Both my classes are with students who are “starting off”, first year graduate students and sophomore undergraduate students in interior design. While sophomores are in their second year of college. It’s their first year in their chosen discipline. I realize after years of teaching at different levels of programs, I like this beginning stage most. I like to be there for the messiness that comes with starting something new but also the energy. So much energy! Much and all as the students try to contain themselves, it’s in their eyes, they sparkle and flicker. In the Irish language there is a word for inspiration which is gríosadh, meaning to be excited or sparked by something. Gríos means hot embers, something that glows or smolders. If I can’t see those hot embers in their eyes I have to make sure they get there… even if it takes an entire semester.

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The Antwerp Six photographed by Karel Fonteyne

If you don’t remember as far back as the 1980’s, a key factor to know is that it was a time of economic and political crisis, both in the U.S. and across the Atlantic, ridiculously high inflation rates (14.8% in March 1980 versus 3.4% as of July this year) and a war (The Cold War). Conservative and corporation-positive leaders on both sides of the ocean - Margaret Thatcher (UK) and Ronald Reagan deindustrialized both countries, decimating industries, unions, and yet the people remained optimistic. At this time Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe. Unemployment and interest rates in the mid-high teens. Income tax, even for middle income earners was at a staggering 65%. It’s no wonder the brain drain was in full force with 200,000 of the Irish population emigrating in that decade. It was a bleak time - in reality, in the day to day, but also optimistic.

The Berlin wall came down at the end of that decade. It’s not a result that comes overnight, but the work to achieve it brings anticipation. Anticipation is a nurturing emotion; anticipation is the light at the end of the tunnel. Anticipation alone isn’t enough for change; it can only be impactful if the train keeps coming (and doesn’t run you over). Other factors need to be in place. The team needs to exist, across all scales. Everyone needs to get onboard, or most everyone. Thatchers can take a seat.

This can be heard in the music of the time, pop but in the shadow of punk. Edgy pop - looked like punk but sounded like pop, think Madonna Like a Virgin (1984). I listen to that music now and I find it sickly sweet and I am a little mystified, but optimism does that. Optimism can sweep us up and before we know it, we’ve over-egged the pudding. Optimism also allows people like Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to think they can pull off a 16-hour concert across two continents to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia. Band-Aid stopped the world in its tracks in July 1985. In Belgium, at a different scale, there was another collaborative force brewing with dreams as big with members who also considered obstacles as inconsequential.

Given the start of a new semester and the optimism in the room it seems appropriate to mail this Air Letter this week. I want to share it with the full audience because if there ever was a shining example of the power of collaboration (and we can all benefit by being reminded of that) is what happened in Belgium in the 1980’s.

When a government forges a textile plan and textile competition (The Golden Spindle) meets an academic institution - The Antwerp Academy - whose focus was on creativity and not economics meets an unfettered student population, brilliant things are bound to happen, and they did. All under the umbrella Fashion: It’s Belgium.

Infrastructure like this fosters collaboration and healthy competition. Students aren’t forced to scramble for scraps in a world where only one star rises. They can dream and make knowing that the ability to dream and make is enough, it is the griosadh.

In 1986, after the degree show at the Antwerp Academy, six designers bundled themselves and their work into a beat-up van and traveled to London for the British Designer Show. Within a week they were all in order books for Barneys (NY), Bergdorf Goodman (NY) and Liberty (London).

The designers became the rarest of rare phenomena - a group excelling in a highly competitive, individualistic arena that is driven by advertising, speed (the turnaround of catwalk shows), and a general disregard for its impact on the planet. Their work and the zeitgeist that surrounded them continues to inform fashion today albeit a tamer environment.

Exhibition Link

This exhibition is curated by Geert Bruloot (professor to the Antwerp Six at The Antwerp Academy), Romy Cockx and Kaat Debo. These are their words

Over the past forty years, the Antwerp Six - Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee - have become a lasting reference in international fashion and an almost self-evident benchmark for everything Belgium has represented in terms of fashion in recent decades. This exhibition highlights the unique journey that connects them. It began with their training at the fashion department of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and culminated in six influential solo careers.

