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Be a Part of the Challenge

The Stitch-at-Home Challenge was conceived by San Francisco School of Needlework and Design (SNAD) as a way to encourage and inspire people to stitch. This is not a competition but a personal challenge. We provide the inspiration and you may use any needlework technique or combination of techniques in order to make a piece of textile art. Anyone at any level of stitching expertise may participate.

Each challenge culminates with an exhibition at SNAD. You can either mail us the actual piece or email us a photograph of your entry to be included in the exhibition.

HOW TO ENTER

Deadline to submit your piece: January, 2019

1. Read complete Rules.

2. Fill out Part 1 of our Entry Form - Here. This is a short form that helps us to keep track of how many participants we should be expecting.

3.  Create your submission!

4. After completing your piece, fill out Part 2 of our Entry Form - Here. This part of the entry form asks questions about your piece (title, description etc.) and must be filled out if you want to be included in our exhibition.

5. Either mail us your piece or send us a photo by the the deadline of January 15, 2019 in order to be included in our Exhibition (see Rules above for details).

For challenge related questions, email snadchallenge@gmail.com

Who are we? We are SNAD, San Francisco School of Needlework and Design.

Learn more about us on our website.

Personal information will be shared only with those third-party service providers who perform functions on our behalf, including processing credit card payments, providing customer service, removing repetitive information from customer lists, analyzing data, and providing marketing assistance.

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Make Do strawberry pincushions.

18 century, American.

Cotton, glass beads, and thread mounted on glass plinth (from broken candlesticks).

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Torah Ark curtain made from a woman’s dress, Izmir, Turkey, dedicated 1929.

From the book, The Jewish Wardrobe: From the Collection of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem

Many textiles and garments from this book are featured in the exhibition Veiled Meanings: Fashioning Jewish Dress, from the Collection of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco, from August 30, 2018 - January 6, 2019.

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Cooper Hewitt Object of the Day

Darning Sampler (Netherlands), 1723; silk embroidery, linen foundation; H x W: 43.2 x 44.5 cm (17 x 17 1/2 in.)

“This darning sampler is also Dutch and was made in 1735 by a girl of about 12. She was confronted with a piece of fabric with 17 square-cut holes and with all four corners cut away. In the center and lower right corner she carefully darned the missing bits back into place and the rest she repaired with needle weaving. Each hole is filled in, thread by thread, with a different woven pattern to demonstrate the girl’s skill at repairing weave structures found in common household and clothing textiles such as herringbone, birds-eye twill, etc. Bright colors were originally selected to make it easier for the instructor to check for accuracy, but also contribute to a wonderfully fresh and modern overall effect.”

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Katrina Rodabaugh, Make Thrift Mend

“On August 1, 2013 I launched my fast-fashion fast, Make Thrift Mend, and vowed to abstain from factory clothing for one year while I focused on making my own garments, buying secondhand, and mending what I already owned. Conceived as an art project examining the intersection of sustainability, fashion, fiber art and what’s know as social practice or  “art as action”, Make Thrift Mend was initially a personal art project.

Through this continued project I now teach workshops across the country focused on mending, natural dyes and rethinking fashion; write articles and blog posts on the slow fashion movement; and sometimes offer mending kits, original art, or other textile objects related to sustainable fashion. ”

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Mary Botham Howitt, Our Cousins in Ohio, 1849

“In England nobody understands what rag-carpets are; but in every part of America they are more or less used. The wealthy use them for their kitchens, and sometimes dining rooms; the farmers, for their chambers; and often every room in the house will be covered with them ... Every conceivable kind of woollen cloth was cut into little shreds about half an inch wide, and an inch long. These were all joined together lengthwise, and then wound in balls. The children's employment was to help in sewing the shreds together, and thus to make hundreds and thousands of yards of woollen band. This was afterwards woven into a coarse kind of carpet, and produced a mottle of all colours, not at all unpleasing to the eye. Occasionally such carpets would be dyed all of one colour; sometimes they were woven into a regular pattern, stripe or plaid; but this...was to be a mottled one; and their young friends...were invited for a few days to help in this homely but curious work; during which, however, some       amusing book was read, and thus the time passed pleasantly.”       

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Women working on a Kantha Quilt

“Kantha is the practice of reinventing worn cotton fabric into household textiles. The craft is indigenous to the Bengal region of South Asia and is now practiced in Bangladesh, and the Bihar, West Bengal, and Odisha regions in India. In Bengali households, old sari fabric is stripped of embellishments and transformed into winter blankets. Smaller scraps can be designed into everyday textiles, like a gilaaf (book cover), bostani (wrapper for clothes), bolisher oshar (pillow cover), or dastark (a long floor placemat for food). Along with these possibilities, artisan employed by NGO enterprises, like Aarong and Arshi, design ornamental quilts called Nakshi kantha, the most celebrated kantha form and a quintessential element of Bengali decoration.”

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Kiriko and KUON Breathe New Life into Ancient Boro Textiles

“Japanese tradition is no stranger to restoring or beautifying that which has become broken or fragmented. The ancient art of Kintsugi, or Kintsukuroi, saw the destroyed remnants of shattered pottery be restored and elevated to something desirable. In some ways, the Japanese textile style of Boro (which translates to scraps of cloth) has a lot in common with Kintsugi. The traditional Boro style takes old and mended garments and crafts them together into wholly unique and recognizable patchwork creations. But unlike Kintsugi, which turned into a fashion statement among the affluent, Boro was created out of necessity.

