Slow Making: Marks, Colour & Stitch

A 2-day creative art and textile retreat with Amber Lily Studio on the 4th and 5th June 2027

Cost: From £395 per person

Join artist and textile designer Amber Lily Studio for two immersive days of drawing, colour, collage and stitch. Throughout, you’ll draw inspiration from the beautiful natural surroundings of Rydal Hall.

Slow Making: Marks, Colour & Stitch is an opportunity to step away from the everyday. It invites you to slow down and explore a playful, intuitive approach to creativity. No previous experience is needed — the retreat is designed to encourage experimentation, curiosity and enjoyment of the making process.

Across the two days, you’ll explore how simple marks, colours and textures found in the landscape can grow into layered artworks. To do this, you’ll use drawing, collage, fabric and hand embroidery.

Day 1 – Marks, Colour & Concertina Books

First, the retreat begins by exploring the grounds of Rydal Hall. You’ll gather visual inspiration from the landscape, natural forms, textures and colours around you.

Using these observations as a starting point, you’ll then experiment with pencils, pens, inks, paints and oil pastels. You’ll also create your own mark-making tools using natural and found materials. As a result, you’ll discover how unexpected tools can create expressive marks.

Through a series of playful drawing exercises, you’ll explore intuitive and non-traditional ways of working. For example, you might try continuous drawing, non-dominant hand drawing and sensory-led mark-making.

We’ll then move into colour exploration, developing palettes inspired by the landscape. After that, we’ll experiment with paint, collage, recycled papers and tracing paper.

These experimental studies will become the foundation for a concertina artist’s book. Next, you’ll select and develop your favourite marks, colours and compositions. You’ll layer them across the concertina format to create rhythm, flow and connections between the pages.

By the end of the first day, you’ll have created a unique, completed concertina book developed entirely from your own observations and experiments.

Day 2 – Fabric, Appliqué & Hand Embroidery

On the second day, the creative process moves from paper into textiles.

Using your drawings, colour studies and ideas from day one as inspiration, you’ll begin developing a small embroidered hoop artwork.

You’ll explore a curated selection of recycled and reclaimed fabrics, considering colour, texture, pattern, transparency and composition before creating your own layered textile design.

Amber will introduce you to Bondaweb and appliqué techniques. You’ll learn how to cut, layer and arrange fabrics to turn your drawn marks and ideas into a new material.

Once your fabric composition is established, you’ll explore a range of hand embroidery stitches to add texture, detail and character to your piece. Techniques may include:

• French knots
• Chain stitch
• Fly stitch
• Cross stitch
• Seed stitch
• Running stitch

You’ll then have the opportunity to develop your piece further through beading and additional surface embellishment, before finishing and mounting your artwork in an embroidery hoop.

A Retreat Focused on Process

Throughout the two days, the emphasis is on exploration rather than perfection.

You’ll be encouraged to experiment, make unexpected marks, work intuitively and allow your ideas to develop naturally. You don’t need any previous drawing, art or embroidery experience. Amber will demonstrate all techniques and adapt them to suit different abilities.

The retreat is as much about the process of making as the finished pieces: taking inspiration from your surroundings, working with your hands, experimenting with materials and giving yourself time to explore.

What You’ll Create

Over the two days, you’ll create:

A completed concertina artist’s book developed through drawing, colour, collage and mark-making.

A finished embroidered hoop artwork combining recycled fabric, appliqué, hand embroidery and optional beadwork.

You’ll also take away a collection of experimental marks, colour studies and creative techniques that can continue to inspire your own making beyond the retreat.

What’s Included

We provide all art and textile materials. These include papers, paints, drawing materials, recycled fabrics, embroidery materials, beads and other creative resources.

The workshop is suitable for all experience levels, from complete beginners to experienced artists and makers.

Come and spend two days slowing down, looking closely at the landscape, experimenting with colour and materials, and discovering where marks, colour and stitch can take you.

Bio:

Amber Lily is a contemporary textile artist from Greater Manchester. Her practice centres on colour, texture, and mark-making, creating abstract works rooted in everyday experience. She draws inspiration from often-overlooked details such as litter, graffiti, scuffed surfaces, and urban plant life, translating these observations into layered textile compositions.

 

Sustainability is central to her practice. She works primarily with recycled and repurposed materials, including discarded clothing, domestic textiles, offcuts, and salvaged materials such as car airbags. These materials carry traces of previous use that become integral to each piece, connecting material, process, and environment.

 

Her approach is experimental and intuitive, combining dyeing, printmaking, collage, and free-motion embroidery. In her work, she layers techniques such as screen printing, gelli plate printing, and quilting, guided by colour, rhythm, and proportion.

Amber creates wall hangings, framed works, and sculptural textiles that reinterpret quilting through a contemporary lens. Alongside her practice, she runs workshops that encourage creative confidence and accessibility.

Her work invites closer attention to the everyday, offering material-led pieces that reflect place, process, and lived experience