According to Stiglets, nurturing ourselves and tapping into our creativity allows us to become happier, more joyful, whole people. “I encourage you to slow down, “she says. “Take some time to notice the world around you. Look within and help your mind focus and calm so that you can come from a place of quiet rather than chaos. When your mind is peaceful, your life is richer.”

In an interview with the Etsy blog, Stiglets recalled how she first experimented with embroidery when she was a teenager, by stitching little designs onto her backpack and jeans. “I put it away for a while, then came back to it years later when my kids were very young, and I pretty much never stopped!” she says. Completely self-taught, her craft was learned by trial and error, allowing herself room to make mistakes.

The kits she sells include everything you need to get started wit embroidery yourself. The pattern is pre-printed on the fabric, and the floss, needle, and hoop are included too. She also adds a Getting Started Guide, which walks you through setting up your hoop and prepping your embroidery floss. Her How-to Guide includes diagrams for a handful of her favorite basic stitches. “I give notes for each design, including which stitches I used where, so folks can replicate my example photos if they want to—or they can do their own thing,” explains Stiglets.

Get going!

The post Now Is the Perfect Time to Take On Embroidery appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Now her studio practice is divided into two parts: making embroidered accessories on the one hand, and one of a kind artworks on the other. “I try to use different embroidery techniques together,” she explains. “Enriching texture to give it a visual dynamism is very important for me.”

The finished product is a combination of illustration and embroidery, color and texture. “Mostly I try to use embroidery techniques on patterns that match their real-life texture,” notes Yazici. “I enjoy combining these traditional techniques with modern patterns. I also like fancy and intricate embroideries and I wouldn’t hesitate to decorate my works with sequins and beads.”

Her work consists of quirky and surreal worlds and characters – a dreamy landscape where magic is possible. “Even if I don’t know where to place my work within contemporary art right now, I do think they share similar characteristics with both illustration and fiber art and I try to achieve a balance between them,” says Yazici.

The post The Teeny-Tiny Embroideries of Irem Yazici appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Having graduated in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah, her art heavily relies on her background in painting. According to Clark, it was during her studies that she discovered her love for embroidery and thread drawings (drawing with her sewing machine), blurring the lines between fine art and craft.

“My background in painting has allowed me to explore the material using techniques from the worlds of drawing and painting,” she explains. “Engaging both traditional and innovative techniques in employing formal qualities with density, texture, and pattern.”

“Visually, I love it when people bypass my work thinking it’s nothing other than a simple painting,” she further relayed in an interview with Jung Katz. “Until they look a little closer and see that in fact it is fibers/thread. Then they have to proceed to look even closer.”

Take a closer look:

The post These Thread Paintings Blur the Lines Between Fine Art and Craft appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Although I’ve always loved art, I didn’t have any particular interest in textile arts when I was growing up, nor did I have any close relatives who did,” she admitted in an interview with Textile Artist. “When I started sewing near the end of my degree it was the first time I’d picked up a needle in years and I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. But I have always loved to draw and spent a lot of time drawing animals and exploring nature, and I think I’ve come back round to this in my current work.”

Originally from Buckinghamshire, and currently living and working in York, Giordano has been hard at work since graduating in 2011. As her work is freehand there is no prior pattern, meaning she works from her own drawings that have been created using a combination of reference and imagination. And with clients that include Penguin, Vintage Books, Bloomsbury, Liberty, and a range of private clients – her original work hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“I think I fell in love with the tactile nature of sewing and working with fabric, but I don’t regret any of the hours spent drawing as it informs how I work now,” she says. “I find I get a sense of satisfaction from working with textiles that I never had with 2D mediums.”

Working on unbleached calico that she dyes by hand, as well as single strands of sewing thread (either cotton or polyester), Giordano’s designs are drawn onto the fabric with a vanishing fabric marker.

“I’m always a bit torn between referring to my work as ‘illustration’ or ‘embroidery’,” she says, “having gone into it with the mindset of an illustrator and having no background in traditional crafts, and yet I spend too much time playing around with fabric and sewing needles to feel I can entirely say I’m an illustrator – but I like to think that’s what people find interesting about my art, that it is in a space between embroidery and painting.”

The post Chloe Giordano’s Art is at a Crossroads Between Embroidery and Illustration appeared first on PlayJunkie.

It wasn’t long before she mastered her craft, graduating from the Royal School of Needlework with an FDA in Hand Embroidery, and then from Falmouth University with a BA in Contemporary Crafts.