Their enduring relevance touches on themes that are more urgent than ever in fashion today: artistic autonomy, talent development, creative ecosystems and the influence of a rapidly changing fashion industry on these spheres. The Six understood fashion not merely as trend-driven consumption, but as a cultural medium - a way of thinking and representing the spirit of the times.

When this arrives in your inbox, I’ll most likely be at my desk trying to make the chain stronger for my students or at least the link I can help craft. The infrastructure doesn’t seem to be as robust as Belgium in the 80’s but I think there is a lot to get excited about. If we can agree on trying to make it work, I promise to rent the van!

Le grá,

Catherine

x-x-x-x-x-x

On December 01 2024 I wrote a newsletter (you can find it here) that was to become the foundation of an ongoing series - Embroidery in Conflict Zones - in which I looked at Palestine. I signed off that letter with

It is in their muscle memory from stitching and farming, going to market, and defending the land. In the slow work of embroidery stories and histories are literally stitched together. Now they are being unpicked at an alarming rate.

In the time span, between that newsletter and now, more than 27,000 Palestinian lives have been lost in this ongoing war1. With all this understanding embedded in my body, the exact location unknown - is it my head? It feels like my heart but also my stomach - I found myself in a museum in Antwerp (MOMU) in front of garments and embroidery samples that I could only dream about seeing in books.

In every regard, I was impressed by the creation of the show - shout out to the team involved, Guest curator: Rachel Dedman, Graphic design: Maria Sledsens, Production: Marie Vandecasteele. So much about this show was unexpected, I had gone to the museum to see the major show of the summer - The Antwerp Six - which was on everyone’s watchlist, and I stumbled upon this exhibition. But the scale of the exhibition was very impressive. It’s hard for an embroidery nerd to find large collections on show, typically embroidery is part of a larger show, not the show.

A considerable collection of Palestinian textiles is in itself remarkable because logistically to showcase embroideries from an active conflict zone seems impossible, how could they be sourced and transported? The answer is they weren’t and, side note: who knows what’s left there? The collection for our eyes was borrowed from museums and collectors across the world, mainly Europe. This also could provoke a question of ownership and provenance, but that’s for another newsletter. The sad truth is at this moment in time they are safer on the other side of their own borders. Adding this layer of accessibility to it means I can’t overestimate the undertaking, that’s without even thinking about the resistance that might come from a show of this type at this moment in time.

First take: Nicely done!

What was very interesting and ultimately what I considered to be a very successful part of the exhibition was that it acknowledged the current conflict without making it center stage. I don’t say that to discount or minimize the brutality that we see and read about but this approach removes a possible excuse not to visit. Whether thoughts be uttered aloud or noted internally “I really can’t see this now… I’m overwhelmed and exhausted with what is going on”, what we were presented with was, exactly as the title noted Embroidering Palestine. The main character energy came from the embroideries and garments so the question becomes whether to see cultural embroideries or not.

It is a testament to the curation and production teams that we get to understand the reason that these embroideries exist. People, mainly women, share their stories within this very strong cultural context and within strong communities. A method of visual storytelling that has been passed down through the maternal line. We are shown embroidery as a tool to demonstrate resistance and to signify the community and the culture that still exists for Palestinians.

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One sure way of getting me on a plane, train, or in an automobile is to tell me there is a great exhibition at the end of the journey. I have always made trips exclusively to see exhibitions - Chicago, Belfast, Texas, Belgium - which I thought was a plausible thing to do until someone pointed it out to me in a bar that it was an odd reason alone to visit a city. I didn’t understand it then, or now. I can’t think of a better reason to visit a city/town/random gallery in the wilderness (North Carolina). This summer alone I have seen exhibitions in New York, Antwerp (multiple), Tilberg, Bruges, Belfast, Dublin, Mayo, Edinburgh, and Dundee. They were all deliberate stops on the return trip from home to Home.

It’s taken me quite a while to acknowledge that the highlight of my summers are the summer exhibitions. I never thought of it much, aside from the change in temperature, summertime isn’t really that much different to the rest of the year. Yes, it usually involves a longer break from work or school and might have associations of “freedom” and leisure that seem invisible at all other times, but my reality is that things don’t really get any easier in the summertime. Am I alone here?

