The Intimacy of Stitch

After returning from travel and two weeks of intense outward engagement, I realised that my resistance to stitching was not simply fatigue or distraction. It was something else.

After days of immersion in other forms of attention: travel, conversations, paperwork, pending tasks, research into Kasuti, observing other methods of making, meeting artisans, studying structure and technique. Engaging with architecture, food, soil and stone — tabulating possible references for the beginnings of Kasuti. Although I remained intellectually engaged with needlework, I was not stitching with my own hands. And when I returned home, it took me another two weeks before I could fully approach the large textile piece waiting for me.

The work itself is ambitious, approximately 1.5 by 1.5 metres, layers of cotton crochet contained and layered between layers of unbleached silk organza. I have written about this evolving “crab lace” process, where crochet fragments and residue become part of a larger stitched surface.

http://gopikanathstitchjournal.blogspot.com/2026/03/crab-lace.html

At this stage I was tacking together five uneven layers of cloth, freehand, without a frame, because the crochet protrusions and shifting surfaces made stretching impossible on a hoop and my ‘adda’ isn’t large enough to accommodate this scale. The work had to be turned repeatedly on the work table — guided by the hand, its proximity to areas that needed to be stitched — maintaining tension and more.

I had chosen a pale grey thread deliberately. Against the black crocheted threads it remained visible, but against the grey and off-white lace it almost disappeared. The stitches moved between visibility and disappearance, holding the structure together — a sense of ease, familiarity and rapport I hadn’t noted before.

As I returned to the act of stitching itself, I became aware of something I may well have felt for years but had never seen nor articulated so clearly: there is an extraordinary intimacy to stitch.

I began my design life as a weaver, and I loved weaving. I still remember the wonder of watching individual strands of thread slowly become cloth. The processes of winding, warping, threading the heddles and reed, passing the shuttle back and forth, all carried their own rhythm and intelligence. But weaving, I now realise, also maintains a certain distance between the body and the cloth. The loom dictates posture, width, tension, movement. Even when one is deeply involved in preparing and constructing the weave, the fabric itself remains stretched within an external structure. The body adjusts itself to the loom — almost always separated from the emerging fabric, by the reed and the frame of the loom.

Stitch and crochet — even knitting, feel fundamentally different.

Here, the cloth engages directly with both hands and the body. It gathers, folds, bunches, softens, and resists according to the movement of  one’s limbs and torso. How I sit is relevant to how I stitch. The work is turned instinctively, held against the lap, cradled and shifted constantly — in search of comfort and control. The material adjusts to you as much as you adjust to it.

While tacking these five layers together, I could feel the organza rubbing against my fingers. Its starchy silkiness — a familiar discourse. I was ruching the fabric to grip it more securely, while managing the uneven tension created by the crochet and layered cloth beneath, as I stitched. At times,  just placing my hand gently under all the transparent layers—palm facing upwards—giving the needle support to pierce. Sometimes no hand under, just the cloth placed on the table—both hands above, helping the needle, pulling it out.  Hands smoothing over the fabric after a few stitches—sometimes holding tension, otherwise gently avoiding bulges. The crochet itself was malleable, constantly shifting shape—I pulled it where I wanted to see more space. It pulled back where there wasn’t enough thread for elasticity.  Every few moments I had to stop, lift the entire piece, rotate it, settle it back onto the table, readjust my body, leaning forward, bringing the fabric closer, ruching and tacking.

The needle held between my thumb and index finger —moved in and out of them. Carving little dents into each. The thread tunnelled through its eye, passing these two fingers. The work was not distant, it was an extension of me — continuously touching, caressing, nudging, coaxing me into a dialogue.

To stitch is to enter a relationship with the fabric, the needle, the thread. The attention it demands takes me inwards. Almost subterranean. One cannot remain outwardly focused while stitching. It brings up thoughts and feelings in an unexpected way. Urging me to sit with them. Creating a rhythm that enables this. It becomes difficult to avoid yourself.

In that sense, stitch resembles an inner conversation. Not performative thought, not social speech, but something quieter and more direct, even if it’s without words. Something changes, shifts — the mood alters.

While working, I found myself relating to my inner life with the same closeness with which I was relating to the fabric: like a journal I write by hand — sensing resistance, recognising fragility, allowing slack where necessary. Stopping when it gets too intense. Pulling gently where continuum was needed, tackling resistance to a deeper excavation of being. I know it’s where my sanity lies. I know it’s how I deal with stress, but sometimes it’s like starting a relationship all over again.