Nowadays, her main technique is goldwork embroidery. “I am fascinated by the way metal threads play with light and the beautiful qualities different types of metal can bring to a piece of work,” she says. “I really like the fact that metal brings an unexpected hardness to textiles, which is usually seen as quite a soft medium.”

With a love of stitch, Newton takes inspiration from the rich heritage of embroidery, while finding her own personal voice through it. She also passes her love on, by teaching embroidery and showing people from all walks of life just how awesome stitching can be.

“Goldwork is an area of embroidery which is sometimes perceived to be somewhat traditional and has many rules,” she says. “To me, a rule of how something must be worked was at some point a new invention itself, and that excites me and keeps me inspired to explore what metal threads can do, without worrying if I am doing it ‘right’.”

Here are some of her embroidery works:

The post Hanny Newton’s Embroideries Glisten with Gold appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in London, Menzies moved to Barcelona to study for a master’s in illustration, after which she formed a creative partnership with Abel Reverter (the duo is known online as Cabeza Patata). But, as time went by she also found a niche in embroidery.

“There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing my drawings come to life,” she told Inky Goodness, “especially when using such a distinctive art-form, while also exploring how it can express a message or visual idea. It’s amazing to take ownership of what is traditionally an under-appreciated art-form, and one often considered ‘woman’s work’.”

“Embroidery is very analog in our digital world so my tools are the same as those used for centuries,” she writes. “I think the reason embroidery has had a huge resurgence recently is because it’s a craft that requires very few materials: just a needle, some thread and a hoop. It’s a simple, everyday thing and anyone can have a go!”

We’re not sure we’re talented (or patient enough) to take on embroidery, but we’re more than prepared to follow Menzies on Instagram!

The post Katie Menzies’ Art Requires a Great Deal of Patience appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Sorrell Chrystal Kerrison 

Sorrell Chrystal Kerrison employs traditional embroidery techniques, but puts a spin on them, creating embroidered portraits that are meant to look like Fauvist paintings. As part of her work, she was commissioned to create a portrait of the musician Andrew Hung for the cover of his debut solo album. “My techniques are a bit punk and raw,” she told Textile Artist, talking about her creative process. “I want to improvise as I go and I love it when accidental mistakes happen, rather than planning every aspect of a piece.”

Teresa Lim

Singapore-based illustrator and embroidery artist, Teresa Lim, makes embroidered portraits that are playful if a bit cartoonish. “I like being able to create new things every day,” she told Style Theory. “It’s what keeps me going.” With more than 85k followers on Instagram and collaborations with brands like Gucci and Swarovski – she might as well keep going. Here are some of her commissioned portraits:

Bisa Butler

Artist Bisa Butler creates quilt-like portraits using colorful African fabrics. Her acclaimed work explores questions of identity and tradition. “My portraits tell stories that may have been forgotten over time,” she explained. “When you see vintage lace and aged satin it tells you the story of delicacy and refinement of times gone by. When you see African printed cotton and mud cloth it tells the story of my ancestral homeland and the cradle of civilization.”

The post These Artists Use Fabric and Textile to Create Original Portraits appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Here are some of our favorite embroidery artists on Instagram who recreate plants, flowers, and even mushrooms with amazing results.

Amanda Cobbett

First on the list is the award-winning textile artist Amanda Cobbett, which quite literally took our breath away with her realistic rendition of the forest floor. Mushrooms, moss, and discarded pieces of wood are made using stitch, papier mache, and pyrography. Machining approximately 130,000 individual stitches a day, her 3-dimensional, papier mache, and machine-embroidered sculptures, highlight the beauty and diversity that exists in the undergrowth.

Brannon Addison

Brannon Addison creates one-of-a-kind pieces that revolve around plants and flowers. Based in Durango, Colorado, she admits that there’s always something outdoors that catches her eye. “With each piece, I have a general concept in mind, but I don’t work with a template or pattern,” she admits. “All of my embroidery work is freehand, and I find beauty in the unknown of how a piece will turn out.”

Fleur Woods

Fleur Woods takes a different approach altogether with her stitched paintings. The New Zealand based artist uses fabric, gouache, and embroidery, to create her original pieces that are inspired by the natural world. Something you’d want to hang above your sofa to light up the room.

