Upcycled Craft Workshop - Kinusaiga -FCRW Earth Month 2026!

Round 3 - Last chance to get crafty with the River Friends during Earth Month 2026!

Join our resident crafty Executive Director, Cait McConnell, for an evening of community building, learning a new crafty skill, and helping reuse some "waste" materials that would end up in the landfill, or worse the Chemung River.

Our last workshop will focus on Kinusaiga, a Japanese fabric "painting" technique. Quilters and fiber artists this ones for you! Bring all those tiny little scraps of fabric that you can't throw away but don't know what to do with, this project is perfect for them!

"Kinusaiga is a contemporary Japanese art form that combines elements of traditional textile techniques with modern materials and methods. It involves creating intricate fabric collages by pressing fabric scraps into pre-cut grooves on a foam board, resulting in textured, layered artworks without the need for sewing. This technique offers a tactile and visually rich alternative to conventional quilting or embroidery.

Kinusaiga emerged in Japan during the 1980s, attributed to artist Maeno Takashi. Inspired by traditional Japanese textile arts, particularly Oshie (a technique of wrapping padded fabric around wooden forms to create raised images), Maeno adapted this method by using foam boards as a base and fabric scraps as the medium. This innovation allowed for more accessible and versatile creations, making the art form popular among both amateur and professional artists."

Source: The history of Kinusaiga

Registration is REQUIRED for this workshop so we know how many stations to set up with enough materials. The small fee covers the few supplies we did need to purchase for this project

Light snacks and drinks will be available in addition to all the materials needed for this craft. Come get crafty with the River Friends during Earth Month!

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Host or Publisher Friends of the Chemung River Watershed