A group called “The Podcast Academy” recently nominated a Charlottesville-based podcast for the "Best DIY Podcast" award for 2023, for excellence in audio. WMRA's Randi B. Hagi reports.
"Stitch Please" is a weekly audio show that centers and celebrates Black women, girls, and femmes in sewing. It was created by Lisa Woolfork and her organization Black Women Stitch.
LISA WOOLFORK: The "Stitch Please" podcast is really interested in developing an archive of Black creativity.
Over the past 170 episodes, she's spoken with a wide variety of sewists, quilters, poets, and archivists; often weaving in rich historical connections.
WOOLFORK: A woman named Zelda Wynn, and she designed clothes for, like, Ella Fitzgerald – I interviewed someone who studied with her as a girl in Harlem. … Fabric created by a designer named e bond, and she created a collection called Glyphs … using illustrations and images from Black women writers to create this really stunning collection of visual imagery that conjures up … writers like Zora Neale Hurston and scholars like Audre Lorde.
This podcast is for everyone to listen to, but Woolfork explains why she centers Black creators.
WOOLFORK: Unfortunately, though Black folks have always been involved in sewing and textiles and quilting, when one looks at the mainstream – when you Google "sewing," for example – the things that will come up will be images, pictures, and stories that feature and center white people.
The next episode, airing Wednesday morning, features textile artist Simone Elizabeth Saunders. For more information, visit the Black Women Stitch website or Patreon.