Although cotton became more widely available in Japan during the 20th century, poor rural workers could still not afford it. Due to this, old garments were mended repeatedly and incorporated into scavenger-style patchworks: Boro. Handed down from generation to generation, and mended all along the way, these ‘rags’ would often turn into stunning textile records of time....”

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Celia Pym

first one’s the best, 60 sports socks, wool and acrylic yarn, 182 x 220cm, 2015

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“The Recology Artist in Residence Program was established in 1990 at the same time that curbside recycling was being implemented in San Francisco. Conceived by artist and activist Jo Hanson, it was the most innovative component of an outreach plan developed by the City and Recology San Francisco to educate people about recycling. Now twenty years later, the Artist in Residence Program has grown to include an Environmental Learning Center, an extensive tour program, a three-acre sculpture garden, off-site exhibitions, and has been nationally recognized and awarded as the only program of its kind in the country. Artists are provided with a stipend and a well-equipped studio to make artwork from materials they scavenge from the Public Disposal and Recycling Area ("the dump"). Artists speak to the more than 5,000 students and adults who annually attend the San Francisco garbage and recycling facility tours which focus on the importance of reducing, reusing, and recycling.”

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Part of Worn Stories: Material and Memory in Bradford 1880-2015 a project by Claire Wellesley-Smith.

“Our popular Talking Textiles groups meet on Mondays at Hive and have been working on projects that explore a variety of creative textile techniques. These have all emphasised textile recycling, repair and reuse themes. They include traditional patchwork, creating and using t-shirt yarn (for crochet, knitting, rag rugging and weaving), using heat activated interfacing to create new textiles, printing and darning and mending skills. We have also encouraged discussion about the various  contemporary textile recycling industries and businesses in the city and learned about the heritage of the industry and workers from the 1880s onward. As well as these practical skills and heritage stories we have used the stories of significant textiles in our lives to reminisce. These stories evidence the power of textiles as a tool for community-based conversations about our own lives, the lives of our ancestors and the relevance to our community heritage.

We’ve recently challenged the group to use the many textile skills they have and that they have learned during the project to make a personal piece of work. The parameters of the challenge are that the piece is worked on a square of recycled blanket and that all the materials used must be reused or found in the Hive Textile Recycling Hub”

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Tom van Deijnen and The Visible Mending Programme

“The Visible Mending Programme seeks to highlight that the art and craftsmanship of clothes repair is particularly relevant in a world where more and more people voice their dissatisfaction with fashion’s throwaway culture. By exploring the story behind garment and repair, the Programme reinforces the relationship between the wearer and garment, leading to people wearing their existing clothes for longer, with the beautiful darn worn as a badge of honour. By writing this blog, running darning workshops and taking repair work commissions I provide mending inspiration, skills and services to people and hopefully persuade them that shop-bought clothes deserve care and attention too, just like a precious hand-knit.”

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Part of the Inheritance Project by artist Amy Meissner.

“Inheritance is a project I've worked on for nearly 3 years. It began in 2015 when a woman in New York state sent me a box of mystery filled with linens and vintage garments, and based on the response I received from sharing that story online, I officially crowdsourced more household, handmade/hand-embroidered cloth, along with associated stories. I offered to become the final inheritor of it all, even though most of the origins and makers were Unknown.”

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zero waste daniel is the first line of zero waste clothing.  

“By reimagining sewing we have also reinvented fabric. We provide zero waste ReRoll fabrics to those, companies and individuals alike, who join our quest for innovation, sustainability, and justice...our labor practices withstand scrutiny, as you can witness by visiting the zero waste daniel make/shop in Brooklyn, 369 Hooper street, where all our production takes place.

Zero waste is the goal of both the garments and the studio. We use recycled and recyclable materials in our shipping, packaging and office materials as well as a zero waste mindset in every day company life, eliminating trash wherever possible. We are constantly improving the process, remaining conscious and aware of areas that have room to change.”

Daniel says, “I can’t need to make work that hurts people, or oppresses people, that makes someone hate their body or their face, or that polluted someones water. I’m willing to work with what we’ve got, I don’t care how long it takes, I care that you look good. I care that its made here, that it’s made fair.”

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“Make Do and Mend was a pamphlet issued by the British Ministry of Information in the midst of WWII. It was intended to provide housewives with useful tips on how to be both frugal and stylish in times of harsh rationing. With its thrifty design ideas and advice on reusing old clothing, the pamphlet was an indispensable guide for households. Readers were advised to create pretty ‘decorative patches’ to cover holes in warn garments; unpick old jumpers to re-knit chic alternatives; turn men’s clothes into women’s; as well as darn, alter and protect against the ‘moth menace’. An updated version of the book was recently released to coincide with the economic recession, offering similar frugal advice for 21st century families.”

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National Geographic, photographed by Fred Dufour, AFP, GETTY 

A Chinese laborer sorts through plastic bottles at a recycling operation in Dong Xiao Kou village, on the outskirt of Beijing.

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Mark Flores, The folding World

Hand woven dyed Shibori-fabric, silkscreen on Shibori-fabric, archival inkjet print

“Adeptly alternating between a range of painting styles—including gestural, photorealistic, and pointillistic—Mark Flores blurs the line between abstraction and representation to capture and convey how we see and understand the world. An avid observer of his surroundings, Flores is interested in color theory, specifically the emotional, psychological, and physiological effects of color perception.”