Perhaps this is why returning to stitch after periods of outward immersion can feel difficult. It asks for a different state of being. It asks me to slow down, to be comfortable with repetition, to touch and pay attention to what I am doing, in a very precise and meditative way—to be comfortable in my skin: an intimacy that seems almost alien when outward in the world.

And yet, once inside that space again, there is also familiarity. A recognition. A return to a state of flow. The body remembers the relationship before the mind fully does.

Texture Is The Narrative

It all began with a singular question.

After listening to a talk by Savia Veigas at Arthashila Goa, I found myself wondering about her use of stitch in relation to narrative. She emphasised that the visual carried the work — that the stitch itself was not something she thought about in depth. And yet, looking at her work, I could see stitch doing things she hadn’t named.

 

This left me with a more fundamental question: what does stitch actually do? Is it only a line, like charcoal or ink, or does it carry something else entirely — can it elucidate a narrative, shape it in ways not immediately visible?

 

When an artist chooses charcoal, watercolour, or oil, the medium shapes the expression. Charcoal smudges and resists precision. Watercolour bleeds and disperses. Oil holds and saturates. The material is not neutral.

 

From my perspective, stitch is even less neutral. And I find myself seeing it in narrative visual  embroideries too.

 

A split stitch gives a clear, controlled line. It holds a curve, allows detail, builds density, and can modulate colour with great subtlety — as medieval church embroideries in Europe demonstrate. I am drawn to its flatness, especially when contrasted with other textures.

 

A satin stitch smooths a surface into colour, though never entirely flat. A cross stitch breaks the surface into a grid, allowing colour to mix in the eye rather than in the thread. I often work with a freer version — what I call a ‘crazy cross stitch’ — where the grid loosens and layering becomes possible, building intricate shading through accumulated color and stitches.

A buttonhole stitch can close a form or open it into lace, depending on how it is worked. I like opening it out into a permeable hexagonal lace, allowing one layer to be seen through another — particularly on transparent fabrics like silk organza, where fine zari thread lends an ethereal quality.

Crochet shifts the surface altogether. It introduces relief — a whole new dimension within the ambit of stitch. Even in fine thread, it sits on the surface, creating another fabric rather than merging into the base.

Each stitch carries its own behavioural tendency. It is this that shapes what can be said through it.

 

In my own work, which has gradually moved towards an abstract narrative, I choose stitches for what they do to the surface.

In my work, texture is not an addition. It is the story.

 

At present, I am working with what I call crab lace. Crocheted nets are layered, joined, and stitched through. The top layer is made of varied yarns — tightly spun mercerised cotton, slubby threads, tencel — held together using an Irish crochet netting technique and placed over undyed silk organza.

Beneath it lies another crocheted net in pale grey, resting on a mid-grey open weave cotton fabric with its selvedge cut and threads unevenly drawn apart. Below this sits another layer of organza. The piece currently holds multiple layers, though not consistently across its full surface of 1.5 x 1 metres.

The grey open weave is not tacked. It adheres lightly to the organza. The pale crochet is only loosely held. As I stitch the upper layer, the thread passes through all layers, binding them into a single body.

 

Earlier, I tried to keep the stitching invisible, slipping the thread beneath the crochet lines. Then I stopped. Why should this disappear?

The movement of the thread across layers, its irregular path, its appearance and disappearance — all of this is part of the texture. So I let it remain.

 

A pale grey (polyester cotton) thread moves across whites and off-whites, soft greys, green-grey, dark grey and black — the surface of the crocheted net. Sometimes it shows, sometimes it recedes. That fluctuation matters. It begins to map an inner terrain, the texture of emotional work.

 

The form itself comes from watching sand bubbler crabs. Not by imitation, but through observation. Their lace-like formations on the beach are delicate in appearance, yet formed through repetitive labour. The crab takes in sand, processes it, releases it. Again and again. A repetitive, arduous labour of feeding and cleansing.

 

For me, the parallel is: a thought, a feeling returns. You examine it. You turn it. You release it. Then it returns again, slightly altered. There is a back and forth until something clears — a moment of knowing, of clarity.

 

The work attempts not just to hold that process, but to create a tactile evocation of it.

