January 30, 2025 · AlabamaCRAFT. COLLABORATION. STORIES.
This week, Project Threadways launched its Design, Hand-Sewing, and Embroidery workshop in partnership with the Continuing Education Department at the University of North Alabama (UNA). Over six classes, an inspiring group of students—including entrepreneurs, teachers, professors, and craft enthusiasts—are exploring hand-sewing, appliqué, stenciling, garment construction, and artisan practices.
We’re deeply grateful to UNA’s Fashion Merchandising and Design faculty and the Joel R. Anderson Foundation for funding five scholarships, along with two from Project Threadways. Thanks to this support, seven of the twelve students in the course are attending on scholarships.
These may sound like small numbers, but to us, they are monumental. Those seven scholarships represent a significant step towards the Project Threadways vision of making craft education accessible to a broader audience.
At the same time, we’re preparing for the 2025 Project Threadways Symposium, April 25–26, 2025, at The Factory. We’re thrilled to welcome an incredible lineup of presenters and guests to explore this year’s theme: Food, Clothing, and Shelter. All presenters will join us in The Shoals for two days of presentations, exhibitions, workshops, meals, and dialogue.
Featured Presenters and Collaborators
Blair LM Kelley – Director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and author of Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class
Windy Chien – Artist and author of The Year of Knots
Liz Lambert – Designer and visionary at Lambert McGuire Design, MML Hospitality, El Cosmico, and the Far West Collective
Jack Sanders – Design Build Architect from Rural Studio, Founder of Design Build Adventure, collaborator of The Long Time, El Cosmico, and other projects
Cathy Bailey – Designer, maker, and co-owner of Heath Ceramics and co-author of Tile Makes the Room: Good Design from Heath Ceramics
Jacqueline Bishop – Writer, artist, professor, and scholar
The Kitchen Sisters – Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, lifelong documentarians and producers of the NPR series Lost & Found Sound, The Sonic Memorial Project, Hidden Kitchens, The Hidden World of Girls, and the Radiotopia podcast, The Kitchen Sisters Present
Judith Winfrey — Food activist, organic farmer, and co-founder of Love is Love Farm, Wholesome Wave Georgia, and Community Farmers Markets
Lisa Donovan — Writer, pastry chef, and author of Our Lady of Perpetual Hunger
Board co-chair and photographer Rinne Allen joins Natalie Chanin in conversation about our oral history programming and their recent visit to West Texas organic cotton farms.
Join us in The Shoals or virtually from anywhere around the globe by registering here.
For more information on these stories and supporting our ongoing mission, email Ellen Dempsey: development@projectthreadways.org.
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At top, clockwise from top left:
Black Folk: The Roots of the Black Working Class by Blair LM Kelley; the interior of a 3D-printed hotel as part of Liz Lambert’s El Cosmico accommodations in Marfa, Texas, image by Bjarke Ingels Group and ICON; Circuit Board, 2023 (detail), Sunbrella cordage and thread, walnut, 24k gold thread, by Windy Chien; Etched dinnerware in Eyelet and Rosebud designs from an early iteration of the Alabama Chanin x Heath Ceramics collaboration (alongside pieces from Heath Ceramics’ Rim and Coupe lines) 2010, photo by Angie Mosier, 2011; Maurice Bailey shows young indigo plants to Donna Hardy and others, Sapelo Island, Georgia, 2023, photo by Rinne Allen, from the forthcoming issue of Southern Cultures magazine, guest-edited in collaboration with Natalie Chanin; fabric swatch featuring the hand-painted Iona’s Genome design from Collection #70.
At bottom: clockwise from top left:
Organic cotton field in West Texas, photo by Rinne Allen; garlic for a Friends of the Café Brunch with chef and friend Lisa Donovan, 2015, photo by Angie Mosier; Lisa Donovan’s notebooks, featured in Food & Wine magazine, 2020; the cover of Hidden Kitchens from The Kitchen Sisters, Nikki Silva and Davia Nelson.