The post These Embroidery Artists Draw Inspiration Directly From Nature appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’ve always had an interest in textiles,” admitted Gilbertson in an interview with Textile Artist. “I am a fashion designer by trade, working as a performance clothing designer and lecturer in fashion design. Fashion and textiles are interconnected, and this has led to my interest in textile art. I don’t consider myself a textile artist, although I am often defined as such. I’d prefer to be regarded as a contemporary artist who uses textile materials to create art.”

Based in Cambridge, UK, where she shares a space with her two kids and two dogs, she also works as a performance sportswear designer and fashion lecturer. “My work has evolved in many directions,” she says. “I’ve experimented with color, voids of stitching, ways of framing, methods of stitching and design processes.”

“All my work contains fond memories, usually of moments in time with family and friends that are captured within the canvas,” she says. “I can usually remember what was going on in my life at the time of stitching a particular work.”

Here some of our favorite creations of her.

The post Zoe Gilbertson’s Textile Art is Based on Memories appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I have been a stitcher all my life, having been taught to sew by my mother at the age of three; and have always loved to handle threads and fabrics,” she says. But it was only during her studies that she became interested in the sculptural and structural potential of embroidery stitches and techniques.

Based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, she has graduated in 1990 from Manchester Polytechnic with an embroidery degree and has since fine-tuned her craft. “My inspiration begins with the selection of an embroidery stitch or technique, which I then explore to reveal its shape and form,” she writes. “This analysis generates ideas for the theme and structure of the finished work.”

Her embroideries often reference shapes, patterns, and rhythms drawn from nature, which are used to generate bold geometric forms. She uses vibrant progressions and interactions of color to enhance these designs. Each work is closely planned before stitching starts, however as she renders the design in three-dimensions, she sometimes discover unexpected shapes emerging from the build-up of thread lines.

Some of her works also have sheer fabrics incorporated into the design with which the threads interact. “I use transparent and translucent supporting materials to allow the journey of the stitched threads to be viewed from different angles, revealing the three-dimensional shape of the stitches, and creating continually changing perspectives,” she writes.

Take a look at some of her work below.

The post Isobel Currie’s Embroideries are Wonderfully Intricate appeared first on PlayJunkie.

According to Stiglets, nurturing ourselves and tapping into our creativity allows us to become happier, more joyful, whole people. “I encourage you to slow down, “she says. “Take some time to notice the world around you. Look within and help your mind focus and calm so that you can come from a place of quiet rather than chaos. When your mind is peaceful, your life is richer.”

In an interview with the Etsy blog, Stiglets recalled how she first experimented with embroidery when she was a teenager, by stitching little designs onto her backpack and jeans. “I put it away for a while, then came back to it years later when my kids were very young, and I pretty much never stopped!” she says. Completely self-taught, her craft was learned by trial and error, allowing herself room to make mistakes.

The kits she sells include everything you need to get started wit embroidery yourself. The pattern is pre-printed on the fabric, and the floss, needle, and hoop are included too. She also adds a Getting Started Guide, which walks you through setting up your hoop and prepping your embroidery floss. Her How-to Guide includes diagrams for a handful of her favorite basic stitches. “I give notes for each design, including which stitches I used where, so folks can replicate my example photos if they want to—or they can do their own thing,” explains Stiglets.

Get going!

The post Now Is the Perfect Time to Take On Embroidery appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Now her studio practice is divided into two parts: making embroidered accessories on the one hand, and one of a kind artworks on the other. “I try to use different embroidery techniques together,” she explains. “Enriching texture to give it a visual dynamism is very important for me.”

The finished product is a combination of illustration and embroidery, color and texture. “Mostly I try to use embroidery techniques on patterns that match their real-life texture,” notes Yazici. “I enjoy combining these traditional techniques with modern patterns. I also like fancy and intricate embroideries and I wouldn’t hesitate to decorate my works with sequins and beads.”

Her work consists of quirky and surreal worlds and characters – a dreamy landscape where magic is possible. “Even if I don’t know where to place my work within contemporary art right now, I do think they share similar characteristics with both illustration and fiber art and I try to achieve a balance between them,” says Yazici.

The post The Teeny-Tiny Embroideries of Irem Yazici appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Having graduated in Painting and Drawing from the University of Utah, her art heavily relies on her background in painting. According to Clark, it was during her studies that she discovered her love for embroidery and thread drawings (drawing with her sewing machine), blurring the lines between fine art and craft.