We can fool ourselves into thinking it will be easier but that’s not dissimilar in my mind to seeing a rainbow and being spellbound. Light hits things differently in the summer - water, glass, people’s faces - it is a magic trick. A really good magic trick and I’m fooled every year, but I don’t allow myself to feel tricked. Not anymore at least. Once May comes around, I remind myself that a quiet summer is a misnomer. It’s different for sure, but quiet it isn’t. Taking a vacation brings the stress of handing everything over in as a complete a way as possible. In my private work I have never been able to take my vacation time in full. I’m fine with that. I prefer to keep things moving.

What is different is the weather is less wet and cold. It is no longer straightforward to say the weather is “better”, there is nothing reassuring about the current climate conditions. If you’re in Europe the days are significantly longer. The water is warmer - is it, or is the air around the water just warmer? Having ice-cream seem appropriate rather than an unnecessary indulgence. So, there are lots of really good things to indulge in, guilt free. It’s summer after all.

This summer has been jam-packed, squeezing everything in when I saw the tiniest opportunity all while working. I couldn’t have seen as much in the U.S. Public transport in Europe is cheaper and so much more accessible. Oh! And all the museums and galleries are free, with the exception of a couple of (literally two) special exhibitions.

When I’m visiting exhibitions, I like to be able to move at the beat of my own drum. I like to be able to allow myself as much time (unapologetically) over details that might not interest someone else. My sister gets this, her and my internal drums are pretty in sync. And even if they’re not we each leave space for the other to find their rhythm again. I don’t really do other things on these trips, meaning fine dining or excursions, I just go to see the work. I walk as much as I can and most times, I go alone… unless I’m traveling with the aforementioned sister - which was a real treat for the Belgium trip in May. After travel, expenses are minimal. The one treat I insist on is a museum catalog. I wish I didn’t feel compelled to get the catalogues (but they are so hard to find afterwards) ... my shoulder joints would appreciate it!

That all to say I am bringing back the “Air Letters”. To my surprise I haven’t written one of these since visiting Penland Gallery in NC, last October.

Penland Air Letter Here!

For those of you who are new here, this newsletter is that “A letter: a running stitch” and periodically I share “air letters” to my paid subscribers from exhibitions or places of interest I have visited. They are my traveling newsletters; I wrote about them before

HERE!

but the essence being

There are so many ways to communicate in writing, each with their own particular qualities. I think of my weekly letters as more of musings on a stitch, a happening, something connected to my practice, so therefore can be a little longer (although I definitely try to keep them to a 7-minute read max), postcards are shorter reports back from something interesting I’ve encountered on my travels. Travels which include simply leaving my apartment! I live in New York after all, and it can be really easy to forget that this is a place people come to (All. The. Time.) to experience interesting things. To continue the letter writing metaphor, between a letter and a postcard is an air letter, or aerogramme.

What I will be covering (all descriptions in italics are taken from the exhibition catalog/website)

• Mending Lands - Marte Mei, St. Vincent Gallery, Antwerp.

The exhibition marks the debut of a new body of work developed through an extended research residency in Zeeland, in the south of the Netherlands: a region profoundly affected by PFAS contamination linked to nearby chemical plants.

This is an exhibition of ceramics and furniture but her process aligns so closely with my own philosophies that I’m sure you’ll really enjoy it too.

• Chintz. A Blend of Craftsmanship and Controversy - MOMU, Antwerp, Belgium.

A focus on chintz and how textile practices carry and transmit social, cultural, and historical meanings across generations.

• The Antwerp Six - MOMU, Antwerp, Belgium.

The exhibition highlights the unique trajectory that connects these six exceptional designers. It began with their study at the fashion department at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp and resulted in six highly influential solo careers. In 1986, Dirk Bikkembergs, Ann Demeulemeester, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dries Van Noten, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee put Antwerp on the fashion map when they each presented their own collections at the British Designer Show in London. This led to their international breakthrough and established the City of Antwerp as a capital of fashion. Their unique designs continue to influence international fashion today.

• Embroidering Palestine - MOMU, Antwerp, Belgium.

