The Co-Stitch Initiative is a co-produced research project bringing together academics from across the University of Bristol with civic partners, groups, individuals and the creative industries to explore what stitching does in communities. As part of the initiative, facilitators are working with participants in different communities across the Bristol region and supporting them with stitching projects.

In my role as a researcher, I have been attending stitching workshops alongside participants, as well as stitching and talking with them about their stitching practice. I have also been reading the existing literature about community stitching.

Stitch is often associated with improved health and wellbeing.

Understandings of stitching as something that improves health and wellbeing seem to be widespread. A google search of ‘stitching’ generates a plethora of news articles about the health and wellbeing benefits of stitch from publications like The Guardian and The Independent. Academic social science literature also reports the positive health and wellbeing effects of stitch and craft. For instance, Nevay (2019) reported that textiles-based crafts have positive impacts on wellbeing after women who took part in three textiles workshops had improved wellbeing scores after taking part in such activities. Based on an analysis of the life narratives of women with chronic illnesses, Reynolds (2002) also suggested that creativity and stitch helped to improve such women’s wellbeing and their resilience whilst living with chronic illness. Although not specifically about stitch, the psychologist Sahra O’Doherty has argued that crafts can be an antidote to depression. She argues that this is because they help to give people a sense of achievement and the repetitive movement of activities like stitch or knitting absorb people’s attention and give them time to sit and process their feelings. 

As such academic literature and media reports suggest, stitching may help to improve (some) people’s health and wellbeing. Even so, literature that focuses on the health and wellbeing benefits of stitching appears to overlook what else stitching does or could do.

Some academic literature has highlighted that stitching and craft clubs themselves can involve power hierarchies where less experienced crafters feel intimidated by those who are more experienced (Harrison and Ogden 2019). Such experiences of intimidation challenge the notion that stitching and craft is always beneficial for health and wellbeing.

Find out more

If you are interested in what stitch-related objects can do in communities, and/or the co-stitch initiative more broadly, visit the Co-Stitch website

References

• Chevalier, T. (2014) What a stitch-up: The gentle art of quilting (online) available at: What a stitch-up: The gentle art of quilting | The Independent | The Independent (accessed 27.03.2024)
• Harrison, K and Ogden, C.A. (2020) ’Knit “n” natter’: A feminist methodological assessment of using creative ‘women’s work’ in focus groups. Qualitative Research. ISSN 1468-7941
• Nevay, S., Robertson, L., Lim, C.S. and Moncur, W. (2019) Crafting Textile Connections: A mixed-methods approach to explore traditional and e-textile crafting for wellbeing. The Design Journal. 22(1), pp.487-501.
• Reynolds, F. (2002) Stitching Together Past and Present: Narratives of Biographical Reconstruction During Chronic Illness. In: Horrocks, C., Milnes, K., Roberts, B. and Robinson,