“My background in painting has allowed me to explore the material using techniques from the worlds of drawing and painting,” she explains. “Engaging both traditional and innovative techniques in employing formal qualities with density, texture, and pattern.”

“Visually, I love it when people bypass my work thinking it’s nothing other than a simple painting,” she further relayed in an interview with Jung Katz. “Until they look a little closer and see that in fact it is fibers/thread. Then they have to proceed to look even closer.”

Take a closer look:

The post These Thread Paintings Blur the Lines Between Fine Art and Craft appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“Although I’ve always loved art, I didn’t have any particular interest in textile arts when I was growing up, nor did I have any close relatives who did,” she admitted in an interview with Textile Artist. “When I started sewing near the end of my degree it was the first time I’d picked up a needle in years and I didn’t really know what I was doing with it. But I have always loved to draw and spent a lot of time drawing animals and exploring nature, and I think I’ve come back round to this in my current work.”

Originally from Buckinghamshire, and currently living and working in York, Giordano has been hard at work since graduating in 2011. As her work is freehand there is no prior pattern, meaning she works from her own drawings that have been created using a combination of reference and imagination. And with clients that include Penguin, Vintage Books, Bloomsbury, Liberty, and a range of private clients – her original work hasn’t gone unnoticed.

“I think I fell in love with the tactile nature of sewing and working with fabric, but I don’t regret any of the hours spent drawing as it informs how I work now,” she says. “I find I get a sense of satisfaction from working with textiles that I never had with 2D mediums.”

Working on unbleached calico that she dyes by hand, as well as single strands of sewing thread (either cotton or polyester), Giordano’s designs are drawn onto the fabric with a vanishing fabric marker.

“I’m always a bit torn between referring to my work as ‘illustration’ or ‘embroidery’,” she says, “having gone into it with the mindset of an illustrator and having no background in traditional crafts, and yet I spend too much time playing around with fabric and sewing needles to feel I can entirely say I’m an illustrator – but I like to think that’s what people find interesting about my art, that it is in a space between embroidery and painting.”

The post Chloe Giordano’s Art is at a Crossroads Between Embroidery and Illustration appeared first on PlayJunkie.

It wasn’t long before she mastered her craft, graduating from the Royal School of Needlework with an FDA in Hand Embroidery, and then from Falmouth University with a BA in Contemporary Crafts.

Nowadays, her main technique is goldwork embroidery. “I am fascinated by the way metal threads play with light and the beautiful qualities different types of metal can bring to a piece of work,” she says. “I really like the fact that metal brings an unexpected hardness to textiles, which is usually seen as quite a soft medium.”

With a love of stitch, Newton takes inspiration from the rich heritage of embroidery, while finding her own personal voice through it. She also passes her love on, by teaching embroidery and showing people from all walks of life just how awesome stitching can be.

“Goldwork is an area of embroidery which is sometimes perceived to be somewhat traditional and has many rules,” she says. “To me, a rule of how something must be worked was at some point a new invention itself, and that excites me and keeps me inspired to explore what metal threads can do, without worrying if I am doing it ‘right’.”

Here are some of her embroidery works:

The post Hanny Newton’s Embroideries Glisten with Gold appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Born in London, Menzies moved to Barcelona to study for a master’s in illustration, after which she formed a creative partnership with Abel Reverter (the duo is known online as Cabeza Patata). But, as time went by she also found a niche in embroidery.

“There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing my drawings come to life,” she told Inky Goodness, “especially when using such a distinctive art-form, while also exploring how it can express a message or visual idea. It’s amazing to take ownership of what is traditionally an under-appreciated art-form, and one often considered ‘woman’s work’.”

“Embroidery is very analog in our digital world so my tools are the same as those used for centuries,” she writes. “I think the reason embroidery has had a huge resurgence recently is because it’s a craft that requires very few materials: just a needle, some thread and a hoop. It’s a simple, everyday thing and anyone can have a go!”

We’re not sure we’re talented (or patient enough) to take on embroidery, but we’re more than prepared to follow Menzies on Instagram!

The post Katie Menzies’ Art Requires a Great Deal of Patience appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Sorrell Chrystal Kerrison 

Sorrell Chrystal Kerrison employs traditional embroidery techniques, but puts a spin on them, creating embroidered portraits that are meant to look like Fauvist paintings. As part of her work, she was commissioned to create a portrait of the musician Andrew Hung for the cover of his debut solo album. “My techniques are a bit punk and raw,” she told Textile Artist, talking about her creative process. “I want to improvise as I go and I love it when accidental mistakes happen, rather than planning every aspect of a piece.”

