a new enterprise called Threaded Together when the pandemic hit. She is deeply grateful for all the growth and learning that came from an intense year of sewing PPE with a team that quickly became a family and thrilled about staying on as Education Director. In her classes, Tasha works to build a deep understanding of concepts through hands-on experimentation in a warm and inspiring environment. She teaches nationally at folk schools and fiber arts events and writes for magazines including Taproot and PLY.



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