January 23, 2026 • 16 mins
Holly talks about the various inspirations for her love of embroidery. Tracy shares her experiences with movies and her cat while embroidering.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We had a cozy week of
embroidery talk we did so I kind of need right now.
(00:24):
I love embroidery. I have a very I have very
distinct memories of various embroidery points in my life. I
remember the first time I tried it and why. It
harkens back to that thing that I've talked about with
the Koalas where I saw a project in one of
(00:45):
my mom's sewing magazines and I was like, I want
to do that. And it was a quilt that was
made that had it used Gingham fabric in it, and
the gingham was used as the grid basis for kind
of a very loose style of cross stitch, and I
was like, I want to do that. And I did
some of those and they were very fun. You've done
(01:07):
beat it embroidery before, right, you did a costume piece. Yeah,
most of what I've done has been cross ditch, but
then I did do some costumes that had like I
wasn't using the gritted embroidery fabric, But like I did
a bunch of beadwork with embroidery onto ribbon as part
(01:30):
of UH costume, and pretty much that was just like
me copying as best as I could something that had
been in a movie. Yeah. So I did not learn
any like actual stitch techniques beyond what I learned as
part of cross stitching. Like I learned to crosstitch. There
(01:51):
are some other embroidery stitches that are sometimes used as
part of a cross stitch pattern. Yeah, Like I remember
doing across dich pattern that had a border around the
edge that was a different non cross embroidery stitch, right,
like a satin stitch or something. Yeah. Yeah, And so
(02:12):
that like that's what I am most familiar with than
my kind of free form attempts to copy something that
was on screen. I have, Oh I guess it is too.
I have two embroidery projects that are attempts to copy
things that appeared on screen, one of which I devoted
so much time and energy to and even traveled for,
(02:36):
which is the best costume of all time in my heart,
Princess Leah's best been outfit like the rust and and
I'm so in love with that thing, and when it appeared, gosh,
that would have been twenty four years ago. I think
it was on tour as part of the Smithsonian's costume
(02:58):
they'll do like the Star Wars they did for a while,
the Magic of myth one that toured around. I feel
like right now the Bestpin dress is touring only in
Europe and not here. I'm not sure where, or maybe
it's not on tour at all right now, but I
love it and I literally we went when it was
in Houston because that was as close as it was coming,
and we drove over to Houston because we were too
(03:18):
poor for plane tickets then, and we literally I sat
in front of that dress in the museum display for
two solid days, about eight hours a day, trying to
recreate the pattern and take notes on all of the stitching.
And then I did a version of that costume. Incidentally,
if you've ever downloaded a hand drawn copy of that
(03:39):
pattern from the Internet, it was probably mine. It got
passed around a lot of costume siting after that because
I uploaded it and I did that one, and then
I did some for an Amidala gown in the nineties
and early two thousands. But where I really fell in
love with embroidery. I remember very distinctly, like at a
level I had not ever before in my life. Was
(04:02):
in I think it was two thousand and eight in Chicago,
there was an exhibit of dragon robes other Chinese embroidery,
and I lost my mind. Yeah, Like it just was like,
I mean, I've certainly grown up around crafty people, and
I had seen lots of embroidery, but that was like
a level and a style of design I had never
(04:25):
really seen up close before. Yeah, pictures never do it justice.
Even beautiful pictures like are not the same as when
you were standing there and you can see the light
glinting off the silk threads in a very specific way.
It's so beautiful. And it made me absolutely crazy for embroidery.
