These Body-Positive, 3-D (and NSFW) Embroidery Works Will Inspire Your Winter Crafting Projects

Photo: Instagram/@Sally_Hewett

Lately, empowering artistic celebrations of the female form—à la feminist needlepoint and glitter-fied stretch marks—have been counterbalancing the heavily edited Instagram selfies that have long been ubiquitous on the platform. Joining the ranks of those badass artist-activists is a UK-based 3-D embroidery artist.

Sally Hewett's 3-D embroidery depicts everything from mastectomies and cellulite to body hair and beyond. According to Cosmopolitan, using not more than embroidery hoops, thread, and basic crafting supplies, Hewett creates the illusion of real-life body parts that will have you doing double takes.

"It is not the conventionally beautiful bodies that take my eye, it is bodies which show their history, that have been altered by their experiences, that are decorated with bruises, scars, spots, stretch marks, freckles, pigmentation, veins. Bodies that have the marks of life on them." —Sally Hewett, artist

"I love bodies," a statement on Hewett's website reads. "And it is not the conventionally beautiful bodies that take my eye, it is bodies which show their history, that have been altered by their experiences, that are decorated with bruises, scars, spots, stretch marks, freckles, pigmentation, veins. Bodies that have the marks of life on them."

Her one-of-a-kind artwork is inventive, inspiring, and in-demand—it recently showed at the Center for Sex and Culture in San Francisco, Cosmopolitan reports.

Keep scrolling to see the powerful pieces for yourself and perhaps spark inspo for your own Instagram-worthy end-of-year #bossbabe project.

Keep reading to peep the 3-D body-positive embroidery.

A post shared by Sally Hewett (@sally_hewett) on


A post shared by Sally Hewett (@sally_hewett) on

A post shared by Sally Hewett (@sally_hewett) on

A post shared by Sally Hewett (@sally_hewett) on


A post shared by Sally Hewett (@sally_hewett) on

There are a few things we'd love to leave behind in 2017, but the body-positivity movement is not one of them. Read Serena Williams' incredible letter on the subject, and then watch Lena Dunham and Amy Schumer skewer body shamers to hilarious effect.

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