TWO artists are pooling their talents and setting up a creative workshop space in an historic building in Cockermouth.

Designers/ makers Sarah Ames and Maggi Toner-Edgar will be hosting a series of textile courses from The Printing House on Main Street.

“We aim to inspire all to stitch and get creative with ideas for art textiles," said Maggi, from Cockermouth.

"We’ll be teaching people to customise their own clothing, making better sustainable future choices – repurposing cloth and being creative with stitch.”

They will be launching this weekend with an open day at which people can sign up for a range of courses.

Maggi said: "We will be having a soft launch of the ‘Recreate & Make’ Workshops to be held at the newly restored and renovated Printing House.

"This is a wonderful historic building, which has been closed since 2009. It has undergone a careful journey beyond its former splendour as a significant building in the town."

Sarah, from Dearham, trained as a textile designer and Maggi trained as a fashion designer. They have both taught in universities and schools.

"We are really interested in design but quite specifically we like people to repurpose, use old fabric and recreate," said Maggi.

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"We are inviting people of all levels, from beginners to advanced. This includes those who would simply like to learn how to hand-stitch or use a sewing machine to those with many years’ experience who wish to learn a new textile skill, such as pattern-cutting or enhance a previous skill with new machine embroidery techniques."

They will be offering one day and also weekly courses.

The new workshops will also be open to children for specialist after-school and summer school textile courses.

"We will teach children to be independent stitchers, at our 8-12 year old ‘Sewing Bees’ session and our 13-16 year old ‘Young Designers’ group," said Maggi.

Cockermouth Live! fun this weekend: https://www.timesandstar.co.uk/news/20207986.popular-cockermouth-live-returns-full-festival-glory/