When I worked as a library acquisition specialist for about
(04:47):
a decade, at the end of the year, when you
have budget left, use it on things that are not
necessarily like curriculum development stuff. It's just collection development. And
I would always try to sneak some good Chinese embroidery
history books. That school that I used to work for
(05:07):
has a really good resource, yeah, which is funny to me,
but I love it so much. Yeah. I when I
learned to Cross Ditch, I was a kid, and I
had seen beautiful embroidery pieces, and I was not a
patient child in any way, and the idea of what
(05:33):
I saw in like the embroidery pieces that were not
Cross Ditch that I saw just absolutely overwhelmed me in
terms of even thinking about what would be involved to
create something like that. Yeah, So it was like Cross
Ditch was as far as I Yeah, I don't know
that I would describe myself as a patient person, but
I am certainly capable of hyper focus. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
(05:57):
by the way, when I was making those costly I
spent a lot of time on them. I also spent
a lot of time on them watching every commentary that
was released for the Lord of the Rings movies. Yeah,
and at that point, like I had seen the movies
so many times, I knew them basically by heart, so
it was more like I was listening to the commentary
(06:19):
while I was doing it. Yeah. I also at that
time had a cat named Anastasia, and Anastasia wanted to
get into my lap while I was trying to do this,
and I would be like, no, baby, can't get on
my b I have this on, you cannot also, And
she would get on the couch and she would like
(06:39):
kind of crouch down, and she would slowly inch one
paw forward and then the other paw, Like if I
do this slow enough, she won't notice that I'm getting
on her lap. She won't realize I am just on
the lap. Yeah, yeah, kitty smarts. I have great memories
of and I did that best man leya embroidery for
(07:02):
a couple of different reasons. One is that I was
I started a little too late for the thing that
I wanted to have it ready for h which meant
that I was spending long hours, like I would embroider
until like three in the morning, and I watched so
much Dragonball Z because that's what was running on Cartoon
Network at those hours. I got all my super sayan
time in. But also my boss at the time, who
(07:25):
was a very cool and kind boss, started doing like
embroidery blockouts for my time to make sure I had
time to work on it. So it would be like
after three, if nobody has anything pressing, just sit at
your desk into embroidery. Yeah, which was the coolest everybody
needs it. I have such great memories of that. I
(07:55):
also will say that while I was researching this, since then,
I have gotten served all of the ads for every
embroidery everything on the internet, and I don't mind that
at all. It's fine to me. Yeah. One of the
things that we did not talk about much in this
episode is the rise in various parts of Europe, but
especially in England. I think Spain had some as well
(08:19):
of embroidery schools, I want to say in the seventeen sixties,
because there was all of a sudden, this huge rash
of schools that popped up with the intent that they
would set up these schools in areas that had a
lot of blue collar families so that their daughters could
learn a trade. Okay, and most of them, some of
them still exist. They have evolved over time in their
(08:40):
mission where they're now like a more generalized education resource.
But it was kind of fascinating, But there's not much
to say of it other than that, like, yeah, yes,
this gave some girls a skill that they might not
have otherwise learned, you know, like an early vocation school.
And now embroidery is sometimes taught in schools as part
of other things like homec but not a lot. But no,
(09:01):
I know there is a lot of concern that a
lot of embroidery is embroidery education has gone away, so
there are people that really love it as an art
that are concerned about its future, which is why the
embroiderers guilds are so important. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I
had things that my mom taught me, but some of
it was either through the four H Club or the
(09:25):
Agricultural Extension Service, and the place where I grew up
would have classes that cost some small amount of money
that basically covered your supplies and stuff, and that's where
I learned to do a lot of different craft type things. Yeah. Yeah,
my mom did not teach me embroidery. She was a
really skilled stitcher, yeah, but she did not get into
(09:48):
the needlework. Yeah, so mom taught me mostly sewing. And
now that I'm really thinking about it, I'm like, did
anyone actually teach me to cross stitch or did I
just each myself that I am not sure. My dad's
sister crossed ditched a lot. She may have given me
some tips, but man, I don't really remember. Now. I
(10:11):
had a very funny moment once where I was working
for a company and it was such a lovely reference
to it that was unexpected. But we were in like
a company meeting where a variety of people were being
recognized for their contributions, and one of the vps that
was giving these out started talking about embroidery as a
way to talk about this one person's work, and it
(10:33):
was such a beautiful way to use discussion of it.
Where she was saying, one of the things you learn
about if you study embroidery, if you know an embroiderer,
is that the true mark of quality is that the
backside of it is as pretty as the front side.
