As the 2026 Spring Maker-in-Residence at CPL, Emma McKee, AKA StitchGawd, set an ambitious goal: to find and encourage participation and representation among Chicagoans from each of Chicago's 77 community areas as a means to creating a giant, hand-embroidered denim map of Chicago that reflects the uniqueness of each neighborhood. Emma achieved this goal by actively seeking out and meeting folks during her workshops and Meet-the-Maker hours at Harold Washington Library Center, Legler Regional Library, Sulzer Regional Library, and Woodson Regional Library. The culmination of Emma's work, "Neighbor/Hood" is on display now outside of HWLC in the State Street display window. Read more to hear from Emma about her time as Maker-in-Resident and the process and inspiration behind the amazing piece.
emmaportraitEmma, AKA StichGawd
emma map2Neighbor/Hood – Denim Map of Chicago
mapMore Neighbor/Hood
watertowerWater Tower Embroidery
severalDowntown Embroidery Collage
emma textNeighbor/Hood Land Recognition
emma2HWLC Laser Engraved Patches
Screenshot 2026-08-12 142807Sulzer Embroidery Workshop
Screenshot 2026-08-12 142817Legler Embroidery Workshop
emmawindowState Street Installation of Neighbor/Hood
Hi! My name is Emma McKee and I am a fiber artist known as the StitchGawd. I was so excited to be the Maker-in-Residence as I am a huge fan of libraries, and a diehard fan girl for the city of Chicago.
For my residency, I decided to embark upon a community produced giant denim map of the city of Chicago. The idea being that I use my workshops to teach people to stitch (nothing crazy, a backstitch & a chainstitch) and then ask them to stitch something emblematic of their communities or neighborhoods. I am the first MIR to teach workshops at both Harold Washington Library and the three regional libraries, and the results have been really fantastic.
I decided that our material would come from jeans sourced from thrift stores around the city. I processed (or what I call, "de-boned") the jeans, turned them into swatches of varying shape and color, and taught library patrons to sew on them. Sew on them they did! We got folks from all over the city, from every walk of life stitching together to make something we could all be proud of. As a thank you to all of our artists (patrons) the Makers Lab at Harold Washington helped laser etch images of all four of the buildings (HWL, Sulzer, Legler & Woodson) onto denim which I gave away at each session.
For the final piece "Neighbor/Hood" I patched the sewn denim patches together in a rough approximation of the city of Chicago. You couldn't GPS using this map, but you can use it to see what people all over the city find important. Their homes, pets/animals, schools, small businesses, parks (OH the Parks that got sewn y'all!), sports teams, cultural institutions, skyscrapers; it's been truly such a unique honor to get to view the city through the eyes of its residents.
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