The layering, the density, the interruptions, the small fragments of crochet and open fabric inserted between layers — all of it builds a surface that is not smooth, not resolved. It holds effort. It holds time.

The piece has not been easy to work on. It is large. It requires patience. There have been days of only looking, without the courage to stitch.

 

After tacking the top layer down, I find it is beginning to reveal its layered texture. I have been thinking about the spaces between — large areas of open ground that I want to work with subtle textures.

 

I have thought of circular running stitch, as in Kantha. The stitch has a distinctive texture of its own, and when the thread is pulled, the ripple effect is exaggerated — particularly on layered cotton.

The repetition is meditative, its circularity perhaps mirroring the circularity of emotional processing. But I hesitate. It works well on layered cotton; on organza, the ripple flattens. And the surface must not be crowded.

I am also considering buttonhole stitch — beginning from a central opening and building outward into a radial lace, following the patterning of the sand bubbler’s residual pellets. Perhaps in conversation with the running stitch, though I remain unsure.

This uncertainty is part of the process.

 

On the surface, the day moves normally. Cooking, laundry, conversations. But underneath, something continues — a sorting, a returning, a clearing. The texture is that underside, always present, clarity emerging when the day is done or in early morning quiet.

 

It is the texture — the gnawing in the gut, the pull at the back of the throat, the stiffness in muscles—paying attention to them allows clarity to emerge. It is what makes it possible to read, to research, to teach, to be present.

 

The work of clearing the mind is not separate from the work of making art.

 

 

Crab Lace

“The greatest thing a human soul ever does in this world is to see something and tell what it saw in a plain way.”

                                                                   —John Ruskin

 

 

When the tide recedes along the beaches of Goa, particularly at Morjim and Ashwem, sand bubbler crabs emerge from their burrows beneath the sand. During high tide they remain hidden deep within these burrows. As the water withdraws, they come out to feed.

Working slowly outward from the mouth of the burrow, each crab takes tiny mouthfuls of sand, extracting organic debris and decaying matter. The cleaned sand is rolled into small pellets and deposited beside them. As they continue this quiet labour, the beach gradually fills with delicate radial fields of pellets — intricate, lace-like traces that mark where the sand has been sifted and cleaned.

These patterns are not decorative. They are the residue of feeding — the visible outcome of a process that clears the beach of organic decay.

What interests me in these formations is not simply their beauty but the logic of their making: emerging from a centre, repeated movements across a surface, and the gradual transformation of feeding residue into patterns that are lace-like—delicate, decorative yet with a physiological purpose that serves the ecosystem.

This embroidered work, that I have recently resumed, began nearly seven years ago with the observation and study of the sand bubbler crab’s behavioural tendencies.

At the time I was learning crochet and was far from adept at it. I began experimenting with the medium because it allowed me to create small bobbled forms that reminded me of the pellet-like residues left by the crabs. I did not initially consider translating these patterns into stitch. Crochet felt like the right technique for the idea.

I started by crocheting thick strands that radiate outward from a burrow-like centre. Along these strands I created pellet-like forms, loosely echoing the residue left by crabs. Each radial element was made individually over time.

Two of these strands were then stretched and lightly stitched onto a canvas mounted on an adda. The adda provides the tension and stability necessary for the work to remain open while I build a net-like structure between the strands. Without anchoring the crocheted elements to this temporary ground, it would not be possible to add further threads or develop the network of connections. Off the frame, the crocheted forms collapse into an amorphous bunch of thread.

Working on the adda also requires my body to move constantly around the frame. As the crochet structure grows, it becomes awkward to reach certain areas from one side, and I shift positions, moving around the frame or sitting on the opposite side to work. Because my studio space is limited, getting in and out of the frame itself becomes part of the process — the body slipping into the structure and then out again, without toppling the frame, in order to reach the next point of connection. I am not formally trained in Irish crochet, and many of the joins emerge through this improvised negotiation between hand, thread, and the physical position of the body around the frame. My discomfort of sitting on the floor, also determines the end result. Partly because it requires me to stop frequently, get up and stretch my legs, which in turn allows me a different perspective.

Once the strands are secured in place, I begin working into the spaces between them.

Using finer crochet threads in muted greys and beiges, I join sections across the gaps. In doing so, I draw on the logic of Irish crochet, where individual motifs are connected through a network of stitches that gradually forms a lace-like field between them.