And she was saying, and this person's work on the
back end of our technical stuff is just as good
and perfect as anything that would be forward facing to users,
(10:55):
And I was like, Oh, that's a beautiful analogy to
bring embroidery in. To close out, I have what I
find to be embroidery comedy, okay, which is once again,
we gotta talk about the Buyo tapestry some more. Yeah,
I feel like it's been very frequent in our discussions lately,
and I am still figuring out when I'm gonna get
(11:17):
to see them see it while it's in London. But
the great thing is that if you listen, if anybody
listened to the episode that Sarah and Deblina did about
the Buyo Tapestry, you know that there is a copy
of it that was made that's in Kensington mm hmm,
which is interesting in and of itself because you can't
really like one to one duplicate something like that, especially
(11:38):
because a lot of it does look like it was
freehand embroidered. But it's a very good copy, but with
one of the funniest pieces of editing to me ever. Yeah,
if you've ever looked closely at the Bayou Tapestry, there
are some people on it that have no pants on.
We talked about that a little bit in an unearthed
(12:01):
one time, right, but on the Kensington copy they made
the editorial decision to add pants to those people. Funny
if I remember correctly, Because this is a couple of
uneartheds ago we talked about a paper where someone had
researched the penises that are depicted. Yeah, and a lot
(12:25):
of those were on horses. But it also looked like
over the years there had been some like scaling back
of them in like repair and restoration work. Yeah, that
big eighteenth century restoration might have included some of that. Yeah,
which is also interesting because that is the stuff that
faded the most, So it would make that kind of
(12:47):
study a little bit tricky and something. Yeah. Yeah, like
is this an editing or is this a repair that
just didn't go quite right in terms of having longevity?
And I haven't read that paper, so I don't know.
But it's very funny. Yeah, we gotta put pants on
these people. Yeah. I love the Bye Tapestry pants off
dance off. I think it's the best part. Is funny
(13:09):
some guys with no pants carrying dogs. Yeah, I don't
know why. I think that's great. I'm very excited to
hopefully see it in person in the coming year. I'll
get all weird about it and it'll be great. And
it's a great excuse if it is in London, which
is the city I also love. Yeah, I have never
been there. You haven't knowed man. I love it. I
love it. Yeah, it's just a beautiful, fun place and
(13:32):
there's lots of yummy food. I know. There's a big
thing going on right now in terms of pubs and
some new regulations that they're worried are going to endanger
the way that pubs operate. So I'll be curious how
that all goes, and hopefully it all pubs will endure
because I love a good pub meal, delicious. Look out, London,
(13:54):
I'm coming and I'm going to eat all the bangers
in mash because favorite meal in the world. If I'm
ever on death row, That's what I'm picking and I
will do it. I'll eat it while I do embroidery
of people who may or may not be wearing pants. Yeah.
I just think it's funny. If you have time coming
up this weekend that you are off, free time to yourself,
(14:15):
the dream, and you like to do embroidery, maybe it's
a great time. I'm definitely going to be doing more
embroidery this year because of this. It like reignated some things.
I also one of the reasons that I was able
to do this episode, I mentioned that we had some
time off, but also I have been very slowly. It's
taking me more than a year to reorger my sewing room.
(14:36):
And at one point I had several books that I
had opened and stuck on a shelf that had fabric
on it, and without even realizing it, I had stacked
fabric on top of the books, and I've been like,
where are those books? I don't know? And when I
cleared everything off of those shelves, I was like, here
are those books, dang dong. So I rediscovered them, which
made it great and easier for me to work on this.
(14:58):
And now I'm like, I need to get back to
this this year. Yeah, that's a fun way to make
delight in my life. Listen, there's going to be some
rodians embroidered at my house, maybe some kiddies. I'm still
thinking about that Egyptian cat tattoo. That's a little, very
simple embroidery piece. I'm into all of it. It's going
to be an embroidery year. I'll be doing that my
(15:19):
free time some of the time. But to go back,
if this isn't time that you have off this weekend,
I still hope that you get some time to do
whatever it is that nurtures your soul and makes you
feel good about yourself, even if that's sitting on your couch.
That's a perfectly acceptable way to spend quiet time or
not quiet time. If you're watching TV, cranked. I don't care.