Teresa Lim

Singapore-based illustrator and embroidery artist, Teresa Lim, makes embroidered portraits that are playful if a bit cartoonish. “I like being able to create new things every day,” she told Style Theory. “It’s what keeps me going.” With more than 85k followers on Instagram and collaborations with brands like Gucci and Swarovski – she might as well keep going. Here are some of her commissioned portraits:

Bisa Butler

Artist Bisa Butler creates quilt-like portraits using colorful African fabrics. Her acclaimed work explores questions of identity and tradition. “My portraits tell stories that may have been forgotten over time,” she explained. “When you see vintage lace and aged satin it tells you the story of delicacy and refinement of times gone by. When you see African printed cotton and mud cloth it tells the story of my ancestral homeland and the cradle of civilization.”

The post These Artists Use Fabric and Textile to Create Original Portraits appeared first on PlayJunkie.

Here are some of our favorite embroidery artists on Instagram who recreate plants, flowers, and even mushrooms with amazing results.

Amanda Cobbett

First on the list is the award-winning textile artist Amanda Cobbett, which quite literally took our breath away with her realistic rendition of the forest floor. Mushrooms, moss, and discarded pieces of wood are made using stitch, papier mache, and pyrography. Machining approximately 130,000 individual stitches a day, her 3-dimensional, papier mache, and machine-embroidered sculptures, highlight the beauty and diversity that exists in the undergrowth.

Brannon Addison

Brannon Addison creates one-of-a-kind pieces that revolve around plants and flowers. Based in Durango, Colorado, she admits that there’s always something outdoors that catches her eye. “With each piece, I have a general concept in mind, but I don’t work with a template or pattern,” she admits. “All of my embroidery work is freehand, and I find beauty in the unknown of how a piece will turn out.”

Fleur Woods

Fleur Woods takes a different approach altogether with her stitched paintings. The New Zealand based artist uses fabric, gouache, and embroidery, to create her original pieces that are inspired by the natural world. Something you’d want to hang above your sofa to light up the room.

The post These Embroidery Artists Draw Inspiration Directly From Nature appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I’ve always had an interest in textiles,” admitted Gilbertson in an interview with Textile Artist. “I am a fashion designer by trade, working as a performance clothing designer and lecturer in fashion design. Fashion and textiles are interconnected, and this has led to my interest in textile art. I don’t consider myself a textile artist, although I am often defined as such. I’d prefer to be regarded as a contemporary artist who uses textile materials to create art.”

Based in Cambridge, UK, where she shares a space with her two kids and two dogs, she also works as a performance sportswear designer and fashion lecturer. “My work has evolved in many directions,” she says. “I’ve experimented with color, voids of stitching, ways of framing, methods of stitching and design processes.”

“All my work contains fond memories, usually of moments in time with family and friends that are captured within the canvas,” she says. “I can usually remember what was going on in my life at the time of stitching a particular work.”

Here some of our favorite creations of her.

The post Zoe Gilbertson’s Textile Art is Based on Memories appeared first on PlayJunkie.

“I have been a stitcher all my life, having been taught to sew by my mother at the age of three; and have always loved to handle threads and fabrics,” she says. But it was only during her studies that she became interested in the sculptural and structural potential of embroidery stitches and techniques.

Based in Stockport, Greater Manchester, she has graduated in 1990 from Manchester Polytechnic with an embroidery degree and has since fine-tuned her craft. “My inspiration begins with the selection of an embroidery stitch or technique, which I then explore to reveal its shape and form,” she writes. “This analysis generates ideas for the theme and structure of the finished work.”

Her embroideries often reference shapes, patterns, and rhythms drawn from nature, which are used to generate bold geometric forms. She uses vibrant progressions and interactions of color to enhance these designs. Each work is closely planned before stitching starts, however as she renders the design in three-dimensions, she sometimes discover unexpected shapes emerging from the build-up of thread lines.

Some of her works also have sheer fabrics incorporated into the design with which the threads interact. “I use transparent and translucent supporting materials to allow the journey of the stitched threads to be viewed from different angles, revealing the three-dimensional shape of the stitches, and creating continually changing perspectives,” she writes.

Take a look at some of her work below.

The post Isobel Currie’s Embroideries are Wonderfully Intricate appeared first on PlayJunkie.