The Stitch Safari Podcast

In this episode, I dip into some Yuletide bliss offering suggestions to make ourselves a Merry Little Christmas or a Winter Wonderland of creativity and love.  This pre-Christmas countdown is really about slowing down and thinking about the people in our lives we love and treasure - the people who would be delighted to receive a thoughtful, useful or completely kitch hand-made gift from us.

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. Show notes here: https://stitchsafari.com/australian-textile-artist-annemieke-mein/

This is a follow-up to the previous 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. Show Notes: https://stitchsafari.com/machine-embroidery-book-reviews/

The sewing machine becomes an extension of ourselves and a means of describing the world around us. It can produce many marks and qualities to express artistic vision and perceptions, including colour, texture, dimension and pattern—just as a painter works with brushstrokes to create line, shape, and movement, our machines become a design and mark-making tool. Show Notes: https://stitchsafari.com/...

What a privilege to introduce two inspiring embroidery artists. Whether or not you like machine embroidery or small dolls, these two artists are worth studying for their amazing use of technique and how they apply that to create wonderful narratives - they bring ingenuity, inventiveness, flair and finesse to their art.

Emanating vintage vibes the fascinating, exciting, and inspiring genre of Steampunk, an off-shoot of science fiction is the perfect inspiration for a new body of textile and embroidered art - think past, present and future - all with a touch of mystery, adventure and romance. Show Notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ steampunk-and-textile-art /

This episode covers the vastly underrated and underused area of textiles, embroidery and fibre used to create imagery for children's books.  It's one we should all be looking at a little more closely.   Show Notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ books-using-stit…or-fibre-imagery /

In this episode, I review three YouTube videos that recreate historical costumes and embroidery, two with input from Hand and Lock and The Royal School of Needlework, the third is presented by a fashion historian. Show Notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ videos-recreatin…e-and-embroidery /

The artworks featured in this episode are exemplars that thread is resilient and unifying, connecting heritage with painful memories and histories that can and have become the voice of the abused and the marginalised. Show notes here:  https://stitchsafari.com/ stitch-and-texti…-art-two-artists /

Link a worldwide group of collaborative embroiderers to see the true power of stitch to connect and depict.  This episode highlights three collaborative embroidery projects driven by women for women. Show notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ collaborative-embroidery-projects /

I've chosen three books published at different times - 1980, 1994, and 2013 giving scope to all those ideas just waiting to be released into new traditional or innovative work, because I believe ‘you need to look back to move forward’. Show Notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ book-reviews-from-my-library /  

Constructive feedback for your artwork is hard. Do you self-critique or rely on the opinions of others?  It takes strength, discipline and courage to be an artist and to learn to trust our inner selves to assess our work. Show Notes here:   https://stitchsafari.com/ critiquing-your-art /  

Do you have a vision?  Are you focused?  Will you learn a new technique or skill or are you after something far more relaxing, entertaining and fun?  We all have different needs and as a result, different expectations, so let’s understand some of those needs and expectations. Show Notes: https://stitchsafari.com/what-do-you-want-from-a-workshop/

This episode delves into how to move forward in our work to exercise all the areas of artistic life that lead to success - the hidden gems many don't see. Show notes:  https://stitchsafari.com/ the-hidden-gems-behind-success /

Ideas and tips to value-add to your website, promote what you do and the wonderful world of embroidery and textile art - all by writing a regular blog.   Show notes are available here .

This episode explores ten textile and embroidery artist websites looking for features that promote and explore their vision, with basic tips on what I look for and don't want to find in website design.  It's thought-provoking if you already have a website and informative if you're setting one up. 

Ideas on what may appeal to the new embroiderer, the traditional embroiderer, the textile artist or someone who may love collecting sewing-related paraphernalia?

This is an expedition into an artistic duo who create magic - two artists had a vision to conceive a world that hovers within and between photography and embroidery, traversing and immersing both arts with an almost palpable dynamism - yet the images are static, serene, and stationary.

In this episode, I have two very different, very inspiring new books ready to review - and I chose them for various reasons - but most of all for their value - they delivered something special in terms of content, emotion, insight into process, and that ever-present, behemoth, technique and creativity.

The Dorset Button is something very different indeed - something that remains handmade and meant to be decorative not simply utilitarian.

Not all online video tutorials are professionally crafted or indeed offer great content - but many do, so buyer beware, do your due diligence, check out what’s on offer, understand exactly what it is you’re after and what exactly it is that you’ll receive in the tutorial.

Dolls, those miniature human figures so beloved by the young and the young at heart are a worldwide phenomenon - they’re a means of imitation helping to satisfy a child’s need or instinct to copy and learn through play, but they’re also a BFF. Dolls are time travelers with a series of complex stories to tell about resilience, racism, culture, tradition, family relationships, childhood, memories, e...

Straw has been used to decorate and embellish costumes and ecclesiastical garments since the 1600s - some sources believe that straw was used as an imitation for goldwork embroidery hence the name, poor man’s Gold - it is very reminiscent of goldwork embroidery.

Truly successful embroidery relies on colour to express emotion and mood, focal point, suggest patterns, retain traditions and relate cultural storytelling - when you think about it, colour has a lot riding on its shoulders, but it’s a burden of pure pleasure once you break through that confidence barrier - and that’s a huge struggle for a lot of people, so let’s break down some of those barriers...

In this episode, I’d like to swing the pendulum back a little towards a book that forges inspiration through the study of historical textiles to see the process of 27 modern-day working embroiderers.  Published in 1993 it’s a gem of a book - and belongs to a time that really was one of the Golden Ages of English embroidery.