Welcome to Gear Threads, where we showcase artists who are elevating machine embroidery to new heights!
It’s pretty amazing what you can produce with the humble sewing machine; just drop those feed dogs and you can machine embroider all kinds of art. We’ve got tons of instructional posts here on MrXStitch that will help you get to grips with this exciting technique, and if you want inspiration, here are fifteen of our favourite machine embroidery artists for you to enjoy! Click on the links in each post and you can read our review of their work!
Nike Schroeder is a Los Angeles based artist who uses free machine embroidery to explore human experience and play at the edges of abstraction and surrealism.
Marloes Duyker is a illustrator from Utrecht in the Netherlands, who specialises in fabricated illustrations creating with a sewing machine.
Rosie James is a textile artist from Rochester, England. She captures human nature using machine and hand embroidery, immortalising fleeting moments that might escape us otherwise; allowing us to stop and stare at a world we might have missed.
Meredith Woolnough is a visual artist from New South Wales who uses free machine embroidery and soluble fabrics to create mesmerising organic-inspired sculptures that are as technically triumphant as they are visually beautiful.
Oliver Bliss is a Worcester-based embroidery artist whose recent “SoftLad” series of large-scale machine stitched tapestries explores the difference between social media images and the reality of modern manhood.
Jessica Larson is a mixed media artist from Minnesota. Her machine embroidered art explores contemporary pressure on feminine norms, by reproducing classic icons with a subversive twist.
Paul Nosa is an artist from Tucson, Arizona. His pedal powered sewing machine allows him to create freestyle improvised embroideries on request – bleeding edge creativity!
Stacey Chapman is an embroidery artist from Margate, whose machine embroidered portraits capture the humanity in all her subjects with style and grace.
Jane Sanders is a textile artist from Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK whose machine stitched and applique portraits of pop icons are insanely impressive.
Jose Romussi is an mixed media artist from Chile who fuses edgy machine embroidery with nostalgic photography to create eye-catching pieces of urgent urban art.
Gillian Bates is an artist from Eastbourne, UK, who uses machine embroidery to capture intimate memories of seaside Britain, presenting a timeless catalogue of understated vernaculars.
Kathryn Harmer Fox is a mixed media artist from South Africa whose free machine embroidery creates stunning portraits of profound figures.
Kirsty Whitlock is a Leicester-based textile artist whose mixed media work deconstructs newspapers, carrier bags and discarded items to make political statements.
Alicia Ross is a mixed media artist from Cleveland, Ohio. She takes cross stitch and electrifies it with large scale, exotically charged machine stitched pieces.
If that selection doesn’t have you itching for some stitching, then you can’t say we didn’t try! There are so many fantastic machine embroidery artists out there, and if you are using a sewing machine to create your art, we’d love to hear from you, so be sure to get in touch!
This is free machine embroidery and if you want to find out more about it, check out our dedicated post!
We’ve featured some great free machine artists on the site – here are four you might like!