This exhibition explores Palestinian embroidery and dress through the lenses of nature, splendour, power and change. Tatreez was a rural craft, embedded in women’s relationship to nature – from motifs inspired by Palestinian flora, to fabrics dyed with indigo grown in the Galilee. At the same time, the splendour of embroidery attested to women’s wealth and status….Silver jewellery, along with certain tatreez motifs, also held talismanic significance, reflecting the power of clothing to affect and protect the body.

• Man <3 Machine - 25 Years of TextielLab - Textile Museum, Tilberg, The Netherlands

What happens when craftsmanship and high-tech innovation meet? In Man <3 Machine – 25 Years of TextielLab, you discover how artists, designers and machines work together to create textiles that exceed expectations. From monumental wall hangings to sculptural 3D-woven works, this exhibition reveals how textiles come alive, move and continually reinvent themselves.

• Setting the Table Sustainably - Textile Museum, Tilberg, The Netherlands

Diaper damask - a simple form of damask - was one of the inspirations to develop a new, everyday tableware for our own label. For the design, we invited Eindhoven-based Envisions. But we gave them and ourselves an additional challenge: Make a product as sustainable as possible. In this expo, we show this extensive design process.

• Bruges’ Lace Centre - Kant Centrum, Bruge, Belgium

In the lace museum the accent is on contextualising the origins of lace and on some early developments. Displays include the basic techniques and movements, types of lace and their geographical origins, the lace industry then and now and lace teaching in Bruges. The craftsmanship and aesthetics of lace are honoured and, in addition, the contemporary and international appeal of lace is featured.

• Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop - Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh, Scotland

This exhibition is a celebration of sixty years of Cosprop’s creativity and an opportunity to see behind the scenes of this celebrated costume house. Through stunning costumes, accessories and sketches, the visitor will learn the design and making process from script to screen. Leading costume designers and actors will share their thoughts on favourite costumes, showing how Cosprop brought these magical moments to life.

• Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show - V&A Dundee, Scotland

..charts the dramatic evolution of the catwalk, from the private salons of the late 19th century to today’s immersive, live-streamed runway experiences. Celebrating the creativity and energy of the fashion show, Catwalk: The Art of the Fashion Show brings together landmark examples from renowned houses including Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Maison Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Mary Quant, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Charles Jeffrey, among others.

• 100 Years of RRS Discovery - Discovery Point, Dundee, Scotland

(This might seem like an odd inclusion, but I was surprised to find so much sewing and culturally relatable content!)

100 years ago, RRS Discovery was designated the UK’s first Royal Research Ship. This was a pivotal moment in the history of marine science and launched a legacy of global oceanographic exploration that continues today. To commemorate this milestone, curators from the National Oceanography Centre’s Discovery Collections and the University of Southampton’s National Oceanographic Library have collaborated with the Dundee Heritage Trust and the Marine Biological Association to develop a special exhibition entitled 100 Years of RRS Discovery exploring the evolution of ocean research over the past century.

The Air Letters are part of the paid subscriber offerings so if you don’t see it come up on your feed, that’s why but if you feel like you’d like to see some of the work from incredible artists and curators that I saw over the summer you could sign up for a single month and read them all together.

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So, a very busy summer! I want you to enjoy and benefit from all I got to see… without the travel time! So put the kettle on, these Air letters are winging their way to you!

Le grá,

Catherine

x-x-x-x-x-x

A month ago, for a series of workshops over two days I was nestled at the foot of the embarrassingly beautiful Mourne Mountains. It was just heaven from beginning to end where everyone walked away with something of value, but without a doubt, I was the biggest winner!

Nestled might seem an attempt to be poetic, it’s not, it’s an honest and perfect description of what it felt like to be there, the distinct balance of comfort and shelter, haven and home as it were.

The base of mountains are inherently sheltered spaces, but that’s not to say unchanging. the opposite if anything.

Sheltered spaces are bursting with life whether it’s lush landscapes or thriving communities. To thrive demands care. Simple as. The instructions on care that come from the mountains are a daily lesson but shared in a whisper, like prayers. Quiet, urgent humming.

This is how I imagine we learn from the landscape, wisdom shared like a secret, all the details on how to flourish and grow given generously but almost silently.

Meeting people who live on or near mountains has always inspired me, I get a bit awestruck actually, similar to seeing a magician doing even a basic card trick… so how did you know/do that? These sages have an incredible understanding of nature; an honest realization and deep respect knowing that on the mountain, when weather turns, nature will win.