The materials themselves play an important role in this process. I work with threads of different gauges and fibres — cotton, rayon, and Tencel — each requiring a different crochet hook and producing its own tension and texture. Some threads hold the structure, others create softness or sheen. These variations allow the lace to develop a tactile surface that goes beyond simply emulating the crab patterns.

Sometimes the connections remain light and open, formed by long chains bridging two strands. At other times the space becomes denser and begins to layer. In some areas the lace sits flat against the surface; in others it rises slightly, creating a second layer over the first. The structure gradually becomes a network of overlapping threads and textures. I didn’t like the overlapping layers, so undid them.

These decisions emerge slowly in response to the structure already present. Some areas need openness; others require closer gathering of threads. The hand moves between the strands, joining, adjusting, and undoing, allowing the work to evolve through the negotiation of its internal spaces.

The process is slow and uncertain. Each connection raises questions: how much to join, where the structure should remain open, and how the tension of one section will affect the rest. Because the piece only holds its form while stretched on the frame, every adjustment must be made with awareness of the flexibility of the eventual form. What I see on the frame, may not be what reforms in another space. Quite like site-specific installations.

The eventual shape and structure of the work is still unresolved. I am considering whether it will remain a loose structure, suspended so that its openness remains visible, or whether it might be mounted onto a translucent ground such as organza or net to stabilise it. Its scale also remains fluid. New elements can still be added, but the frame itself sets limits, requiring the work to be repeatedly removed, adjusted, and returned to the surface. And as the crochet progresses, I’m realising that It will not hold in too large a piece as I had initially intended. So, I’ve decided not to add any more radial strands.

I am not attempting to reproduce the crab's patterns. What interests me is the logic of their labour — the transformation of residue through patient, incremental action.

This idea of residue has appeared in my work before. In the Chai series, I looked closely at the stains left behind in a teacup — marks that became a metaphor for the residues carried in the mind. Those works emerged from reflecting on shame: the subtle and overt ways in which individuals are judged, corrected, or diminished by the expectations of family, society, and culture. Shame leaves traces that are not easily erased. Like stains in a cup, these experiences remain embedded within memory and emotion.

For me, the act of making is inseparable from the work of processing feelings and emotions. Visual expression becomes a way of entering that inner labour — giving form to what is otherwise difficult to see or understand. Through the slow repetition of stitch and thread, the work creates a space where emotional residues can be attended to.

Watching the sand bubbler crabs at work, I am struck by their patience. The crab does not attempt to clear the beach in a single gesture. It works through what lies immediately around it, grain by grain. Sometimes the pellets themselves are larger than the crabs that make them.

In my own work, the hand engages in a similar form of labour — attending to what accumulates: the grief that sits unspoken, the anger that has nowhere to go, the fear that returns without warning. The sand bubbler does not merely set the processed sand aside; it digests what it takes in, extracting what can nourish and releasing the rest. Something analogous happens in the slow work of making. As emotional residues are processed rather than suppressed, they lose their density. What was opaque, now finds clarity and relationships can be addressed more consciously.

At another level, it is in that clearing that something deeper becomes reachable. Jung spoke of the collective unconscious — a layer of the psyche beneath personal history, shared across human experience. The relationship we have with ourselves is the only reliable ground we carry through life, and it is only when that ground has been tended — when the accumulated sediment has been worked through — that we become capable of touching what lies beneath the individual: the part of us that is universal—wisdom that has become collectively ours—accumulated through eons of life and living.

Like the patient work of the sand bubbler crab that processes each grain of sand, leaving behind a residue that is delicate and attractive, I imagine that if we did this with our emotional stuff, hard work though it is, we’d be creating these lace-like links between us.

Whatever in our experience of living is not adequately processed—often because the labour feels tedious or time-consuming—returns through unconscious acts and words that can confound and distance relationships. The sand bubbler crabs clean our beaches, so that decaying debris doesn’t leave a stench. Perhaps we could learn something from their labour and its residue.

If my earlier works considered the stain — the mark that remains — this piece turns toward the possibility of working through those residues slowly and attentively, until they begin to form another kind of pattern.

And, I attempt this kind of work beyond my art making. Spending considerable time, often frustrated by having to do so, processing complex feelings to find some measure of clarity. I not only relate to the effort of the sand bubbler; I’m inspired by them to continue with this arduous processing of emotions. Even as I’m often told I’m intense and think too much. I look at them and wonder: do I?