Textile Andrea Cryer creates portraits, townscapes, and landscapes using needle and thread. At first glance, her work seems to be drawn using pen, but upon further inspection one notices the loose threads.
Using an old Bernina domestic sewing machine, and combining the machine work with hand stitching, Cryer then handprints color onto the stitched drawing. When stitching by hand, she uses fine silk, while the sewing machine requires wool, rope, wire, and sometimes even plastic washing line.
It’s a lengthy process and one that requires patience, and Cryer admits she often finds herself at 2 AM wondering where the time went. “Drawing with thread is a continuous process of decision making,” she writes on her website. “Deciding what is required, for example, to conjure up a facial feature – exactly where the needle enters and exits the fabric, the type of thread, the length of each stitch, the number of stitches needed to suggest a smile or capture an emotional nuance.”
“I love drawing, so that is the main focus of my work,” she adds. “It has developed over time into experimenting with scale and using different media. My work ranges from small intimate drawings with lots of tiny detail and texture, to large freely stitched loose images.”
Follow her Instagram page for more.
