Cuento de Hilos Cuento de Hilos

The studio

A laboratory, a library, an archive of materials.

Cuento de Hilos began by making small textile pieces. Over time we understood that weaving wasn't the destination: it was the language.

Black and gold embroidery hoop, displayed on a stone pedestal.
White-on-white embroidery, texture and volume without color.
01

The space

A space where books, fibers, tools, and projects at different stages coexist.

It's not a perfect space, but an authentic one. Uncatalogued materials, visual references, half-finished pieces, and others that have waited years for their moment all coexist here. The studio doesn't separate research from craft: they are the same activity, seen up close or from a distance.

A laboratory, because we test techniques before knowing they'll work. A library, because every piece is born from something read, seen, or remembered. An archive, because documenting is also creating.

Author

Victoria Solís Pauwels

Architect · Textile artist · Researcher · Founder of Cuento de Hilos

Her practice explores weaving as a language for thinking about landscape, memory, and craft. Trained as an architect, she found in embroidery a different scale for the same questions: how a structure holds, how space is organized, how time is recorded in a material.

She doesn't make “crafts”: she does research with thread. The difference isn't quality, it's intention.

2017Starts embroidering, with no plan to turn it into a studio.
2019First textile sculptures: embroidery leaves the flat plane and gains volume.
2021First commissions. The work begins to engage with spaces beyond the studio.
2024Research becomes a line of its own, not a preliminary step before the work.
2026Dialogue with the Museo del Oro on craft, material, and permanence.
TodayCuento de Hilos: a studio, not a commission workshop.

Technical evolution

Three moments, the same question.

There is no leap between “before” and “now”. There is a slow accumulation of technical decisions, each one an answer to the one before it.

Small embroidered brooch in red.
I

Precision at small scale

The earliest embroideries demanded exactness on minimal surfaces: every stitch had to justify its place before scale could even be considered.

Embroidered pendant with volume and three-dimensional detail.
II

Embroidery gains volume

The surface stops being flat. Thread begins to build relief, and the piece becomes an object before it is an image.

White-on-white embroidery, with no color contrast.
III

When color is no longer needed

Embroidering white on white strips the technique of its easiest resource. Without color contrast, texture alone has to carry the piece.

Curious about the process behind a specific piece?

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