Slowstitch Studio

Helping hands. When we came to Chiang Mai a little over ten years ago we never intended to build a community. We came to make things.

What we found, slowly, is that making things well is not a solitary act. It can feel that way at first. There is a particular kind of concentration that comes with working alone, everything flowing inward, the attention, the decisions, the small private failures and the quieter victories. It can feel like enough.

But a craft that lives in only one pair of hands is fragile. It ends when those hands stop. Knowledge becomes more resilient the moment it exists in more than one mind, and richer too, in ways that are hard to explain until you've experienced it.

The Japanese have a word for the kind of understanding that can't be taught from a book: karada de oboeru. To learn with the body rather than the mind. Traditional apprenticeships were measured in years because that's how long it takes for a way of seeing to move from one person to another. Not a list of techniques. A standard of attention. A feel for when something is right, and when it is only almost right, which is an entirely different thing.

Shibori patterns resist quick transmission. The variables of fold and compression, resistance and sequence, the reading of an indigo vat, the tension of a single thread, these don't resolve into rules. There's no end in the learning, you just get further in.

We've come to understand that this depth is also what makes shared work so clarifying. When you have to pass something on, you are forced to find words for what you know. Techniques that once lived half-articulate in your hands have to be broken open, examined, explained. In this way, every person who has worked alongside us has made us more precise.

Over the past decade the studio has become a place not only of production but of ongoing inquiry into the work, and into how that work is held. During that time many helping hands have passed through the studio. A small, steadily growing core has stayed – and in staying, become something more than helpers. Fellow artisans, who work alongside us to expand this art form’s world to something larger than us.

The June release is almost here - here's a few sneak peeks of the upcoming designs. This drop will mostly focus on old favorites, reworked into new forms. 

Release date: June 1st.

For early access (May 31st) join our Slowstitchers IG channel or subscribe to our newsletter (link in bio)

Friendly reminder - our exhibition at is in its final week. "10 Years of Slowstitch - Unfolding Patterns, Threads and Time" showcases the past decade of our work. The textile pieces, photographs, short film and sculptural installations are on display for one more week until 14th of March. 

We also have a few photobooks left (available on our website) which debuted at the exhibition for the first time. The 10 year photobook was made in collaboration with and brings together behind-the-scenes studio moments, process details, and selected finished works from the past decade.