In November 2021, Memphis native Whitney Washington and her Coney Island-born business partner, Ashley Padmore, sat on a New York street that had been converted into an Old West-style saloon.
As the pair created one-of-a-kind chain-stitch embroidered pieces on their nearly 100-year-old machines, actor Idris Elba and other stars of Netflix’s “The Harder They Fall” enjoyed an event to celebrate the movie’s premiere.
But, generally speaking, Washington and Padmore and their machines can be found further South than West, in Memphis and, with a recent expansion, in Miami.
Petal to the mettle: Local florist back in motion after pandemic
Washington, 34, and Padmore, 32, started We Tight Knit in Memphis in late 2020, after pandemic-era layoffs from a major New York retailer left them looking for what to do next.
Both Washington and Padmore specialize in the ancient art of hand-cranked, chain-stitch embroidery. An art form dating back to approximately 1,100 B.C. in ancient China and popularized in Western wear during the 1800s and 1900s, chain-stitch embroidery is an embellishing technique used to create designs on textiles without the use of a computer.
