In 2019, I partnered with the Thackray Medical Museum and Getaway Girls on a wellbeing project. Stitching for Wellbeing is inspired by the Lorina Bulwer Scroll, a piece of hand embroidery made by a woman living in a Great Yarmouth workhouse in around 1893. The scroll is a very long hand-stitched letter that talks about people Lorina knew alongside current events of the time, interwoven are her thoughts and outlook on a world that had deemed her insane.
Lorina Bulwer has been the main inspiration for the project and each week I visited the young women from different groups at Getaway Girls with Thackray Museum staff members, Charlotte and Leah. Taking with us a handmade sample of the scroll, sitting around the table, we shared food and stories as we stitched onto calico fabric. People shared stories about their mental health, friends and children as I showed them how to stitch.
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