Resting Stitch Face NYC was started by me (Carol Paik) and my daughter (Meredith Slifkin) in 2017.
I started making the stitch faces because I wanted to do something creative without having to sequester myself in a studio, and also because I had boxes full of scrap material that I’d saved over the years that I wanted to use up. Ironically, because of this project I’ve now acquired more fabric than I had when I started, but at least I also now have an excuse. I have a rule that the stitch faces must only be made of stuff that would otherwise be discarded. Each stitch face is a one-off, unique, label-defying individual.
After I had made a few, my daughter, Meredith, who is a photographer and filmmaker, and I thought it would be fun to photograph them around NYC, our home city that we both adore. Meredith initially did all the photography for the blog, but then she abandoned me to go to school and I had to learn how to use a non-cellphone camera. She still insists on editing the photographs whenever possible, and does her best to prevent me from posting mediocre-quality images. Once she left, I was faced with having to go around the city all by myself posing and photographing the stitch faces, which was super weird and not that fun: fortunately for me, dear friends stepped in to help. Resting Stitch Face NYC owes a great deal to all those wonderful people.
Maisie decided to visit all of NYC’s public statues of famous women. It didn’t take her very long: there are five. This doesn’t include fictional females like Alice in Wonderland, or symbols like Lady Liberty or Fearless Girl, or various decorative sylphs and angels. Maisie …read more
Here is Lillibet enjoying a celebratory evening at 54 Below. 54 Below is an intimate space and no matter where she sits Lillibet feels as if the singers are singing just to her. Sometimes the shows at 54 Below feature current Broadway stars, sometimes people …read more
Here is Summer. Summer loves the Christmas season, and she truly believes NYC does Christmas better than any place else in the world. After all, where else does Christmas mean so many different things to so many different people? Whatever it takes to make you …read more
Elsa, like many New Yorkers, has a love/hate relationship with the subway. When it works it’s great: inexpensive, borough-traversing, relatively energy-efficient, democratic. When it doesn’t work, which seems increasingly to be the case, it can turn a reasonably sane, polite individual into a raving, shoving, …read more
The first snow of the season in NYC brings out the children, and the child in every NYCer. Zinnia is no exception. Zinnia awoke to a wonderland of snow-edged trees, snow-lined roofs and water towers, snow-softened parked cars, snow-muffled traffic noises. This is the best …read more
Bianca always likes to stop and peer in the window of Russ & Daughters at the salmon slicers. She likes the name Russ & Daughters. In 1935, when Joel Russ made his three daughters full partners in his business and changed its name accordingly, it …read more
Sydney is a believer in the written word; more specifically, the printed word, words that are printed in ink on paper. She has a hard time with e-readers. Sydney is a believer in bookstores, the actual kind, where you can wander around and freely judge …read more
Chiara is a lover of NYC history, even—or perhaps especially—history that she herself cannot remember. In New York it is easy to be in love with the past, as so many different pasts live on here—the recent past, various eras past, one’s own past, the …read more
