By Catherine Wright Textiles

The Arts – Visual Art | Design and Technologies | Critical & Creative Thinking | Sustainability | Personal and Social Capabilities

These workshops introduce students to soft sculpture, wearable art, and textile upcycling, using pre-loved materials and fabric scraps that would otherwise go to landfill. Each session opens with an artist introduction, exploring a practice built around giving new life to recycled clothing and materials through soft sculpture and wearable art. Every material used — with the exception of glue sticks, scissors, and needle and thread — is recycled.

The example piece created across the core workshops is a 45cm Budgie, built on a cardboard or fabric template and detailed with fabric scraps cut into shapes representing the body, wings, head, tail, and feet, which are either glued or sewn into place to create a colourful, wall-hangable piece. This animal focus can be adapted to suit a class’s chosen topic or area of study.

Workshops are tailored to two participant groups:

• Primary school participants work with a cardboard base, selecting pre-cut fabric scraps and attaching them with a glue stick.
• Secondary school participants have the option to work with a soft sculpture technique, attaching pre-cut fabric detail using a simple hand stitch.

Every session includes:

• An artist introduction and overview of the practice
• An introduction to the chosen animal (e.g. the Budgie, adaptable to the class’s area of focus)
• A safety demonstration covering snippers, scissors, glue, and needles
• A check-in with students to walk through the process and confirm everyone is comfortable with gluing or stitching before beginning

More details in The Offering below.

The Offering:

Workshop 1: Primary — Prep to Year 6

Cardboard Base with Fabric Detail (Glued) | 1 hour

Students use a cardboard template to build a brightly coloured bird, selecting and gluing pre-cut fabric shapes to form the body, wings, head, tail, and feet. Students can extend the piece according to their own curiosity and skill level, adding further detail such as feathers, feet, eyes, or cheeks.

Workshop 2: Year 6 — Year 10

Soft Sculpture Base with Fabric Detail (Stitched) | 2 hours

Students work with a pre-cut fabric template in the shape of a Budgie (or a topic of the class’s choosing), sewing a pair of fabric pieces together and filling them to create a soft, pillow-like bird. Pre-cut fabric shapes for the body, wings, head, tail, and feet are chosen and sewn into position with a simple running stitch. Where time allows, students can add further detail through additional stitching or extra fabric scraps to create feathers, feet, eyes, or cheeks.

Workshop 3: Upcycling — Old Becomes New

Year 9–10 | 2 hours Requires classroom access to sewing machines and overlockers

Students explore ways to transform a selection of pre-loved items into a unique, wearable garment, through two possible approaches:

• T-shirt to dress or patchwork t-shirt: Four to six cotton t-shirts are selected, cut, and sewn back together, practising the process of designing, cutting, and reassembling fabric to create a unique t-shirt dress or patch t-shirt. The finished piece is shaped by the combination of t-shirts used, colour matching, and added details such as frills or ties.
• Table linen and pre-loved clothing to new garment: Students cut up and reassemble a selection of table linen together with a pre-loved skirt or pair of pants, transforming them into a unique piece of wearable art.
  
  *Students may be required to bring their own pre-loved materials.

Workshop 4: Upcycling — Wearable Art

Year 7–10 | 2 hours Hand stitching techniques

Students create small pieces of soft sculpture wearable art — a wrist cuff, pendant, earrings, or badge — using fabric scraps such as pre-loved tea towels, table linen, bed sheets, and second-hand clothing off-cuts. Working from a pre-selected item and provided soft sculpture template, students paint and/or stitch their piece to create a flat, textured design, finishing it with buttons, ties, earring findings, or badge pins.

Other details