In celebration of Refugee Week 2022, Inkwell Arts held a Mindful Embroidery workshop at Woodhouse Community Centre in Leeds.
The idea behind the workshop was to encourage all participants to express themselves, their culture and their emotions through this creative outlet. Mindful Embroidery is a simple process which doesn’t require any previous knowledge or skills in embroidery or sewing. We like to think of it as ‘doodling with yarn’.
The participants of the workshop got stuck in straight away, firstly choosing their background canvas to work on, then rifling their way through a variety of wools, choosing whatever colours and textures jumped out at them.
One participant said she found the process calming and another mentioned how nice it was to spend time with like-minded people in a creative environment. Participants showed an interest in continuing to work with Inkwell Arts in some of our other creative workshops.
Inkwell Arts is the creative service within Leeds Mind, and everything we do revolves around wellbeing and mental health. We were really keen to hold a workshop in celebration of Refugee Week, because we believe individuals with refugee status are, now more than ever, in need of some activities to help with their wellbeing and general mental health.
Working on a simple creative process with others in a safe and social environment can hugely improve an individual’s wellbeing. We loved meeting some new participants in this workshop and hope to see them again in some of our other regular groups and workshops.
This workshop was supported with funding from the Arts Together Micro-Bursary scheme for Refugee Week 2022.
Written by Anna Ridley
Community Arts Coordinator, Inkwell Arts