Just whatever makes you happy. We need it. We will
(15:41):
be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and
then on Monday we'll have something brand new. Stuff you
missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Fry and
I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We had a cozy week of
embroidery talk we did so I kind of need right now.
(00:24):
I love embroidery. I have a very I have very
distinct memories of various embroidery points in my life. I
remember the first time I tried it and why. It
harkens back to that thing that I've talked about with
the Koalas where I saw a project in one of
(00:45):
my mom's sewing magazines and I was like, I want
to do that. And it was a quilt that was
made that had it used Gingham fabric in it, and
the gingham was used as the grid basis for kind
of a very loose style of cross stitch, and I
was like, I want to do that. And I did
some of those and they were very fun. You've done
(01:07):
beat it embroidery before, right, you did a costume piece. Yeah,
most of what I've done has been cross ditch, but
then I did do some costumes that had like I
wasn't using the gritted embroidery fabric, But like I did
a bunch of beadwork with embroidery onto ribbon as part
(01:30):
of UH costume, and pretty much that was just like
me copying as best as I could something that had
been in a movie. Yeah. So I did not learn
any like actual stitch techniques beyond what I learned as
part of cross stitching. Like I learned to crosstitch. There
(01:51):
are some other embroidery stitches that are sometimes used as
part of a cross stitch pattern. Yeah, Like I remember
doing across dich pattern that had a border around the
edge that was a different non cross embroidery stitch, right,
like a satin stitch or something. Yeah. Yeah, And so
(02:12):
that like that's what I am most familiar with than
my kind of free form attempts to copy something that
was on screen. I have, Oh I guess it is too.
I have two embroidery projects that are attempts to copy
things that appeared on screen, one of which I devoted
so much time and energy to and even traveled for,
(02:36):
which is the best costume of all time in my heart,
Princess Leah's best been outfit like the rust and and
I'm so in love with that thing, and when it appeared, gosh,
that would have been twenty four years ago. I think
it was on tour as part of the Smithsonian's costume
(02:58):
they'll do like the Star Wars they did for a while,
the Magic of myth one that toured around. I feel
like right now the Bestpin dress is touring only in
Europe and not here. I'm not sure where, or maybe
it's not on tour at all right now, but I
love it and I literally we went when it was
in Houston because that was as close as it was coming,
and we drove over to Houston because we were too
(03:18):
poor for plane tickets then, and we literally I sat
in front of that dress in the museum display for
two solid days, about eight hours a day, trying to
recreate the pattern and take notes on all of the stitching.
And then I did a version of that costume. Incidentally,
if you've ever downloaded a hand drawn copy of that
(03:39):
pattern from the Internet, it was probably mine. It got
passed around a lot of costume siting after that because
I uploaded it and I did that one, and then
I did some for an Amidala gown in the nineties
and early two thousands. But where I really fell in
love with embroidery. I remember very distinctly, like at a
level I had not ever before in my life. Was
(04:02):
in I think it was two thousand and eight in Chicago,
there was an exhibit of dragon robes other Chinese embroidery,
and I lost my mind. Yeah, Like it just was like,
I mean, I've certainly grown up around crafty people, and
I had seen lots of embroidery, but that was like
a level and a style of design I had never
(04:25):
really seen up close before. Yeah, pictures never do it justice.
Even beautiful pictures like are not the same as when
you were standing there and you can see the light
glinting off the silk threads in a very specific way.
It's so beautiful. And it made me absolutely crazy for embroidery.
