Russell Barratt - Within & Without [NX158]

In this episode of NeedleXChange, I interview Russell Barratt, a contemporary textile artist known for turning clothing and domestic fabrics into quilts with a distinctly personal voice.His work brings together fabric collage, intuitive composition and the stories carried by familiar materials. Rather than beginning with the rules of quilting, Russell found his way into it through costumes, accessories and making things that felt like him.In part one, we talk about imposter syndrome at the Festival of Quilts, the unexpected memories visitors find in his fabrics, and learning to explain an intuitive process. We also explore borrowing ideas without losing your own voice, the overload of social media, and what happens when you spend time with artwork you don't immediately like.LinksInstagram: russelljamesbarrattWebsite: russellbarratt.comIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange I continue my interview Lord Libidan, the Yorkshire-based cross stitch designer, blogger and author.Part 2 is all about the making: his new self-published alphabets book - 110 monochrome patterns, affordable and built to actually be used. We dig into designing letters inside pixel constraints, inventing a "fake 70s" style AI could never imagine, his book back catalogue (Star Trek to Hello Kitty), and how he juggles Sashiko, a tabletop RPG and the famous Pokémon pattern he’s only now stitching. It closes on why cross stitch is a genuine obsession: creativity with a grid to hold onto.LinksInstagram: lordlibidanWebsite: lordlibidan.comIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange I interview Lord Libidan, the Yorkshire-based cross stitch designer, blogger and author.In Part 1 we trace how a rained-off summer and a tiny Highland cow kit grew into a blog, a design habit and a reputation as the craft’s information guy - then nerd out on threads (scented, glow-in-the-dark, neon and the wool comeback), the quiet DMC/Anchor monopoly, why DMC’s colour numbers make no sense, and what AI slop is doing to cross stitch.LinksInstagram: lordlibidanWebsite: lordlibidan.comIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange I interview Haf Weighton, a Wales-based contemporary embroidery and textile artist known for turning place, memory and identity into stitch. This is part two, where we turn to Wales, starting with Arts Council support and moving into language, cultural identity and what it means to be an artist who happens to be Welsh. Haf reflects on bilingualism, creativity and belonging, then we get into the practical side of her work: painting on recycled fabric, hand and machine stitch, and a fine-art-led approach to making, before finishing with books, music, films and an unexpected David Bowie story.LinksInstagram: HafweightonartistWebsite: hafweighton.artIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange I interview Haf Weighton, a Wales-based contemporary embroidery and textile artist whose work is rooted in places, journeys and the details we usually walk past. We talk about the story behind her High Street exhibition, from Arts Council support to a last-minute route to New Zealand and Australia, and the way travel, memory and architecture feed into her work. Along the way we get into sketchbooks, unfinished work, borders, looking at familiar places through other people's eyes, and the part artists can play in bringing new energy to overlooked town centres.LinksInstagram: HafweightonartistWebsite: hafweighton.artIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange, I interview Prisma Andrade, a Chicago-based fiber and textile artist and recent School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduate whose work turns her family's archive into material and asks what makes something sacred. Prisma builds her pieces from spinning, jacquard weaving, dye painting and quilting, treating process as a way to make everyday objects sacred. In Part 2 we trace her path from an arts-magnet high school in Dallas to SAIC, her move from painting into fiber, digital jacquard weaving with laser-cut dyed frames, dye painting and quilting that reads like stained glass, her earlier bodily work, and a quickfire on Sing Street and Magdalena Bay.Links:Instagram: prismacolorhellIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange, I interview Prisma Andrade, a Chicago-based fiber and textile artist and recent School of the Art Institute of Chicago graduate whose work turns her family's archive into material and asks what makes something sacred. Prisma recreates artworks and photographs from her family, past and present, using weaving, quilting and dye to disrupt the border between painting and textile. In Part 1 we get into sanctity and what becomes sacred, how framing tells us to pay attention, her family's migration between Honduras, Spain and the United States, nostalgia and inherited memory, the gender hierarchy inside the family archive, and why textiles are the things that survive the chopping block.Links:Instagram: prismacolorhellIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

This is Part 2 of my conversation with mixed-media artist Margot Peer. We open with her breakout piece, "Cross Stitch of Me Crying in My Bathroom When I Was 16," scaled up to a three-foot-by-four-foot, full-body stitching experience in yarn, and the accidental "glitch" of cascading threads that became part of her style. Margot talks candidly about what it means to sit and stitch your own crying face, the difference between documenting a real cry and performing one, and the low-resolution "loophole" that let a nude piece slip past Instagram. We also cover animating cross stitch (a six-month stitched video), glow-in-the-dark experiments, needlework's fraught status as fine art at RISD, and a quickfire run through Bladee, Jamie XX, Empire of AI and Where the Wild Things Are.Links:Website: margotpeer.comInstagram: margot.peerIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange, I interview Masey Kaplan, founder of the Loose Ends project, a global community that matches volunteer textile finishers with projects left unfinished by death, illness or disability.Masey launched Loose Ends with a friend after finishing a sweater for a grieving friend; four years on, nearly 40,000 finishers across 83 countries complete everything from quilts to woodworking and return it to the families.We get into the meditative pull of handwork, kindness between strangers across every divide, the little stitch that marks where one crafter's hands stopped and another's began, and why Masey is building Loose Ends to outlive her.Links:Website: looseends.orgInstagram: thelooseendsprojectIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connected needl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com

In this episode of NeedleXChange, I interview Margot Peer, a mixed-media artist and Rhode Island School of Design painting major whose hyperrealistic cross-stitches turn deeply personal photographs into universally resonant images. In Part 1 we get into her love of glitches, malfunctions and failing technology, how painting became the "trunk" that everything else grows out of, and the first cross stitch that started it all (an Aphex Twin album cover). Margot explains why she treats each stitch pattern as its own language, why she feels like she is "cheating" with a pattern converter, and how a 1930s typewriter-art movement pulled her into breaking the grid.Links:Website: margotpeer.comInstagram: margot.peerIntro music is New Car Smell by Baegel via Epidemic Sound.About NeedleXChangeAn artist interview podcast exploring contemporary embroidery and textile art. Hosted by Jamie "Mr X Stitch" Chalmers.Stay Connectedneedl.exchange | Newsletter: bit.ly/NeedleXChangeNewsmrxstitch.com | xstitchmag.com