Stitching Intentions
A creative workshop to welcome in the new year
Sunday, February 8th, 2026
At My Yoga Space, Thirlmere
With Maria Whiteacre, from Handwork Connections
Do you long for a mindful pause to slow down, reflect and set intentions for the year ahead?
Do you wish to create a space that holds your thoughts, dreams, and visions—a sacred container for your plans and reflections?
Or perhaps you're craving stillness, softness and a space to create without pressure.
Step into a slow, reflective space as we welcome the new year. This half-day workshop invites you to pause, dream and set intentions.
Using mindful stitching and upcycled textiles to create a journal cover that becomes a sacred container for your reflections, visions, and plans for 2026.
This offering is for everyone
No prior artistic or journalling experience is necessary!
It's a space free from judgment, where the focus is on the journey, not the outcome.
This workshop offers a nourishing experience for you to:
✨ Slow down, cultivate presence, and reconnect with yourself through mindful hand-stitching and textile work.
✨ Explore intuition and personal expression through creating a journal cover that holds your thoughts, reflections and intentions.
✨ Foster a sense of calm, clarity, and focus through quiet contemplation and the rhythmic act of stitching.
✨ Experience community connection while engaging in a shared creative and reflective process.
✨ Rest deeply and integrate your intentions through a guided Yoga Nidra practice, allowing insights, inspiration, and reflection to emerge naturally.
When:
⏰ Sunday Feb 8th | Time to TBA soon
What you can expect:
✔ Mindful Textile Design: Explore slow stitching techniques to cultivate presence, rhythm, and care as you design your journal cover.
✔ Work with reclaimed fabrics rich in history, texture, colour, and pattern, honouring sustainability and intuition.
✔ Personal Symbols: Use dry needle felting to create a hand-sewn motif or sign that carries personal meaning.
✔ Integration & Reflection: Close the session with a guided Yoga Nidra to integrate your creative process and access deeper awareness.
✔ Journaling & Intention-Setting: Time to reflect, write, and plant seeds for the year ahead in a space that nurtures insight and presence.
✔ A supportive space free from performance or competition
This half-day workshop is a beginner friendly, gender-affirming, inclusive of all gender identities and expressions, inclusive to all body shapes and abilities, neuro-affirming and welcoming to all.
Each Yogic and Artistic process allows for a therapeutic and healing benefit for your body, nervous system, mind and heart.
Meet Maria...
I didn’t know growing up that I was Neurodivergent, (I was eventually diagnosed at 43) so I used artistic expression and physical connections in nature as ways to understand and to process the world and people around me.
Creativity, movement and nature have been my tools, my hyperfocus’ or special interests, that I have turned to again and again, that have supported me to cope or get through the ups and downs of my life...and I have had a few.
I believed so strongly in the power of creativity I became an Art teacher as a way to support young people through their stages of development.
As my life, my needs, work demands and my health changed, creativity and movement in nature alone were not enough to hold me.
My mind and body crumbled as I went through burnout.
I came back to a committed Yoga practice as a way to support my recovery from complete burnout as well as major surgery. I finally remembered how to breath (I know that sounds strange, but it’s true), I began to feel connected to my entire body, I began to feel like I wasn’t just this body that was driven by a head full of chaos and emotions. I began to feel connected again to the greater cosmos and to mother nature. My mind, which was used to being inundated with stimulus and things to process, became clearer, more even.
My entire being began to soften as my nervous system learnt that it didn’t always need to respond in ‘fight or flight’ mode and was able to shift out of that state with less distress and exhaustion.
This is when I felt the deep urge, the drive or my Dharma emerge: to share with other people the therapeutic and healing benefits of all aspects of Yoga and Art.
* Please Note, Cancellation Policy: Due to the nature of the course we are unable to provide refunds, transfers or rain-checks - all purchases are final. Alternatively your ticket can be passed on to a friend/family member for them to take your place.