I can’t help but think that despite there being so many literary and religious examples of going to the mountains to share information, I am more and more convinced it is a place to listen, not preach.

Here at the foot of the Mourne Mountains, nestled - snug-as-a-bug-in a-rug-nestled - is Mourne Textiles. I’ve written about my relationship with the Mourne Textiles family before (after this trip I nominated myself as one of them now!), they are just the best of people who happen to make the most gorgeous fabric, scarves, rugs, and wall-hangings. Their philosophies on work and life are completely enmeshed - quality and craft is the bedrock of it all - exceptional friendships, food, objects, materials, experiences. Each, beautifully crafted in a way that comes only from a place full of care. A place of care-full-ness.

We planned four workshops over the two days; it was intense but brilliant. Looking back and in the moment, the image that is conjured up is the transformation that happens in metal or glasswork when extreme heat is applied - rewards so much greater than the sum of its parts. In these materials even failed attempts look marvelous.

The reason I opened with the local environment is because the people I met over this weekend were themselves so exceptional, I couldn’t help but think this can’t be a coincidence. I credit the soil with molding each of our personas. I am who I am and what I do because of a foggy, boggy, West of Ireland landscape. I bet you too could draw a line from the soil of your past and what it supports to who you are today. Think about it.

Ireland is full of nice people but at this workshop it was different. They were nice but not in a way that forsook what they wanted or needed. Not nice for the sake of being nice or because it was expected. Incidentally, the whole definition of “nice” in Ireland as it relates to people is an entire newsletter on its own and far too much to try and get into here which has to be telling as I’ve just attempted to break down lessons from nature into a few sentences!!

Not everyone in the four groups was local so it couldn’t be something unique to the area… there isn’t something in the water in other words. But there was definitely a common thread between everyone, it couldn’t have been such a positive experience otherwise. So, if it wasn’t Rostrevor specific, what’s the explanation? Quick answer: it doesn’t matter. I like to think that the people who came have a common sensibility; loving the work and fabrics of Mourne Textiles and the community they have nurtured and built and wanting to build their own culture of care around solid Mourne Textile philosophies. Long answer: is that in benefiting from shelter we by default become nurturers. Sheltered situations feed a nurturing nature.

The ability to nurture doesn’t mean there aren’t setbacks in life or sometimes real spine-crushing burdens to be carried but it doesn’t take wealth, success, good looks, or a brilliant mind. It takes time and an open heart. These people had received it and gave it.

Mario and Tara had laid out the workshop space, so we sat and sewed on the same floor that seventy-seven years earlier Mario’s Grandmother - Gerd Hay-Edie - had set up with her first looms. Adjacent to the room we had tea and chatted and looked out on to the Mournes through huge windows. Delight in every form, at every turn.

I thrive on discovering a view or an experience shared by some I’m inspired by, usually centuries or at least decades earlier. The only discernible difference being the passage of time. As a teenager my father brought me with him to Lissadelle House in Sligo as we walked down the path to the main road, he reminded me that this is where W.B. Yeats lived with the Gore-Booth sisters for a period at the end of the nineteenth century. The idea that I was walking on the same path that this icon of literature walked was such a bomb-shell moment. Since then, I’ve always searched for these places. Being in the workroom of such a fearless and formidable designer is a fitting place to find myself and equally explosive.

The classes were darning and Sashiko. Approximately 3 hours each with 10-11 people in each group. We went through the steps made and mistaked but always kept going. The words “test” and ‘sample’ were used a lot… as well as a personal favorite “every fault’s a fashion”. The timing was right because we all got to an end. It might not have been the end but close enough to have figured out what needed to be done if something did need to be corrected. The results were so beautiful. The stitches look great too!

The whole weekend made me rethink what I do in this space - Substack and workshops - and I’m still noodling on that, but it makes me want to return to the monthly Sewcial Experiments for paid subscribers but maybe a mix of formats. I think I might need to be more mountain-like: in the same spot, stitching, every month. The work still happens either way - something will land in your inbox each month whether or not you can make it. And when the timing aligns we’ll work together. Finding a time across continents is hard, so I’ll send paid subscribers a few options and we’ll catch what we can together. It won’t suit every month, but the mountain will be here. Come when you can, and catch some whispers!