When I worked as a library acquisition specialist for about
(04:47):
a decade, at the end of the year, when you
have budget left, use it on things that are not
necessarily like curriculum development stuff. It's just collection development. And
I would always try to sneak some good Chinese embroidery
history books. That school that I used to work for
(05:07):
has a really good resource, yeah, which is funny to me,
but I love it so much. Yeah. I when I
learned to Cross Ditch, I was a kid, and I
had seen beautiful embroidery pieces, and I was not a
patient child in any way, and the idea of what
(05:33):
I saw in like the embroidery pieces that were not
Cross Ditch that I saw just absolutely overwhelmed me in
terms of even thinking about what would be involved to
create something like that. Yeah, So it was like Cross
Ditch was as far as I Yeah, I don't know
that I would describe myself as a patient person, but
I am certainly capable of hyper focus. Yeah. Yeah. Well,
(05:57):
by the way, when I was making those costly I
spent a lot of time on them. I also spent
a lot of time on them watching every commentary that
was released for the Lord of the Rings movies. Yeah,
and at that point, like I had seen the movies
so many times, I knew them basically by heart, so
it was more like I was listening to the commentary
(06:19):
while I was doing it. Yeah. I also at that
time had a cat named Anastasia, and Anastasia wanted to
get into my lap while I was trying to do this,
and I would be like, no, baby, can't get on
my b I have this on, you cannot also, And
she would get on the couch and she would like
(06:39):
kind of crouch down, and she would slowly inch one
paw forward and then the other paw, Like if I
do this slow enough, she won't notice that I'm getting
on her lap. She won't realize I am just on
the lap. Yeah, yeah, kitty smarts. I have great memories
of and I did that best man leya embroidery for
(07:02):
a couple of different reasons. One is that I was
I started a little too late for the thing that
I wanted to have it ready for h which meant
that I was spending long hours, like I would embroider
until like three in the morning, and I watched so
much Dragonball Z because that's what was running on Cartoon
Network at those hours. I got all my super sayan
time in. But also my boss at the time, who
(07:25):
was a very cool and kind boss, started doing like
embroidery blockouts for my time to make sure I had
time to work on it. So it would be like
after three, if nobody has anything pressing, just sit at
your desk into embroidery. Yeah, which was the coolest everybody
needs it. I have such great memories of that. I
(07:55):
also will say that while I was researching this, since then,
I have gotten served all of the ads for every
embroidery everything on the internet, and I don't mind that
at all. It's fine to me. Yeah. One of the
things that we did not talk about much in this
episode is the rise in various parts of Europe, but
especially in England. I think Spain had some as well
(08:19):
of embroidery schools, I want to say in the seventeen sixties,
because there was all of a sudden, this huge rash
of schools that popped up with the intent that they
would set up these schools in areas that had a
lot of blue collar families so that their daughters could
learn a trade. Okay, and most of them, some of
them still exist. They have evolved over time in their
(08:40):
mission where they're now like a more generalized education resource.
But it was kind of fascinating, But there's not much
to say of it other than that, like, yeah, yes,
this gave some girls a skill that they might not
have otherwise learned, you know, like an early vocation school.
And now embroidery is sometimes taught in schools as part
of other things like homec but not a lot. But no,
(09:01):
I know there is a lot of concern that a
lot of embroidery is embroidery education has gone away, so
there are people that really love it as an art
that are concerned about its future, which is why the
embroiderers guilds are so important. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I
had things that my mom taught me, but some of
it was either through the four H Club or the
(09:25):
Agricultural Extension Service, and the place where I grew up
would have classes that cost some small amount of money
that basically covered your supplies and stuff, and that's where
I learned to do a lot of different craft type things. Yeah. Yeah,
my mom did not teach me embroidery. She was a
really skilled stitcher, yeah, but she did not get into
(09:48):
the needlework. Yeah, so mom taught me mostly sewing. And
now that I'm really thinking about it, I'm like, did
anyone actually teach me to cross stitch or did I
just each myself that I am not sure. My dad's
sister crossed ditched a lot. She may have given me
some tips, but man, I don't really remember. Now. I
(10:11):
had a very funny moment once where I was working
for a company and it was such a lovely reference
to it that was unexpected. But we were in like
a company meeting where a variety of people were being
recognized for their contributions, and one of the vps that
was giving these out started talking about embroidery as a
way to talk about this one person's work, and it
(10:33):
was such a beautiful way to use discussion of it.
Where she was saying, one of the things you learn
about if you study embroidery, if you know an embroiderer,
is that the true mark of quality is that the
backside of it is as pretty as the front side.
