Harriet Riddell talk July 2024

Meeting on Monday 8th July 2024

Harriet Riddell - Travels with a Sewing Machine

Harriet considers herself a Textile Performance Artist. She has travelled the world with her sewing machine. Her tagline is “In-Stitch-You”. Harriet comes from a creative background. Her mum taught her to use a sewing machine from the age of five. She has been drawing since a very young age and always loved life drawing.

She went to university in Hertfordshire studying mixed media exploring the use of ceramics, wood, metal, glass etc. She had a fantastic life drawing tutor who was very supportive; she mentioned she liked to stitch, and he embraced the idea of her “drawing” with the sewing machine … and so it began.

Harriet takes the sewing machine anywhere and everywhere. Whilst at Uni she took it to her local launderette, creating little stories with one line of thread. It went with her to London where she sat in a café and just stitched what she saw and heard; it was a lovely experience. She worked part-time in a care home during Uni and stitched the residents, who loved it; it evoked many memories which they shared with Harriet – she incorporated these in her work.

After her studies, she became self-employed and moved to London. Her first job was as an in-house artist for a shoe design company. They wanted artwork for their offices, including staff portraits. She was also sent over to their Hong Kong offices. Being self-employed she has stitched quite a few weddings and events from life; I saw her at Art in Action where she was stitching 15-minute portraits for £15!

She has travelled to India, sitting on a cart with her sewing machine! She produced a book detailing this trip; all about her journey in stitch. Harriet applied for an artist residency in Nairobi where she met 80 other artists. She stitched each day outside a slum (which sounds terrifying), but she assured us she was always accompanied by another artist.

Harriet has used a motorcycle battery to power her machine abroad, but it is obviously very heavy to carry around. So, she often uses bicycle power instead – asking the public to sit and pedal away whilst she sews. She has recently been at Glastonbury producing one piece of artwork rather than individual portraits. She has preferred sewing the larger piece for a change. She has worked outside in Brixton, she has stitched the Albert Memorial, St Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Bridge, Peckham … South Africa was another trip, working with another artist teaching disadvantaged students. Harriet now has a two-year-old which has changed everything. She said travelling with a sewing machine is much easier!

She was preparing work for a gallery in Milan for March 2020. Unfortunately, this was cancelled due to the pandemic; she had stitched Liberty (in Regent Street) ready for Milan. During the pandemic she stitched portraits over Zoom including house portraits. She was asked by the John Radcliffe hospital to document the covid vaccination process. The work is on show at the hospital. Further work she showed us was the decorating of two armchairs for the Knepp Estate; they are more colourful than her portrait works.

She is now preparing for the Knitting & Stitching shows in the Autumn; she has a large display area to fill. She is also off to Taiwan in a week’s time for 2 weeks to document a procession. She has been sponsored for her travel and expenses and hopes to show her work at the Knitting & Stitching shows.

Harriet demonstrated her skills with the machine in front of us at CETG by stitching a portrait of Towse (lucky Towse!). She always starts with the eyes (they were wonderful); she likes the sitter to talk away about themselves and their life, she then adds touches of this to the portrait. She added some fabric appliqué as the blouse, she calls it “slap-dash” appliqué. She stitches over the fabric and then cuts the excess away. The words stitched around Towse’s top were “will you hold my sword” referring to her love of battle re-enactments and a gift from her husband.

Harriet was an enthusiastic, warm, and easy speaker; her work was quite incredible and to be able to watch her at work was inspiring. What a good evening.

Chiltern Embroidery and Textile Group