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Le grá,

Catherine x-x-x-x-x-x

The main goal of going there was to see the University of Ulster degree shows. I graduated from this university, this is my college, my alma mater (in the true sense of the definition nourishing mother), and I was curious to see the work of current students.

I didn’t plan this trip very well. It wasn’t planned at all in fact. I booked my hotel nine hours before I took the train. It was very much a Catherine Murphy trip, spontaneous and without strategy, but still it came together. Somehow the jigsaw pieces that made up this adventure all fell face up and into place.

I arrived from the train and dropped my bag at the hotel. At least I had that part figured out! I was going to stay in a place that was convenient to the Art college and the city center, yet remarkably it was a part of the city I never walked when I lived there. That is the equivalent of living in the East Village and never walking through Alphabet City. But then, New York is not Belfast.

I lived in Belfast pre-Good Friday Agreement. It was a city troubled by the Troubles, carrying the level of exhaustion that comes from something that is persistent and unrelenting. Exhaustion that has only one option left, to devise an end. Yet, it was a place full of vibrancy and life that defies description given the context. I loved every second of my time there, even when it meant having all eyes open, all of the time.

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I’ve been running workshops for years now, and I keep notes after each one. These notes are not at all polished, but they are honest - voice notes while making tea, bullet points on my phone, musings in the bath two days later or when I’m sewing myself (I do my best thinking when I’m sewing)! I try not to think of these reflections as being too serious. Instead to summon them as if they were responses from little kids - honest but not mean. Obvious. Superficial, in the best sense of the word.

The only way there is any hope of these child-like responses to exist is if I treat them as if they are for my ears only. I am now about to break my own rule!

Last weekend I ran four online sessions - Darning (Saturday & Sunday), Sashiko, and Decorative Stitching - as part of my ongoing fundraising for Brielle Grace Breast Cancer Foundation, a breast cancer care charity I’ve been partnering with for four years now. Deliberately I wanted small groups, an intimate gathering. A group where any number more than zero is just the right size. I’m sure part of my subconscious thinking dipped into the Brielle Grace BCF philosophy of offering immediate care rather than funds for long-term research. It was important to me that the 90-minutes felt good for everyone

These workshops were shorter than my typical ones, so a smaller group was essential. Even with all of the money donated for the workshop fee going to Brielle Grace, it still had to have value for the participants, in the moment, not just the moment of donating.

Here’s what the child critic shared and what I’ve been noodling on since

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Forty days of picking up, not giving up; my 2026 Lenten challenge came to an end on Easter Sunday. Growing up with this tradition of sacrifice combined with year-round Catholic guilt, doing something I enjoy for penance seems, at a minimum, an oxymoron but more likely a sin in itself.

This period, in addition to the curtailing of habits (commonly sweets…

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For everyone else - here’s the short version.

This year, for the third year in a …

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Much to my own surprise, March has become a month of reflection. Life circumstances bestowed it on me. It could have been any month, but the Universe decided it is March and when it comes to things of the Universe, I’ve learned to accept them with an open heart.

I have a different moment of pause and reflection in November; this has been with me all of …

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The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe. This expands the scope, not just of the material at our disposal to create from, but of the life we get to live.

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

I expect you’re a little tired of images of snow so we’ll change it up for this final installment in our second annual sewcial retreat and look to a snow-free Irish landscape for inspiration!

Before I move into the main body of this letter I want to thank you for joining, I’ve enjoyed it so much and I continue to learn even with stitches I’ve been using for years! If you’re in NYC this week I’ll be doing a workshop and presentation that speaks to some of this work but all of my own work and my philosophy around care and repair. I’d love to see you in person. Email to follow but you can get a quick peek here. The events are free but do need to be registered for! I hope to see any NY’ers there!!

Stitching the Seen and the Unseen

Repair in the Air

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All art is a work in progress. It’s helpful to see the piece we’re working on as an experiment. One in which we can’t predict the outcome. Whatever the result, we will receive useful information that will benefit the next experiment. If you start from the position that there is no right or wrong, no good or bad, and creativity is just free play with no rules, it’s easier to submerge yourself joyfully in the process of making things. We’re not playing to win, we’re playing to play. And ultimately, playing is fun. Perfectionism gets in the way of fun. A more skillful goal might be to find comfort in the process. To make and put out successive works with ease.

