Stitchery Stories
Stitchery Stories... Where textile artists share their life in fabric & thread. Embroidery. Textile Art. Inspiration, Techniques, Disasters & Delights. Join embroidery enthusiast & textile art dabbler, Susan Weeks, in her friendly chats with UK textile artists. Discover how they got started. Share the lessons learned along the way. Get excited about what they are working on at the moment. Learn how they keep their business growing, their creativity flowing, and get a sneak peek into what is coming next... Discover More https://stitcherystories.com/
Episodes
In this episode, host Susan Weeks sits down with Owen Kelly, a fifth-generation stitcher with over 50 years of experience. Working from his remote home on the SW coast of Ireland, and inspired by the natural beauty of the wild Atlantic coast, Owen shares his colourful creative journey—from traditional family techniques to his innovative “flow stitching” and narrative-inspired projects. Known for his playful globe-trotting character...
In this Stitchery Stories episode, host Susan Weeks chats with Sally McCollin, a textile artist, designer, and educator with a fascinating career spanning publishing, design, and teaching.
From early beginnings knitting mohair jumpers for pocket money to working with major craft companies like Patons & Baldwins (now Coats Crafts), Sally has had an incredible journey in the textile industry. She shares insights into her commercial d...
Elizabeth Ashdown is one of only 4 hand Passementerie artists working in the UK today. She combines traditional and endangered craft skills with a contemporary aesthetic to create innovative passementerie.
In this episode of Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, Susan Weeks chats with Elizabeth Ashdown, for a glimpse into the world of hand woven passementerie. She makes and weaves bespoke trimmings, braids, tassels, fringes, and ...
Ailish Henderson is a fine art textile artist, particularly known for her fine art stitched collage works, which focus on capturing a fleeting moment, telling the story with mixed media, paint, stitch and fabric snippets. She is also the author of 'Narrative Textiles', published by Batsford in October 2024.
In this episode, of Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, host Susan Weeks chats with Ailish Henderson, a narrative textile a...
Caroline Hyde-Brown is a textile artist with a long-established career.
Inspired by botanical research, she combines foraged plant material with a variety of textile art techniques to create fascinating weaves and vessels with fragile beauty. Combined with her purposeful art practice experience, Caroline shares plenty of wisdom on Stitchery Stories textile art podcast.
With so many inspiring aspects to Caroline's textile art career...
Elnaz Yazdani creates vibrant contemporary textile art using rather unusual materials. Look closely for nails, springs, tubes, and all sorts from scrap stores. Elnaz loves working with community groups to reimagine embroidery and spark creativity.
In this episode of Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, Susan Weeks chats with Elnaz Yazdani, an embroidery artist and educator who merges traditional techniques with unconventional ma...
Dr. Jack Roberts, also known as JPR Stitch, is a fine artist specializing in freehand machine embroidery, creating stunning abstract shapes from dense, intricate webs of stitches.
His art reflects the calmness and tranquility he experiences while stitching, making sewing his form of meditation. Jack shares insights into his artistic journey, current projects, and unique approaches to displaying his work.
A key topic is Jack's 'ques...
Alison Holt is a contemporary textile artist, teacher and author who combines silk painting and freehand machine embroidery to create beautiful landscapes and glimpses of the natural world.
Alison shares how her career and art continues to evolve, as she looks for new challenges. Following new opportunities as well as ongoing marketing and visibiity of one's art are also very important, and Alison shares her experience and wisdom ...
Hannah Thompson has always loved crafting, quilting & textile art.
In 2017, at a crossroads in her life, dealing with emotional & family upset, she left her corporate career and set up Stitching Kitchen. On Stitchery Stories textile art podcast, Hannah shares her story and we dive into what she describes as her transformational business year in 2023!
Susan Weeks chats with Hannah Thompson about:
- Her love for textile art, quil...
Textile artist Holly Jackson shares her recent journey in developing her art career.
