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Beetles, Butterflies and Insects in Embroidery

Beetles, Butterflies and Insects in Embroidery

There's a very funny insect that you do not often spy, And it isn't quite a spider, and it isn't quite a fly; It is something like a beetle, and a little like a bee, But nothing like a wooly grub that climbs upon a tree. Its name is quite a hard one, but you'll learn...

Australian Textile Artist Annemieke Mein

Australian Textile Artist Annemieke Mein

This episode pays tribute to an embroidery artist who, from a very young age, was devoted to capturing and recording the beauty and complexity of nature, learning to note intricate details that would later lay a foundation for her work in textiles. This Dutch-born...

Machine Embroidery – Book Reviews

Machine Embroidery – Book Reviews

This is a follow-up to the last episode of the Stitch Safari Podcast, Masters of Our Machines, and focuses on books offering inspiration, technique, and thoughts on the artistry of machine embroidery today. In the vast sea that makes up the book world which are the...

Masters of our Machines

Masters of our Machines

'If I can draw it, I can stitch it' is my mantra. I'm talking about using a sewing machine as a mark-making, art and design tool to create lines, shapes, and patterns using a needle and thread, often with the feed dogs disengaged, forming personal narratives and...

Master Embroiderers:  Alice Kettle and Salley Mavor

Master Embroiderers: Alice Kettle and Salley Mavor

In this episode of Stitch Safari, I want to talk about two amazing, exciting and innovative embroiderers. They were chosen because of how differently they work, highlighting the diversity embroidery offers.  But it doesn't stop there. They live on either side of the...

Steampunk and Textile Art

Steampunk and Textile Art

This is the perfect setting for a new body of work – think past, present and future – all with a touch of mystery, adventure and romance.

Books Using Stitch, Textile or Fibre Imagery

Books Using Stitch, Textile or Fibre Imagery

You all know my passion for books and videos, well one genre I've completely overlooked is the style of book that uses embroidery, textiles and fibre as the imagery to help tell the story. This caught my attention while researching another topic, so I thought I'd...

Stitch and Textiles in Biennale Art – Two Artists

Stitch and Textiles in Biennale Art – Two Artists

Join me in this fascinating episode of Stitch Safari as I analyse the use of textiles and embroidery in two specific artworks to communicate and record huge injustices in artworks featured in Biennales.

Book Reviews From My Library #1

Book Reviews From My Library #1

Books are essential for my peace of mind, so I have a variety in my library covering technique, inspiration, history and those I simply love to look at. I've chosen three books published at different times - 1980, 1994, and 2013 giving scope to all those ideas just...

Critiquing Your Art

Critiquing Your Art

Why not promote and hone the skills you need to self-critique and in doing so, become a more complete and well-rounded artist in the process?

What Do You Want From A Workshop?

What Do You Want From A Workshop?

In this episode of the Stitch Safari Podcast, I want to make people think and have an understanding of what our expectations are for the workshops we book into.  Is it to take work in a particular direction, or is it to have fun, relax and enjoy creating with other...

The Hidden Gems Behind Success

The Hidden Gems Behind Success

To move forward with our work we need to exercise all the areas of artistic life that many don’t think about and even more, don’t or won’t acknowledge. But these reliable, dependable, and all-so-necessary areas are there, because if we don’t work with them, we...

Why Not Start A Blog?

Why Not Start A Blog?

Can I encourage embroidery and textile artists to at least think about starting a blog?  Let’s see. The worlds of embroidery and textiles must be two of the most exotic, artistic, expressive and creative genres known to man - imagine all that amazing history, colour,...

Embroidery onto Paper and Metal

Embroidery onto Paper and Metal

The idea of using either paper or metal in embroidery work is to add to the offering of infinite creative options available to the modern embroiderer. Metal thread embroidery has a close attachment to the symbolic significance of gold, representing the magical power...

Constance Howard – The Influencer With Green Hair

Constance Howard – The Influencer With Green Hair

Constance Howard, the British embroiderer, often best remembered for her green hair, had a colossal influence on contemporary embroidery at a time when it was deemed to be a comparatively minor craft, setting a pathway that's probably helped lead to the expansion of...

Book Review:  The Pocket

Book Review: The Pocket

Who would think a simple, commonplace pocket could be the holder of such a scope of fascinating research? Obviously, the authors, Barbara Burman - an independent scholar, and Ariane Fennetaux - associate professor of eighteenth-century history at Université de Paris,...

Tie-On Pockets – A Hidden World

Tie-On Pockets – A Hidden World

Tie-on pockets made use of recycled fabrics, were used as teaching tools, and were transmitters of design while reinforcing the familial and friendship networks between women, connecting women’s inner and outer worlds – a world of politics and protest to that of a humble worker making a living.

Maison Lesage

Maison Lesage

Welcome to the stunningly beautiful, elegantly innovative, seductively alluring world of French Haute Couture and the dynastic family of Lesage. The House of Lesage became the doyen of French Haute Couture embroidery collaborating with the world's elite designers...

Book Review: Maison Lesage Haute Couture Embroidery

Book Review: Maison Lesage Haute Couture Embroidery

Maison Lesage is a dynastic house of haute couture embroidery that worked with the who's who of the fashion industry - Vionnet, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga, Dior, Yves Saint Laurent, Givenchy, and Chanel. This book draws the link from the very inception of Maison Lesage...

Book Review: The Hunt of the Unicorn

Book Review: The Hunt of the Unicorn

Though not embroidery, the magnificently woven medieval tapestries making up the set known as The Unicorn Tapestries, provide a wonderful vehicle for this richly imaginative work of fiction. No one knows for whom the Tapestries were made or what they mean or...

Book Review:  The Girl Who Wrote In Silk

Book Review: The Girl Who Wrote In Silk

Imagine finding an intricately embroidered sleeve while exploring a relative's deceased estate. Inara Erickson unearths this long-forgotten treasure, knowing that she has found something quite special and unique. With no knowledge of embroidery, Inara looks for help...

Book Review:  The Quick and the Thread

Book Review: The Quick and the Thread

A cozy mystery full of red herrings, misdirection, and intrigue set in a newly opened embroidery store aptly named The Seven-Year Stitch, where the heroine teaches embroidery and solves the mystery of the body in the storeroom.

Mexican Otomi Embroidery

Mexican Otomi Embroidery

This is one time where embroidery defines the textile – not the cloth, not the weave, and not the dyes used, but the actual process of hand stitching the brightly coloured designs into complex and lively textiles that have become a major source of fascination and income.

Book Review:  A Single Thread

Book Review: A Single Thread

This gentle, yet powerful story is so easily relatable – who of us hasn’t felt gut-wrenching loss, and been nervous about making unprecedented life changes?

Beetle Elytra: Nature’s Ornament

Beetle Elytra: Nature’s Ornament

So are the beetle wings ethically harvested?  The beetles used for beetle wing embroidery have a very short lifespan of 3-4 weeks in their adult stage, so to avoid killing the beetles, only those that die naturally are collected.