For Heiter Society members and paid Substack subscribers (from GBP17/month) .
In line with this month’s Fashion Revolution Week, we’re going to host a clothing mending class with eco-social designer Adele Buffa.
The workshop Ricamoriparo is an invitation to share our time using the art of embroidery as a tool for textile restoration and collective empowerment. While creating with our hands, we will explore the power of sewing, both for personal well-being and for ecological awareness.
Please bring along:
a piece of fabric: this can be any scrap you like, but make sure it’s not stretch and not too thin. Great are materials with structure e.g. denim, old linen, an old table cloth
an embroidery needle: the size depends on the thread and the textile you will use. Try to thread the needle and to pass from one site to the other of the fabric, if it passes through easily is the right match. If you need to buy the needle bring the fabric and thread of your choice along and ask for advice
embroidery threads in your favourite colours (at least two different ones are recommended); suggested brand: Dansk Blomstergarn, or any cotton “perlé”, usually easier to handle in comparison to “mouliné” thread. However, if you already have one at home, we can work with that.
optional: an embroidery hoop
a garment or textile you are attached to (for sentimental reasons)
a garment or textile you would like to repair
*Tips: ask your friend/your grandma/aunty/neighbour if they have embroidery material to lend you. Alternatively, check second-hand stores, maybe there are some sewing kit ready for you.
Open to all levels.
More about Adele Buffa:
Adele Buffa is an eco-social designer. Her research and practice focus on sewing as a subversive and participatory tool aimed at fostering ecological and social transformation across various contexts, from artistic to educational and community engagement. She facilitates sewing workshops with a focus on creative repair, upcycling, and fashion hacking. Through her research and artistic textile repair service, she explores and reinterprets ancestral techniques such as embroidery and darning.
In 2019, she co-founded the collective Nipple&Needle, through which she opened her first eco-social tailoring workshop in Turin. In 2022, together with Rocco Modugno and Andrea Righetto, she founded the collective Blauer Schnipsel to transform production waste from the traditional South Tyrolean apron into decorative elements through participatory actions, as documented in the book published by Franzlab, Blauer Schnipsel: Co-generating a Social Fabric.
Throughout her work, she has collaborated with various makerspaces, universities, schools, social cooperatives, cultural associations, textile companies, festivals, and organisations focused on social and environmental justice.
Since October 2025, together with visual artist Laura Pan, she has shared a studio at the Südtiroler Künstlerbund in Bolzano.