Developing her 'sneaky' stumpwork embroidery using modern materials and mixed media, there are plenty of exciting 'firsts' to celebrate with Holly!
We join Holly at the start of her first art exhibition. She shares her preparation and hopes from the show. We chat about her very interesting inspirations for her emerging body of work, and how she is ...
Textile artist Jayne Emerson revisits the Stitchery Stories textile art podcast today!
She takes us on a journey on how she has pivoted her creative business to focus on teaching people around the world through her online courses and her unique membership The No-Rules Textiles Society.
Jayne was a guest here back in 2018 and gives a quick update as to where she was and what challenges she was facing back then.
And then we dive into...
Cornwall Cross Stitch Kit designer Emma Horan shares behind the scenes of her 'accidental' creative business based around counted cross stitch hand embroidery kits of the beautiful Cornish coast.
For the last 10 years, Emma has grown her cross stitch kit business from a therapeutic hobby as she recovered from illness, to a thriving creative business, shop & studio based in St Austell Town, Cornwall.
With the beautiful Cornish coast...
Lottie Cockell started her creative business Purple Rose Embroidery fresh out of school, and has been busy growing shaping her business over the last 5 years. With a love of 'grid-based' hand embroidery, Lottie focuses on cross-stitch, blackwork and surface embroidery kits.
She is keen to try new things in her business and will often dive into the deep-end of something, figure it out as she goes, then decide if it is a direction th...
Prism Textile Group members Hayley Mills-Styles and Maria Walker share behind-the-scenes challenges of helping to organise an annual textile art exhibition which features work from the groups' international members.
Hayley & Maria explain the background and history of this well-known exhibiting group, and then we dive into the details of organising and marketing the annual exhibition.
This is a fascinating insight into the details ...
Today I explore hand embroidered and beaded pop art with contemporary pop art textile artist Sarah Gwyer.
We talk about her magpie-like 'obsession' with colourful beads and charms and the artistic path to creating beaded portraits.
But beneath the colourful sparkling beads lies strong social commentary on celebrity, wealth and consumerism, all expressed in a distinctive pop art style.
And we dive into the copyright complexities tha...
Back in 2014, textile artist, academic & designer Vanessa Marr posed the question:
Women & Domesticity - What's Your Perspective?
And invited those thoughts to be embroidered upon a yellow duster, in red thread. Little did she realise what she had unleashed...
Nine years later, Vanessa has an amazing collection of embroidered dusters and an even more amazing collection of stories from the people (mostly women) who have sent her a d...
It's an amazing project which has enabled unheard women, many in poverty, vulnerable through trauma and abuse, to share their personal stories, using the universal language of embroidery and hand stitching.
Kirstie had the idea for this dress back in 2009, and we chat ab...
Embroidery artist Merrilyn Heazlewood shares her life in fabric & thread on Stitchery Stories embroidery podcast today! She takes us on a journey through her interesting and busy lifelong creative business career based around counted canvas work hand embroidery. And for those of you in the USA, you will know canvaswork as needlepoint.
Anyway, over the years, Merrilyn has owned several needlework shops, has written several books on ...
A cheerful & inspiring episode as global listeners of Stitchery Stories textile art podcast share their stories of creative joy from 2022, and shoutout those 'joy bringers' who helped them in some way to achieve that joy.
Hello & Welcome to my final episode of 2022.
A recurring theme is how much comfort & joy creative activities bring us.
So I thought it would be lovely to hear your stories of creative JOY from 2022. But not only t...
Elizabeth Griffiths is a mixed media artist using hand embroidery, lino print-making, inks and watercolours to explore a range of themes.
She shares the uplifting experience (and challenge!) of using hand embroidery as a competitor in Sky TV Portrait Artist Of The Year.
We dive behind the scenes!
Who was her portrait subject? How was it organised?
What was it like trying to compete using hand embroidery against 'paper & paint' arti...
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