stitching emotions - 50 women stitchers

 as part of an exhibition responding to the work of Mary Linwood, Ruth Singer launched several collaborative projects including Stitching Emotions - this has come at a time when i needed a short project to work on and th theme also appealed to me - so along with a few other Maker Members i have been developing my response

in the end i produced a series of three pieces - 50 Women Stitchers I, II, and III

i decided to ask other local women who stitch about their reasons for and feelings about stitch using a short online survey - i used local social networks to get a variety of responses as i felt that my own textile-related network would be a rather biased - a multiple choice questionnaire was chosen for ease of analysis (see below) 

then i looked at different ways of representing the data in stitched textile - the first was a rather simplistic approach with colour blocks and different colour threads to represent the responses - in the next i chose different stitches for the responses to each question and a crazy patchwork style, i found this more satisfactory and much more enjoyable to stitch

still not entirely happy with my early attempts i thought of using blackwork designs with each stitch reperesenting the responses, using mainly the same colours as before 

a lot of the stitching was done while i was stuck indoors with a chest infection - this left me brain-fogged and with no energy so it was soothing to sit and work simple stitches into cloth - my mind usually wanders down rabbit holes when i stitch, but because i had to count stitches i had to focus more, i found it far too easy to lose tack so i did a lot of unpicking - but one of the joys of stitch is that mistakes are rarely irredeemable

I enjoyed stitching all of these and would have like to be able to reflect on thr responses to the survey as i stitched, but focusing on numbers got in the way - but the responses all felt positive and enthusiastic, as reflected in the responses to Q4 - i also reflected this by using lighter shades of the colour palette we were given as i found the original shdes a little gloomy

the blackwork (III) was my favourite as i had enjoyed stitching these patterns in the past - finding patterns which would contain enough "strokes" to form a recognisable pattern from the number of responses i had was a little more challenging than finding the different stitches used in I & II

the survey

1. Can you sew with a needle and thread or a sewing machine? 

if No ignore further questions

Yes

No

responses to this question were not shown as i only used data from the 50 respondents who answered Yes - 4 answered No

2. What is your age range?

a. up to 15

b. 16-30

c. 31-45

d. 46-60

e. 61-75

f. 76 or over

3. What type of sewing do you do?

mark all which apply to you

a. I sew for my work

b. I make  clothes for myself and/or my family, 

c. I repair clothes

d. I make soft furnishings (curtains cushions etc)

e. I repair soft furnishings

f. I sew as a leisure activity

4. Mark the statements you agree with

a. I enjoy sewing

b. I find sewing frustrating

c. i sew because i have to

d. I sew for pleasure

e. I don’t always finish the sewing I start

f.  sewing helps me to relax

 5. Roughly how often do you sew?

1 response only

a. several times a week

b. at least every couple of weeks

c. less than once a month

d. less than once a year

6. Which of the types of sewing in Q3 do you do most - a, b,c,d,e or f

1 response only

The diagrams below

 show which blocks represent responses from each question

i used the same colours to represent responses a-f each time in I & II - for III i changed the selected colours, but principle was the same