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

As our sewcial retreat comes to a close, on this our penultimate day I encourage you to take everything you’ve learned - running stitches that can mark the passage of time, bold couching that unleashes your creativity, deliberate cross stitches that build pattern into your work, playful French knots that add joy and texture - and let them all sit together on fabric, whichever way you choose, telling your unique story.

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The act of creation is an attempt to enter a mysterious realm. A longing to transcend. What we create allows us to share glimpses of an inner landscape, one that is beyond our understanding. Art is our portal to the unseen world.

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

(Tractor wheel treads crossing over each other to make this cross-stitch pattern)

DAY 6 Stit…

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Art is choosing to do something skillfully,

caring about the details,

bringing all of yourself

to make the finest work you can.

It is beyond ego, vanity, self-glorification,

and need for approval.

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

(some snowy curves for inspiration)

DAY 5 Stitch: Chain stitch

The chain stitch is a decorative stitch, simple, looping, forward mo…

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All that matters is that you are making something you love, to the best of your ability, here and now.

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

DAY 4 Inspiration:

Here the tread marks from a bicycle wheel are the inspiration for the isolation stitch.

DAY 4 Stitch: French knot

Today we’re looking at probably the most popular and widely used isolation stitch - the …

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Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

DAY 3 Inspiration: Today’s reference image is similar to yesterday’s, but it will yield very different results with this technique.

DAY 3 Stitch: Couching

Couching is a technique that sits in two families of embro…

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Oscar Wilde said that some things are too important to be taken seriously. Art is one of those things. Setting the bar low, especially to get started, frees you to play, explore, and test without attachment to results

Cheerleader of the Week: Rick Rubin

DAY 2 Inspiration:

DAY 2 Stitch: Running Stitch

There’s such an economy with the running stitch. It’s a s…

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Welcome!

As if it was carefully planned on my behalf (never!) and if you’re in the North East of the U.S. the first day of our second annual sewcial retreat falls on a snow day. There is nothing like the excitement a snow day brings. I always find myself doing work I couldn’t “allow” myself to do on other weekdays - filing, deep cleaning, tidying out closets. Whether you feel compelled to do something more “useful”, be generous with yourself and allow yourself 30 minutes to read this and plan the focus of this retreat for you.

This year, rather than make the stitches the starting point of each day’s exercise, I thought it might be interesting to look to inspirational imagery for our mark making first. What if we let the images suggest the stitch and let the stitches dictate the rest. I will provide imagery each day… (another interesting coincidence is that) the images I have been saving for this sewcial retreat are all photographs I took over the Christmas break when I was in Ireland. I photographed markings in the snow, markings that to me looked very much like stitches and thus birthed the idea for this year’s retreat.

Over the next eight days, we’ll practice foundational embroidery stitches and savor the pleasure of mindful creativity. There are no expectations, no pressure - just playful discovery. I encourage you to approach these eight days with curiosity, openness and fun. This should be super enjoyable, and it will be if you’re careful to not let critical thoughts and judgement seep into the space you create for yourself. This experience will be even more enjoyable and more meaningful (and much easier to drown out the inner critic) when you do it with a buddy. Feel free to invite your friends along. Whether a seasoned stitcher or a curious beginner, this retreat is for them.

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I’ll show you how to thread a needle, make a knot, and create your first mark with thread. It’s a stitch of course but it doesn’t have to be a specific stitch just mark-making with thread!

I’ll meet you in the notes with daily progress, please share yours too and if you want to join our second annual sewcial retreat subscribe below. You don’t need to join to participate in the challenge but if you’re looking for community and some focused activities join us!

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Let’s get going and please share what you’re working on, if you’re on IG tag @thesewciallifeof or #40daysofstitch #lentenchallenge See you tomorrow!

Hello there,

My attempt for this letter is to see if I can get it written in one sitting. I have failed already as I rewrote the first five words twice (so far) LOL. I have been noodling on everything I want to write for the past two weeks but not committing any of it to “paper” as I have this current fixation with getting things “right”. This goes contr…

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