And she was saying, and this person's work on the
back end of our technical stuff is just as good
and perfect as anything that would be forward facing to users,
(10:55):
And I was like, Oh, that's a beautiful analogy to
bring embroidery in. To close out, I have what I
find to be embroidery comedy, okay, which is once again,
we gotta talk about the Buyo tapestry some more. Yeah,
I feel like it's been very frequent in our discussions lately,
and I am still figuring out when I'm gonna get
(11:17):
to see them see it while it's in London. But
the great thing is that if you listen, if anybody
listened to the episode that Sarah and Deblina did about
the Buyo Tapestry, you know that there is a copy
of it that was made that's in Kensington mm hmm,
which is interesting in and of itself because you can't
really like one to one duplicate something like that, especially
(11:38):
because a lot of it does look like it was
freehand embroidered. But it's a very good copy, but with
one of the funniest pieces of editing to me ever. Yeah,
if you've ever looked closely at the Bayou Tapestry, there
are some people on it that have no pants on.
We talked about that a little bit in an unearthed
(12:01):
one time, right, but on the Kensington copy they made
the editorial decision to add pants to those people. Funny
if I remember correctly, Because this is a couple of
uneartheds ago we talked about a paper where someone had
researched the penises that are depicted. Yeah, and a lot
(12:25):
of those were on horses. But it also looked like
over the years there had been some like scaling back
of them in like repair and restoration work. Yeah, that
big eighteenth century restoration might have included some of that. Yeah,
which is also interesting because that is the stuff that
faded the most, So it would make that kind of
(12:47):
study a little bit tricky and something. Yeah. Yeah, like
is this an editing or is this a repair that
just didn't go quite right in terms of having longevity?
And I haven't read that paper, so I don't know.
But it's very funny. Yeah, we gotta put pants on
these people. Yeah. I love the Bye Tapestry pants off
dance off. I think it's the best part. Is funny
(13:09):
some guys with no pants carrying dogs. Yeah, I don't
know why. I think that's great. I'm very excited to
hopefully see it in person in the coming year. I'll
get all weird about it and it'll be great. And
it's a great excuse if it is in London, which
is the city I also love. Yeah, I have never
been there. You haven't knowed man. I love it. I
love it. Yeah, it's just a beautiful, fun place and
(13:32):
there's lots of yummy food. I know. There's a big
thing going on right now in terms of pubs and
some new regulations that they're worried are going to endanger
the way that pubs operate. So I'll be curious how
that all goes, and hopefully it all pubs will endure
because I love a good pub meal, delicious. Look out, London,
(13:54):
I'm coming and I'm going to eat all the bangers
in mash because favorite meal in the world. If I'm
ever on death row, That's what I'm picking and I
will do it. I'll eat it while I do embroidery
of people who may or may not be wearing pants. Yeah.
I just think it's funny. If you have time coming
up this weekend that you are off, free time to yourself,
(14:15):
the dream, and you like to do embroidery, maybe it's
a great time. I'm definitely going to be doing more
embroidery this year because of this. It like reignated some things.
I also one of the reasons that I was able
to do this episode, I mentioned that we had some
time off, but also I have been very slowly. It's
taking me more than a year to reorger my sewing room.
(14:36):
And at one point I had several books that I
had opened and stuck on a shelf that had fabric
on it, and without even realizing it, I had stacked
fabric on top of the books, and I've been like,
where are those books? I don't know? And when I
cleared everything off of those shelves, I was like, here
are those books, dang dong. So I rediscovered them, which
made it great and easier for me to work on this.
(14:58):
And now I'm like, I need to get back to
this this year. Yeah, that's a fun way to make
delight in my life. Listen, there's going to be some
rodians embroidered at my house, maybe some kiddies. I'm still
thinking about that Egyptian cat tattoo. That's a little, very
simple embroidery piece. I'm into all of it. It's going
to be an embroidery year. I'll be doing that my
(15:19):
free time some of the time. But to go back,
if this isn't time that you have off this weekend,
I still hope that you get some time to do
whatever it is that nurtures your soul and makes you
feel good about yourself, even if that's sitting on your couch.
That's a perfectly acceptable way to spend quiet time or
not quiet time. If you're watching TV, cranked. I don't care.
Just whatever makes you happy. We need it. We will
(15:41):
be right back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and
then on Monday we'll have something brand new. Stuff you
missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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