The Stitch Safari Podcast

The Stitch Safari Podcast is expanding to include live interviews with Australian embroiderers - and this is the first.  Introducing Effie Mitrofanis a researcher, and tutor of both creative and traditional hand embroidery who has lectured and exhibited internationally as well as throughout Australia.

For many embroidery is about gaining a certain amount of freedom from a prescribed formula - their design inspiration may form a narrative, or it may be pure abstraction, expressive mark making, or simply just the coalescence of fabric, texture, and embroidery - and sometimes that’s all it takes. 

Pleated embroidery or smocking, as it’s called now, has always held a sort of mystical allure - it’s a technique that appears complicated and intricate, allowing drape and ease of movement for the wearer, creating an irresistible number of pattern combinations.   But fashion designers and innovative textile and fibre artists are also using this traditional technique to create unique and inspiring art and wearable art.

One of the main considerations for embroidery is the type of needle you actually need and how to care for it.  Needles can either hinder or help during the stitching process, so it’s important to understand the hidden mechanics of their usage.

The three books reviewed for you here in this episode are all written by Australian embroidery artists - showing the depth of innovation and creativity abiding here in Australia.  They are all outstanding - and all for very different reasons.  

Go back far enough through history, and you’ll find that magic and mysticism were at the forefront of everyday living and people's remedy was to use embroidery that became part of their visual language - it was storytelling for all to see, educated or uneducated, but, within that embroidery was power - the power of magic.

World Embroidery Day celebrated annually on July 30, was set up in Sweden by one of the Swedish Embroiderer’s Guilds, with a Manifesto encompassing their vision about embroidery to help aid Peace, Freedom, and Equality.  This episode examines their Manifesto along with a recent YouTube video celebrating World Embroidery Day 2023 and ideas for celebrating World Embroidery Day 2024.

Covid19, self-isolation, and Lockdowns created a revolution in how we associated and communicated with each other - it was a time of re-shaping and re-thinking during uncertain times, but when you think about it, embroidery is a form of connection in itself - through the patterns and imaginative stories captured within every single pull of a  needle and thread through a base fabric, connecting us with our past, our present and our future.

This topic is murky, leaden, and depressing - and I’d just like to know, who’s making the decisions pertaining to what art actually is, because I find that to be very blurry indeed.  It's time to explore this topic more fully from the perspective of a textile and embroidery artist.

Craftivism is a gentle form of protest, it’s not extreme yet allows makers a platform to voice their concerns and opinions about social justice, political viewpoints, and environmental issues.