Fields of flax in Fife ….

Congrats Team Flax Silverburn Park

Craft and Community
Design and Well Being

As part of August Craft Month in Northern Ireland, I’m delighted our Making Millie project joins the MaP Group of textile artists, exhibiting all month in Newtonards.

Making Millie is a multilayered tribute to the working women of the linen industry. The term “Millie” referred to workers in the linen mills and through time the term became an insult deriving from their appearance as they left the factories, covered in the the dirt and oils of the working day.

Yet these women were the backbone of the first industry to emerge in Scotland, Ireland and much of Europe.

Journeys in Design commissioned designer Sue Shields, part of the MaP group, to create a tea towel tribute to these working women as part of Our Linen Stories programme.

The response to our call for women to make and mark a Linen Millie for exhibition has been remarkable. From 18 Millies on display in 2019 at Dovecot Studios Edinburgh, we are now a troupe of more than 140 including Millies from all over the UK.

Sharing stories and skills, of locality, of family history, of heritage, contemporary craft and community: a multilayered celebration most recently supplemented by 33 ‘New Scots Millies, refugee women from Renfrewshire telling their migrant stories of settling in Scotland.

This current display further enhances the cultural links established by Journeys in Design between Scotland and N.Ireland since 2018.

You can read the full story of Making Millie on Our Linen Stories website and visit the current display of 26 Millies in Newtownards, free to enter all month as part of ‘Reflections’ at the Town Hall Gallery.

https://ourlinenstories.com/news/flax-futures/linen-millie/
#makingMillie #ourlinenstories
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