Workshop
Small Looms

Workshop series on weaving practice

Sat, 09.11.2024 -
Sun, 17.11.2024
Hanoi Children's Palace

The “Small Looms” workshop series, guided by artist Nguyen Quoc Thanh and the queer collective w(e)aves, is part of the Waiting Floor project, held at Hanoi Children’s Palace from November 9-17, 2024. Nguyen Quoc Thanh, an artist, curator, and co-founder of Nha San Collective, established the Queer Forever! festival in 2013, a project that explores queer love and learning through various artistic forms. In 2024, Queer Forever! collaborated with Nha San Collective and Ba Bau AIR to organize “a few pieces of fabric, a few threads, a few places the queer w(e)aves”, within the framework of Queer Ideas initiated and sponsored by the Goethe Institute Hanoi.

Throughout the festival, the workshop space becomes a large loom made up of small looms transformed from tables, chairs, wall corners, windows and objects found in the Children's Palace. Here, wool, thread and fabric are not the only fibers. Small looms invite the public to embroider, weave, crochet, sew, and bring old clothes to repair and embellish. The sound of scissors, sewing machines, and greetings interspersed with the braiding, knitting, crocheting, tying, stretching and weaving operations. Between the weaving pieces taking shape, guided workshops will take place from 3 to 5 pm every day with the following activities:

• Little weaving (November 9), for children aged 6-8 with an adult accompanying them who want to learn how to weave colorful patterns with yarn on a homemade loom.
• Couple weaving (November 10), learning - playing - weaving on a specially designed portable loom for two people to operate at the same time.
• Pretty embroidery (November 11) practice embroidering cute little buttons with fruit or pet motifs.
• Crochet (November 12) make simple products from yarn using basic knitting techniques.
• Thread changing (November 13) introduce basic thread changing techniques.
• Clothing alteration (November 14) participants bring old clothes to edit and transform together.
• Lovely embroidery (November 15) practice embroidering cute little buttons with fruit or pet motifs.
• Natural dyeing (November 16) introduce fabric dyeing techniques using turmeric starch, onion peel and sapan wood.
• Quick Dyeing (November 17), for children aged 6-8 with accompanying parents who want to experience natural dyeing with fresh flowers, leaves and plants.

Each workshop can accommodate up to 10 participants, on a first-come, first-served basis. We hope participants can take home the finished product from the workshop as a small memento of the project.