The employment rate for women was affected by the apartheid era policies and practices in South Africa as employment opportunities for women were limited. This study examines black South African women in art with special emphasis on needle work cooperatives as income generating enterprises. The researcher did a case study of Sophumelela and Thaboyabomme needlework/sewing cooperatives in Khayelitsha, South Africa. The data for this study was gathered through research, interviews, case studies, and site visits in South Africa, allowing in depth descriptions and discussions of their backgrounds, establishments, goals, and missions. Thus, the research specifically analyzed the type of needlework projects that are made into utilitarian craft and ways of merchandizing them for the development of women in economically marginal areas, as well as the stake holders affiliated with the cooperatives, mainly Township Patterns CC. Through needlework, an effort is made by the women to exploit and maximize every economic, cultural, and social opportunity in order to create and sustain economic development. The review of literature and theoretical framework are adopted, mostly using psychosocial, postcolonial, feminist, standpoint, and Marxists theories which are applied to the women and their situations. Topics discussed include patriarchy, modernism, and division of labor as issues that woman artists, particularly black women, encountered prior to 1994 and into the paradigm shift to democratic South Africa. Furthermore, to give a wider view of women needlework cooperatives, an overview of three other women needlework cooperatives and how these establishments use art for economic growth, resulting in poverty alleviation, skills development, and empowerment were studied. Therefore, the study has concluded through research that cooperatives have made a minimal but significant contribution to the economic uplift of the women members. Unfortunately, the Township Patterns CC serves as support, yet it is an exploitative force to the women. Overall, the researcher observed the functions and types of needlework projects used by South African women as economic tools, synthesizing the information garnered from the interviews between the researcher and the women, through research about the area, people, and government policies concerning the arts, and observation of the women's working and living conditions. Additionally, the researcher examined the challenges encountered within the cooperatives, the open market, and skills training for women, the process of production, and the extent to which income was generated to help to alleviate poverty.