The stitches against the anguish of Loly Ghirardi

Embroidery is liberating and subversive. Women have known this since the 16th and 17th centuries, but Loly Ghirardi (Miss Lylo on Instagram, with 109,000 followers) discovered it at the age of 35, while trying to overcome with all kinds of traps the waits for a very long assisted reproduction process that included three egg donation treatments and another three in vitro fertilization, 34 ultrasounds, 12 pregnancy tests , 24 ovarian stimulation injections, 38 hours of therapy, an ectopic pregnancy, a tubal removal and three spontaneous abortions. Twelve years of anguish and frustration.

To alleviate the anxiety generated by her attempts to be a mother, Ghirardi (Buenos Aires, 1975) signed up for everything: skating, learning to play the ukulele, crochet… But only by embroidering her head and body did they manage to be free, at least for the moments when his two hands danced from stitch to stitch and his busy head did not go beyond the design he had to fill in on a canvas stretched on a stretcher.

Let's say it as soon as possible: Diary of an embroiderer (Lumen 2023), the book that tells the story of Loly Ghirardi, is not a fable of personal improvement, there is no morality or sublimation of manual work, no morals are issued from any ethical vantage point: “I hate Mr. Wonderful messages,” warn. Ghirardi is a woman with a wound that always accompanies her and prefers to talk about “rescue.” When she decided to abandon the treatments, she was exhausted and depressed, like anyone who gives up a much-desired life path. Embroidery saved her, but she didn't erase her pain, she simply showed her another path to satisfaction. Which is not little. She prefers to say that she handles it better than before, that not being her mother is not the only thing that defines her, that she became friends with what she was going through. She didn't get through it or get over it. She is not a warrior, if anything she is an embroiderer.

Embroidery is powerful because it is considered docile and harmless. For centuries it has been a work associated with love and duty, always on the periphery of the arts, on the border between domestic tasks and crafts. The British historian Rozsika Parker stated in her book The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine: “The historical hierarchical division of the arts into fine arts and crafts has been a major force in the marginalization of women's work.”

Between threads and stitches, women created strong social and collaborative bonds. Free from any feeling of guilt—in short, they were doing their work—they gained time and space for themselves, they learned to read, since since the 16th and 17th centuries they were secretly embroidering the alphabet, and in the process they recognized themselves in their bonds and submissions. .

But none of this was in the mind of Loly Ghirardi, a graphic designer by profession, when at the age of 35 she passed by a place in Barcelona, ​​where she has lived for more than two decades, and some extravagant colors stuck her like a magnet to the door. Inside her there were women in silence, with their hands busy and concentrated on basting her drawings. No one seemed interested in asking the intrusive questions that seemed to question her everywhere. How old are you? What are you waiting for? Why Don `t you have any children? You're going to miss the rice. That no one knew her was a powerful attraction for a woman tired of answering under her breath. She entered the store and signed up for her first embroidery class. “I had too much anxiety and embroidery transported me and calmed me down,” she recalls. At five years old she was the one who taught. “At first I didn't tell the truth, I said I embroidered to keep my hands busy and escape from the screens, then I began to reconcile with who I was and tell everything, I began to see that people let their guard down and shared their stories.” Ms. Lylo has not been a mother, but she has become an embroidery phenomenon, followed by tens of thousands of people, with more than 50,000 students, men and women, in her Domestika courses.

For this photo shoot she has embroidered a white blouse, her hair is tied up in braids, her nails pop art and very red lips: an identity that was built in the darkest days to make his brain believe that he was comfortable with his life. It wasn't like that.

“I needed to play this character because that's how I wanted to feel. I thought that character could rescue me. It was like saying, 'Well, let's have some fun.' The curious thing was that when the mood changed she kept the look, and in the midst of the euphoria over the celebrations of her new book, the braids began to come loose. “It's been a liberation, and I'm making friends with my hair.” He pays excessive attention to his nails. “In the online classes the cameras focused a lot on the hands, so I decided to take them seriously.” He shows his hands: “These are book signing nails.”

—Why did it take you so long to throw in the towel on motherhood?

—Because we have no limit. And then there is magical thinking. You hear stories of people who got it when they no longer expected it and you think that maybe the same thing is going to happen to you.

Ghirardi believes that the appeal of embroidery in 2024 is linked to the search for well-being. “People want to do things that are good for them, and then they decide whether or not they are learning something useful. Those who have never embroidered and sign up for their first class—which lasts three or four hours—are surprised: time flies. And, of course, there is also the challenge of learning something new at a certain age.”

—And what does embroidery teach?

—It's a master's degree in patience. It is 80%, the technique is eventually mastered with time and practice, but you have to learn to wait, forget about having something finished in a single day. You cannot embroider for more than three hours at a time. You have to stop, rest, do something else and then go back to it. It's like therapy. You're not going to fill the rack in one hour, you need eight. You can not run. You have to make friends with small advances.

Miss Lylo says that while you are embroidering you can't do anything else. “Nothing. It is incompatible with multitasking. Both hands are really busy. You can not smoke. You can't pick up your cell phone. And then there is concentration, if you lose concentration you have to go back and undo what you have done. “I don't like it, I prefer to see where the thread takes me.” Her favorite stitch is the chain stitch — “I think it's a good wardrobe staple, it adds texture and I like that the same stitch can be used to create an outline and a fill” — and her advice for beginners is short and clear: “Buy quality threads that They don't fade, things have to last. Learn with non-stretchy fabrics until you master the stitch. Do not always border on a white background. And, as in life itself, you have to know how to stop and put an end to it.”

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